#156 Barilla, not for everyone?
In 2013, one of the most successful multinational Italian companies, privately held past maker Barilla, almost stumbled over the comments of its chairman, Guido Barilla. When interviewed on Radio24, a national radio station, he expanded on how Barilla is rooted in traditional family values and why they would therefore never show a homosexual couple in their promotion. To make things worse, he added that gay customers who wouldn’t agree with Barilla’s position, could just buy their pasta from another brand. And so they did. Social media exploded with outrage, celebrities publicly shamed the pasta maker, and sales started to drop. While the immediate financial impact of consumer boycotts for the company that sells $2.4 bn worth of pasta annually was not too dramatic – fast-moving consumer goods like pasta move more by price than anything else – the long-term damage to the brand appeared to be potentially devastating. Especially in foreign markets of the West that care about diversity and about gay rights, but also in smaller pockets of the global LGBT community worldwide. Barilla has learned from this experience lemon and made lemonade from it. It launched a diversity and inclusiveness initiative. As Bloomberg Business Week reports, Barilla’s CEO, Claudio Colzani, has worked hard over the last few years to embrace the fact that love comes in different forms – as different as the dozens of types of pasta in Barilla’s factories…
July 28, 2019 @ 11:24 pm
Our society has changed and progressed in so many ways and that includes being more inclusive of all people and embracing diversity. As a business owner or leader, individuals have responsibilities to protect their brands and must do so in a smart way. It is shocking that even in this decade, our society has issues accepting people that are different from what traditional or the mainstream used to be. LGBT+ communities have worked hard to be accepted and treated fairly and like everyone else, and have worked to attempt to achieve the same rights as others. Even if those were Mr. Barilla’s personal beliefs, and even if he wanted to express them as he is free to do so, there could have been a better way and a better outlet in which he could have chosen to do so. The impact his comments made on the reputation of the brand have proven to be detrimental, and often times these may be even be irreversible. It takes a lot of time, money, and energy for companies with bad publicity to fix their image. They also must do so strategically or they may be accused of doing so as simply reactionary, and not genuinely. For Barilla, this was a learning lesson and they have used this as an opportunity to show the public that they are more inclusive despite the words of their chairman. Other companies can use this example to learn the potential dangers in not being inclusive as well as being intentional and proactive about their approaches.