I posted on Sunday about my plans to stop shopping with retailers whose senior managers publicly champion George Osborne’s cruel, ideologically-driven spending cuts.
I thought that post would go the way of most women-and-shopping stories (and indeed of women-and-anything stories), but things went better than that. Thousands of people turned up to read and rightwingers went into tailspin – two very good reasons to push on.
The chance to hit pro-cuts businesses where they’ll feel it is the other good reason to push on. Consumer boycotts can be effective, especially in an online age where reputation control is painful for corporates.
Only ten days after business leaders signed a Telegraph letter backing Osborne’s cuts, consumers are redefining their notions of ethical business on the local scene. Ethical business cannot, by definition, cheerlead a widely-criticised cuts programme that threatens jobs, economic recovery and retail and local commerce. Companies with brandnames that become synonymous with unethical business have good reason to feel the fear.
Ethical consumer groups point to – with considerable justification – a proud history of successful buyer pressure. Centuries-old anti-slavery sugar boycotts, the anti-fur trade campaigns of recent decades, consumer boycotts of battery-farmed animals and eggs – ultimately, all had profound effects on public perception and corporate reputation. A sulky corporate response goes down like a cup of the cold proverbial in the viral era.
Coke, for example, will never shake its sniffy ‘we want people to drink our soda, not play with it,’ response to legendary videos of guys blowing up diet coke by dropping mentos in it. BP will always be a dopey-looking Tony Hayward, corporate recklessness and rotting fish and bird cadavers. Trafigura’s appalling efforts to shut down news of its poisoning of innocent people still echoes as corporate history’s loudest online backfire.
There’s also reason to hope that a boycott will hit the bottom line. Corporates rubbish consumer boycotts and point to healthy stock prices as evidence, but stock prices ain’t always the tale. Academics Phillip Leslie and Larry Chavis ran a study about the effect of a consumer boycott of French wine in the US when the French refused to fight in Iraq in 2003.
I agree with the sentiment, but I think some of the practical problems outlined on LC remain.
I don’t think the French Wine argument works so much as an example here for 3 reasons; (1) It was one specific product where there were many alternatives and substitues, (2) It was largely a nasty xenophobic campaign heavilly promoted by right wing media – a left wing version simply will not get the required publicity, and (3) French wine manufacturers had little influence over french foreign policy anyway – if the boycott was aimed at changing French policy it was doomed to fail from the start. All in all it was more a symbolic act by idiots that only succeeded in demonstrating just why we shouldn’t let american public opinion decide anything.
I think ultimately, regarding the cuts, to succeed what we need is a more focused campaign. Find out which corporation is the biggest culprit, and pick on that one – provided there is an easy substitute who isn’t guilty. Work out the marketing message of the boycott (which is what a boycott essentially is) and what specific behaviour the company must adopt in order to end the boycot.
Hiya,
Agree with you largely, but I’m not the type to concentrate on the ‘can’ts.’ The response we’ve had so far – both on and offline – suggests to me that this is a topic that touches a lot of nerves. That in itself makes the continued mention of the topic worthwhile.
I think you’re right about needing to specify companies to target – some on the list are pretty much the only game in town in their area and/or people are locked into business with them. It’s also challenging to boycott companies that mainly deal in train and train networks. What we’re doing on email at the moment is cutting the list down and nominating alternatives.
I’d like to see that take root – people will know of local shops and outlets that are in direct competition with big retailers and it’d be good to get a list of those together. I could certainly see that evolving over the coming weeks.
As far as targeting goes – I see Boots (there are a lot of local alternatives and pharmacies), Next, ASDA, Ocado and B&Q as the leading candidates. Alternative phone product companies are also a starter, especially for accessories. People have nominated alternatives already. Microsoft is more difficult – but a lot of us operate with Linux and the likes of Ubuntu already. This might the sort of catalyst that pushes more people in that direction..
Regarding the French boycott – the part of that that interested me most was the way the results of it were measured. Companies will forever argue that boycotts, and even bad publicity, haven’t affected them. And if you look at their stock prices, that often appears to be true. Different factors can affect balance sheets, though – staff cuts and/or cuts to salaries, new acquisitions or asset sales, etc. A board can mask shopper behaviour like boycotts that way. The research of the French wine boycott showed other interesting trends, too – the most notable to me being that the promoting of the boycott by media ‘personalities’ was shown not to have a massive effect on behaviour.
And last point – what do we want? We want the likes of Vodafone and other avoiders to their bills, and a slowdown on the pace of reform. I also want higher earners levvied to reduce the deficit. We’re nutting that stuff out and we’ll get there soon. A lot of the people who are working on this stuff with me are, like me, working full time and/or raising families. People have full days, but they’re already pulling their weight.
Remember – the results of this sort of action take many different forms. You say the French wine boycott was a failure, because the French never said – ‘bugger it, you’re right. Let’s go to Iraq.’ Victory in a boycott takes all kinds of forms.
I can tell by the number of people who’ve visited and contacted that people are reading this information. Bad publicity – even if it seems small – makes corporate PR departments very uncomfortable, especially when it’s online. Do I think we’re going to bring M&S down by Monday? Probably not. Do I think we can keep reminding people which companies are prepared to put relationships with government before consumer priorities and polls? Yes. Do I think we could take part in redefining ‘ethical business’ at this point in history? Do I think big retailers are nervous about customer loyalty in a recession? Yes.
So on we go.
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We really should flash mob Mothercare y’know. How can a retailer like that seriously support children paying more than bankers towards the deficit? People will have their own bugbears. It doesn’t do much to create an action. Five mates in a shop with printed t-shirts under your jumper, a good song, and a video camera. All it takes…
That’s a v good idea – will contact you about it.
Have added Mothercare to the list. A number of people have been mentioning them for the reasons you outline.
Excellent.
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SO if you actually WANT people to boycott specific companies, why not name them? There’s a vagueness about this November boycott that doesn’t bode well for its success.
Yonmei – they’re named here:
http://boycott35.com/
ASDA, Boots and Mothercare. We’ve been tweeting the names for several days now.
Doesn’t look too vague to me.
I can add them to this story. Just haven’t got round to it. Busy busy, etc.