I read an article called “Walmart Faces Backlash Over ‘Impeach 45’ Clothing” by Adrianne Pasquarelli. Walmart is currently in a consumer crosshair after customers discovered their apparel line with the tag line “Impeach 45”. This slogan refers to President Trump and the desire for his impeachment. Up until Tuesday morning, the company was selling a line of adult t-shirts and baby clothes that include this slogan. Consequently, Trump supporters are calling for a boycott of the chain, which has 5,000 stores in the country.
Many people have been posting their opinion on Twitter, voicing their outrage and created the “#boycottwalmart” hashtag. One customer tweeted to Walmart, “I didn’t realize how to the left Walmart was and that’s your right but when you start selling merchandise to impeach our president than that’s over the top and I won’t support you! #boycottwalmart.”
Even though the 13 products, which priced from $11.95 to $24.95 were still searchable on Walmart’s website on Tuesday morning, each item when clicked on, would lead customers to a “Sorry…The page you are looking for couldn’t be found” message. By midday Tuesday, however, the search term “Impeach 45″ had zero results.
The vendor, Old Glory, who created the apparel and was responsible for the products, was not immediately returned. The apparel is also selling on Amazon.com and though Old Glory’s own website. Amazon has not yet commented on the apparel.
In the past, Walmart has had similar issues with apparel. In November, Walmart received backlash after selling a t-shirt with the message “Rope. Tree. Journalist. SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED.” Walmart eventually removed the shirt from its website.
Earlier in the week, Walmart changed its marketing leadership with the appointment of AmEx veteran Janey Whiteside as its first chief customer officer and Barbara Messing, formerly of TripAdvisor, as chief marketing officer. This is the first time ever an outsider, and female, has held this position.
This article stood out to me because I was in shock that a multi-billion dollar company, Walmart, would sell a product that would cause such controversy. If a company is trying to make money, they should not be biased towards one side because it will end up upsetting the other side, resulting in a loss of customers. Especially because it had to do with our current President and the slogan sent a negative message out. Also, Walmart has had a bad history with slogans on their apparel beforehand, so I was confused as to why they would create another controversial slogan. 