I never planned for my first blog post to reference Lady Gaga. However, with the recent focus on Target’s various ad campaigns in lecture, I recalled the tension between the large retailer and the ultra-famous pop star. A deal had been inked between Lady Gaga and Target to release an “exclusive to Target” deluxe edition of her Born This Way album. However, Lady Gaga and her representatives moved quickly to dissolve the deal when it was discovered that the company’s political action committee (PAC) had made donations to Minnesota State Representative Tom Emmer’s campaign for governor, who is a staunch anti-LGBT activist and, according to some sources, has been associated with a ministry that advocates the killing of gay people.
Even further, Target’s PAC has reportedly donated over $30,000 to politicians who are openly and vehemently anti-gay rights activists — a message that runs directly against Lady Gaga’s overarching philosophies and even the direct motto in the title track “Born This Way.”
Besides simply a bout of bad press, it is important to question how this failed exclusivity deal between the retailer and the pop star links to marketing. I don’t think it is much of a stretch to say that much of the internal workings of a corporation as large as Target goes unnoticed, except to highly attentive shareholders. But the micro (internal) environment of a corporation can have a large effect on its marketing abilities in an instance such as this — although there may be a significant portion of Target’s clientele that agrees with their political donations, there is also a significant portion that doesn’t. This internal action by Target’s PAC lost them an exclusivity deal with one of the biggest pop star’s in the world (an individual who boasts an alarmingly loyal fanbase of “Little Monsters” and has over 33 million followers on Twitter). Arguably, these political donations created an external threat to its marketing: an extremely influential pop star has publicly denounced their brand name and refused to sell her products in their store, directly affecting which consumers can buy certain products.
This brings about a few questions: is it worth it for large corporations to run political PAC’s if they have the potential to be controversial? Is it acceptable for a company like Target to openly support political candidates who openly oppose the equality of individuals?
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