How Brands Can Engage Without Losing Loyalty in a Shifting Policy Landscape

With the new administration firmly shaping – or reshaping – America, companies are faced with navigating a rapidly shifting, and at times confusing, policy environment—one that touches everything from tariffs and trade to regulation, immigration, ESG, and supply chains. This means that the stakes for corporate communicators have rarely been higher. A poorly timed comment or a misaligned message can turn into a reputational flashpoint, threatening hard-won customer trust and long-term brand loyalty.

But staying silent isn’t always an option either. Consumers, employees, and investors increasingly expect brands to engage with the issues that shape their lives and values. As these issues grow more politically charged, corporate leaders must carefully balance advocating for their interests while maintaining trust across a diverse and divided stakeholder base.

Achieving internal clarity is crucial to avoiding reactionary messaging that can seem opportunistic or inconsistent. Communications professionals play a key role in driving this clarity, ensuring that brands’ core positions and boundaries are well-understood across all levels. When this alignment is in place, organizations can navigate external shifts with greater credibility. 

Here are two communication practices that can serve as the foundation for building clarity and maintaining consistency in times of change:

• Define your communications risk tolerance: Striking the right balance starts with leadership clearly defining how much risk they’re willing to take when engaging publicly on policy issues. Not every company needs to take a stand on every policy. What’s essential is understanding where you will speak, where you won’t, and how those choices align with your brand’s purpose and stakeholder expectations. Risk tolerance should be clearly defined in advance—through scenario planning, values mapping, and stakeholder input—so that messaging decisions aren’t driven by panic or public pressure.

• Identify shared priorities: Even amid ideological differences, companies can often identify shared objectives like economic growth, innovation, job creation, reshoring, or technological advancement. Framing messages around these mutual priorities allows businesses to remain engaged and relevant—without sounding combative or performative.

Gaining internal clarity also helps brands avoid the common pitfall of reactionary messaging that can appear opportunistic or incoherent. This is especially important when public discourse is sharply divided because consumers are quick to detect when brands are virtue signaling or hedging their positions. In contrast, they reward companies that act with authenticity and communicate from a place of consistency.  

Here are two examples of companies that took different approaches to DEI, each experiencing swift, distinct, and noticeable outcomes:

• Target faced significant backlash after scaling back its DEI initiatives, ending its Racial Equity Action and Change program, eliminating hiring goals for minority employees, and reducing support for Pride merchandise. This shift led to a 40-day boycott campaign which gained over 110,000 pledges and a NAACP Black Consumer Advisory, urging consumers to support businesses that maintain strong DEI commitments. As a result, Target's stock price dropped by more than $27 per share, erasing about $12.4 billion in market value. (Source)

• Levi Strauss & Co. was under pressure to dismantle its DEI initiatives. Despite these challenges, the company remained steadfast in its commitment when over 99% of its shareholders overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to end Levi's DEI programs. In the days following this decision, Levi's stock price saw an increase, reflecting investor confidence in the company's commitment to its values and its ability to navigate the evolving political landscape. (Source) 

Ultimately, success lies not in avoiding controversy altogether, but in communicating with conviction—grounded in values that resonate with both business objectives and the audiences they serve. At a time where silence can be interpreted as indifference and missteps can quickly erode trust, companies must approach communications as a strategic discipline. That means knowing when to speak, how to speak, and—critically—why they’re speaking. By leading with clarity and consistency, brands can not only weather moments of friction but emerge with trust intact, credibility bolstered, and consumer loyalty deepened.