Similar to the Pepsi scenario, McDonalds tied their image to the “low price value menu” and “hip urban” market in order to gain the incremental market share from the lower income and minority demographic. What that did was create a perception of low value and poor quality for their product that drove away the middle income and non minority customer. The straw man that Levinson has proffered is less about any guilt he may have at his emails, and more about the fact that the Hawks are a sinking ship, and having seen how much the L.A. Clippers sold for, he decided to voluntarily back away from the team and sell his share for what he could before the market reality set in on the actual value of a poor product in a below average basketball market like Atlanta.
I remember telling myself a few years ago that Toyota wasn't doing themselves any favors when they launched an ad campaign aimed at black Americans. In that particular case I don't think perception was as much a problem as reality for Toyota. It was clear to me that they had pretty much reached the peak of their market share in traditional auto sales, and their only growth opportunity lay in selling cheap, lower-quality vehicles to people with less disposable income. The quality ratings of their vehicles in the next few years pretty much confirmed this.