Consumer Boycotts

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Consumer Boycotts
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• An attempt by one or more parties to achieve
  certain objectives by urging individual consumers
  to refrain from making selected purchases in the
  marketplace

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• For many years Irish peasants were mistreated by
  their British landlords
• Charles Cunningham Boycott
• 1880 Boycott evicted tenant farmers
• Tenants convinced Boycotts employees to desert
  him

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• Boycotts are as American as apple pie.
• 1765 Stamp Act led to boycotts of British goods
  in Boston, New York, Philadelphia
• Act repealed a year later
• German goods boycotted by American Jewish
  community in 1930s and 1940s
• Alabama bus boycott organized by Martin Luther
  King was defining moment of civil rights movement

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Three characteristics of consumer boycotts

• Focus on individual consumers rather than
  organizational entities
• Attempts to use marketplace means to secure what
  may or may not be marketplace ends
• Lower prices/higher quality goods
• Environmental/other social goals
• Emphasis on urging consumers to withdraw
  selectively from participation in marketplace

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Types of Boycotts

• Commodity boycotts
• vs.
• Brand-name or single-firm boycotts
• Complete boycott
• vs.
• Partial boycott

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• Negative boycott
• vs.
• Positive boycott
• whitelist
• buycott
• girlcott
• procott
• anti-boycott
• reverse boycott

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• Instrumental boycott
• vs.
• Expressive boycott
• Buy Nothing Day
• TV Turnoff

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• Non-surrogate boycotts
• vs.
• Surrogate boycotts
• Travel boycotts
• Headquarters boycotts

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• Primary boycott
• vs.
• Secondary boycott

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Consumer Economic Boycotts

• Failure to lower prices beyond term of boycott
• Lack of leadership
• Prices more stable today
• Staples being replaced by convenience foods and
  meals away from home
• Dual incomes reduce impact of price increases on
  quality of life

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Other goals

• Environmental
• Labor
• Animal rights
• Animal testing/cosmetics drugs
• Treatment of food animals
• Other social
• Health
• Community
• Political

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Historically noteworthy boycotts 1. Nestle

• provides information to mothers which promotes
  artificial infant feeding and discourages
  breastfeeding
• donates free samples and supplies to health
  facilities to encourage artificial infant feeding
  
• gives inducements to health workers for promoting
  its products
• does not provide clear warnings on labels of
  benefits of breastfeeding and dangers of
  artificial feeding
• In some cases labels are in a language that
  mothers are unlikely to understand

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• UNICEF in areas with unsafe water, bottle-fed
  baby 25 times more likely to die from diarrhea
  than breastfed one
• Expense of baby milks affects all family members
  family, impoverishing those already poor
• In developing world formula is over-diluted to
  make it last longer
• can cause malnutrition
• UNICEF 1.5 million infants die annually because
  they are not breastfed

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2. Apartheid in South Africa

• Sullivan Principles
• Prohibited GM from following apartheid laws
• Required non-segregation in company operations
• Required equal pay for equal work regardless of
  race

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• By 1986 172 of 280 American companies in South
  Africa had signed agreement
• 1987 Sullivan declared experiment a failure and
  called for withdrawal from South Africa

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• Boycotts of companies continuing to do business
  in South Africa
• Universities and other institutions pressured to
  divest shares of stock in such companies

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3. Grape boycott

• 1964 United Farm Workers Association (UFW) formed
• 1965 Filipino and Mexican-American farm workers
  called a strike against table grape farmers in
  Delano, CA
• Low wages
• Poor working/living conditions
• UFW president Cesar Chavez called for national
  boycott of table grapes

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• By 1969 sale of table grapes had nearly vanished
• US Defense Department had to step in to help
  growers
• increased shipment of table grapes to soldiers in
  Vietnam by 2 million pounds over previous year
• Boycott ended in 1970 when first union contracts
  were signed

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Are boycotts effective?

• Survey of business leaders indicate they consider
  it more effective than other consumer techniques
• E.g., lobbying, letter writing campaigns, class
  action suits
• Grape boycott succeeded
• As did subsequent 16-year effort to eliminate
  pesticides harmful to worker health
• 1984-2000
• Divestment in South Africa succeeded

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• Nestle boycott partially successful
• Boycott of states did not result in passage of
  Equal Rights Amendment
• Other successful boycotts

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Ongoing boycotts

• Ethical Consumer