In 1990, Patagonia made a donation to Planned Parenthood, angering Christian fundamentalists. The response was swift: calls for a boycott, threats of store pickets and a deluge of complaints to its call center that jammed its phone lines.
The Ventura-based outdoor apparel retailer could have tried to placate the protesters. Instead, the company directed customer service representatives to respond: “Thank you so much for sharing your views. We want you to know that for every call like this we receive, we’re donating an additional $5 to Planned Parenthood.”
“The calls stopped pretty soon,” recalled Vincent Stanley, Patagonia’s director of philosophy.
And the sales, as usual, kept chugging along.
Politics has always been a minefield for businesses. But it used to be one they could avoid.
