Do Doritos go with Bud Light?

After hiring a transexual internet influencer as a brand ambassador in Spain, Doritos recently severed its relationship with the gender-confused spokesperson. The problems went way beyond those of Dylan Mulvany, the “gender transitioner” who was briefly (and notoriously) the Bud Light celebrity symbol. Next up was Doritos brand “influencer” Samantha Hudson has a history of certifiably insane comments on social media criticizing rape victims for stealing too much of the spotlight and fantasizing about sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy and sexual exhibition towards an 8-year-old girl. Other than that, he seems like a perfectly agreeable young man.

When all of this came to light, Doritos cut off the relationship, announcing that the issue was not Samantha’s gender identity, but rather the history of highly objectionable online content. But, of course, the issue really is Hudson’s trans status. The only reason Doritos (owned by PepsiCo) would be in such risky branding territory to begin with is because of the sexual identity lobby’s pressure to promote trans personalities in order to gain a high score on the Corporate Equality Index (CEI). PepsiCo gets a hard-earned 100 percent score on CEI. Want to understand why otherwise smart executives with stewardship over the world’s most valuable brands would hire brand ambassadors who alienate millions of customers? The answer is the CEI. Companies fell for the activist argument that a 100 percent score would enhance the reputation of the companies that receive it. Corporations routinely feature their CEI scores on their diversity, equity and inclusion websites. PepsiCo seems very proud of its score.

So, is the issue Hudson’s trans identity or sexual threats against children? The answer is both. There is no evidence that a mainstream brand benefits from association with transsexualization. In fact, there are three very compelling case studies in how sexual identity pandering is destructive of business value. Disney, Target, and InBev (parent company to Bud Light) each pandered in some way to the Corporate Equality Index lobby and each ended up destroying the wealth of its investors. In an analysis that compared the investment performance of each of the companies to its peer group, as defined by other companies of similar size and in the same specific industry, the three severely underperformed.

Each company either was the worst or second-worst performer in its class or a full standard deviation below the average. That latter point puts a company in the bottom five percent of investment returns. Each company suffered greater volatility than most similar companies and in sum suffered a decline in brand value in excess of $3 billion. Even without online joking about exposing himself to 8-year-olds, Hudson was already risky branding. Personal branding is about admiration, coolness, attractiveness. Think Bruce Jenner on a box of Wheaties—well, maybe that one doesn’t age so well.

Much of Middle America may have developed a tentative soft spot for underdogs and a desire to be seen as compassionate to new victim groups, but that doesn’t sell beer, chips, and movie tickets. Even apart from those with strong religious convictions there is still a remaining ick factor. Ick doesn’t get families to visit expensive theme parks. Ick causes people to look for a different brand of corn chips, there’s plenty of them.

Of course, PepsiCo knew this in advance. They knew about Bud Light and Target and Disney. Last February, I met with PepsiCo executives about a proposal from financial advisor David Bahnsen for a resolution at the company’s annual meeting. We spoke mostly about concerns about the company weighing in on contentious cultural war issues. We were assured that there was no need for concern. “We saw what happened with Disney,” said one investor relations official. But the company failed to shift its culture accordingly. Relenting is not the same thing as repenting.

Until Christians are reliable and persistent in corporate boardrooms as the promulgators of scorecards that require brand destruction as a kind of ideological love test, we will see backlashes, temporary withdrawals, and then “the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire.”

If corporations take seriously their fiduciary duties to shareholders alone, and not to the cause-of-the-month club, they will begin to see a Corporate Equality Index score of 100 percent as a leadership failure. If Christians take our duties seriously, we will not limit our engagement with corporations to occasional bouts of spontaneous outrage, which then die down into complacency. Rather, corporate engagement needs to be for us something more like the responsibilities of citizenship, knowing when election day is, where the voting occurs, and what the issues are, and then showing up.

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect that Dylan Mulvany was a celebrity symbol for Bud Light.