Companies That Embraced Social Issues Have Second Thoughts

In May, clothing company The North Face released a video for Pride Month featuring drag performer Pattie Gonia. The ad was similar to the one the performer appeared in for the outdoor-apparel maker a year earlier. The reaction was not. 

Within hours, calls for a boycott of the company spread on social media. “The North Face wants to be the next Bud Light!” one user wrote. “Aren’t you supposed to learn from others’ mistakes?” another user said. 

CEOs spent the past few years adjusting to a world in which investors, customers and employees expected corporate leaders to align themselves with social causes. Today, that has made companies targets in the U.S. culture wars, where one step can turn a social-media storm into a corporate crisis that cripples businesses and wrecks careers.