Companies around the U.S. have faced mounting calls to involve themselves in contentious political issues in recent years and with the 2024 election likely to be particularly charged, executives will have to weigh whether it's worthwhile to wade into politics. "I think most CEOs would sooner put their head in an alligator than get involved in politics this year," Mark Penn, chairman and CEO of marketing firm Stagwell, told FOX Business in an interview.
Maybe by responding you fan the flames, and they're trying to get a response from you one way or another, because the activist groups generally want to put a company in a position of having to favor their side," Penn explained. "They're looking for a target company that they can then kind of push over to their side.
Penn offered a hypothetical situation in which an airline or hotel had a politically-aligned organization booking a significant number of rooms or seats and how that could force executives into an issue unexpectedly that would force them to develop a consistent policy.
Penn said businesses should do periodic reviews of their stakeholders and potential hot-button issues that may arise which could cause activists to target their company for protests. He noted that those are typically social issues rather than economic issues like inflation, immigration and crime that have a more direct impact on the day-to-day and strategic operations of a business.