Rick Romell

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

It’s generally accepted wisdom that consumer-facing businesses should avoid enmeshing themselves in political issues, remain neutral and seek to offend no one.

Bill Penzey thinks otherwise, and he thinks the future rests with him.

“There are times in history where…you’ve got to be on the right side of the issues, if that’s who you are,” Penzey said Friday as he discussed his decision — as majority owner of a spice retailer with 60-some stores and a significant online business — to blast Donald Trump and his supporters shortly after Trump won the presidential election.

It wasn’t gentle criticism. Penzey, whose namesake company is based in Wauwatosa and has about 700 employees, called Trump “openly racist” and accused the Republican Party of embracing racism.

Not exactly the way to make friends on the right.

But Penzey has no regrets. Not only did he act on his personal convictions; he believes it was smart business.

Penzey said he has received perhaps 35,000 emails since his mid-November attack on Trump — first in an email to customers and later in a Facebook post. The great majority, he said, have been supportive.

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Sales at the stores have fallen, by “low single digits” compared with a year ago, but online sales are up, Penzey said.

He said he expected to take a 10% to 30% hit when he launched his broadside.

“It didn’t happen,” he said.

Long known as more willing that most company owners to mix politics and business, Penzey ramped up his commentary last year. Now, after experiencing the reaction to his bombardment of Trump, he sees a new marketing strategy emerging.

If you can show customers that you truly support the things that are important to them, “they open their world to you,” Penzey said.

The migration of marketing to the likes of Facebook and Instagram reinforces the need for connections that go beyond commercial transactions, he believes.

“This is the future,” he said. “I think if you don’t care about your customers and what they care about, in a world of social media, no one’s going to talk about you.”

Inevitably, customers will be lost as a business takes stands they don’t agree with. But Penzey thinks the gains among customers with kindred views more than make up the difference.

“The old methods of marketing are coming to an end,” he said, “and this is the new marketing.”