Issue: the Boycott the Boycott
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Issue: The Boycott The Boycott By: Pat Wechsler Pub. Date: May 1, 2017 Access Date: September 26, 2021 DOI: 10.1177/237455680313.n1 Source URL: http://businessresearcher.sagepub.com/sbr-1863-102636-2779297/20170501/the-boycott ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Can it bring the powerful to heel? Executive Summary As consummate consumers, Americans have embraced the boycott as a distinctively American way to influence powerful people and institutions. The internet and social media act as accelerants for activists launching boycotts, and the country’s deepening political polarization in the Trump era has further encouraged people on both sides of the divide to vote with their wallets. Both the Left and the Right maintain lengthy lists of businesses to be shunned. Some boycotts are successful in reducing sales; even when they fail to do so, boycotts can damage a brand and serve as a lever for winning concessions. Among the key takeaways: Boycotts are most successful when the issue is easily understood and deeply felt, the boycotted company has numerous competitors and the news media takes an interest. President Trump has become a consumer litmus test, with his opponents boycotting retailers that carry his family brands and supporters retaliating against companies that drop his brands. A boycott can exact a stiff price: The state of North Carolina faced $3.76 billion in lost business over a now-repealed law that forced transgender people to use bathrooms aligned with their birth gender. Full Report Rachel Veazey of Cleveland, Tenn., shows her support for President Trump by returning clothes to, and refusing to shop at, TJ Maxx in February 2017. TJ Maxx and other retailers decided to stop carrying products by a company owned by Trump’s daughter Ivanka because of poor sales; in return Trump supporters vowed to boycott the stores. (Shawn Poynter for The Washington Post via Getty Images) Pinpointing the incident that sets a movement in motion can be tricky. That’s not the case with the consumer boycotts against the sale of products from President Donald Trump’s family. On Oct. 25, a woman who identified herself only as Laura with the Twitter handle @SheWhoVotes posted an open letter to Nordstrom on 1 Page 2 of 12 The Boycott SAGE Business Researcher ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. the social media site requesting that Ivanka Trump’s fashion line be dropped. 1 Describing herself as a loyal customer of the store, Laura wrote that she was having second thoughts about shopping there while it carried a label connected with a family that she and many others identified with “hate speech” against women and minorities. “I understand that Nordstrom cannot reasonably filter out every brand with questionable business practices or controversial figureheads,” Laura wrote. “But some brands are so toxic, they will hurt your business by alienating your customers, and this is surely one of them.” Laura was reacting to the just-released tape of Trump’s 2005 comments boasting that he could grope or kiss any woman he liked. She wasn’t alone. Shannon Coulter, owner of a small San Francisco digital marketing firm, had already created a website called #grabyourwallet with a list of businesses that carried Trump merchandise or did business with the family, including Macy’s, Walmart, Bloomingdale’s as well as Nordstrom. 2 Coulter encouraged consumers to spurn companies on the list and urged the businesses to drop Trump product lines. Laura, Coulter and millions of other consumers had found each other, and another American boycott was born. In an age of consumerism, the boycott – an organized protest that urges people to withhold patronage or participation in order to effect change – is a distinctively American form of resistance, connected to the cash register rather than the ballot box. It’s a consummate display of power by those responsible for the retail spending that has helped keep the United States the largest economy on the planet, and consumers have become skilled at wielding it against even the largest companies and most powerful people. “We may not have invented the boycott, but we have certainly perfected it,” says Thomas C. O’Guinn, a professor of marketing at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. “Americans have come to define themselves more as consumers than as citizens. It is the role in which they finally have power over corporations and politicians, and with the help of the internet, they can flex that muscle with much more frequency and in much greater numbers.” It represents the politicization of consumption, O’Guinn says, a trend that started in the 1980s and has taken off in the internet age, turning the boycott into the weapon of choice for both the Left and the Right. “We may hate the polarization,” he says. “But no one can complain that we’re apathetic.” In this politically branded world, each side maintains websites with long lists of companies that no longer qualify for patronage. On the left are pop-up sites like #grabyourwallet, as well as long-standing guides to upholding progressive doctrine. One example: Ethical Consumer, a U.K.-based nonprofit website and magazine dedicated to “making global businesses more sustainable through consumer pressure,” updates lists of ongoing boycotts called by nonprofits and religious organizations and tells consumers how they can influence business conduct. 3 Left-leaning boycotts often target polluters and human- and animal-rights offenders. Among recent efforts: a boycott by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and other nonprofits that persuaded SeaWorld to discontinue captive orca breeding, and another by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics that pressured Johnson & Johnson to reformulate its baby products to remove a formaldehyde- releasing preservative. 4 On the left, most big companies are potential targets, judged on their treatment of employees, carbon footprint and willingness to take stands against perceived injustices. Many of the Right’s boycott sites reflect fundamentalist Christian displeasure with corporate positions on such issues as gay marriage, laws and policies on transgender bathroom use and abortion. For instance, the American Family Association, a nonprofit organization that promotes fundamentalist Christian values, is boycotting the retailer Target for allowing transgender employees and customers to use gender restrooms of their choice. 5 Target Sales Declined After Calls for Boycott Company ended fourth quarter 2016 with 1.5 percent decrease Page 3 of 12 The Boycott SAGE Business Researcher ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Source: “Target Reports Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2016 Earnings,” Target, Feb. 28, 2017, http://tinyurl.com/m7zqqby; “Target Reports Third Quarter 2016 Earnings,” Target, Nov. 16, 2016, http://tinyurl.com/mmqu5t9; “Target Reports Second Quarter 2016 Earnings,” Target, Aug. 17, 2016, http://tinyurl.com/ngpdoly; “Target Reports First Quarter 2016 Earnings,” Target, May 18, 2016, http://tinyurl.com/mhg2c64 Calls for a boycott against Target after the retailer said it would allow transgender customers to use whichever bathroom corresponds to their gender identity may have hurt the bottom line. The initial boycott call in the second quarter of 2016 and a holiday-season boycott in the fourth quarter brought down sales compared to the same periods in the previous year. The website BibleBlender.com runs the “the big list of anti-religious/un-Christian companies, celebrities and geographic locations in the U.S.” and encourages Christians to avoid doing business with them entirely or at least “take the time to write … and let them know you disagree with their moral stance.” 6 There are 132 companies on the alphabetized list, drawn from practically every industry, including Airbnb, American Express, Chevron, Dow Chemical, JPMorgan Chase, JetBlue, Microsoft, PayPal, Sears and Verizon. It also lists 41 celebrities, identified as individuals who “publicly support policies, laws, or standards which Christians deem inappropriate and immoral or who have publicly denounced religion and/or Christianity.” The compilation includes singers Bette Midler and Miley Cyrus, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, comedian Bill Maher, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Donald Trump. Finally, 16 destinations are cited as places to avoid if possible, including Indianapolis, Denver, West Palm Beach, San Diego, Washington, D.C., and the entire states of Washington, New York, California and Connecticut. Over the years, the National Rifle Association (NRA) also has staged boycotts against what it calls anti-gun corporations. On recent lists: Hallmark, Sara Lee, Costco and Walgreen’s. A favorite conservative target is Starbucks, because of executive chairman and former CEO Howard Schultz’s willingness to take stands on topics such as gay marriage. Most recently, the Seattle-based company offended Trump supporters with a pledge to hire 10,000 refugees over five years in 75 countries, and with its opposition to the wall proposed by the president for the Mexican-U.S. border. #BoycottStarbucks appeared shortly after Schultz issued the commitment to refugees in reaction to Trump’s travel ban in January. 7 Starbucks wasn’t alone in ending up on a boycott list because of that executive order. The ride-sharing service Uber also faced a backlash from Trump critics after the company turned off surge pricing during a strike by New York City cab drivers at JFK International Airport to protest the travel ban. Turning off surge pricing reportedly increased Uber’s business; it also led to accusations that the company was undermining the strike. 8 The company was already in hot water with left-leaning consumers. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick sat on Trump’s economic advisory council until employee and consumer protests prompted him to step down. And a former employee has accused Uber of ignoring her claim of sexual harassment by her supervisor.