Lately, boycotts have gotten a lot of press—from Target and Tesla and Amazon, to Canadians swearing off American goods and the national economic blackout day on Feb. 28. A boycott is when consumers refuse to purchase from a company that’s doing something unethical to try to force a change in policy, and it’s unique from other protesting actions because it leverages the purchasing power of the little guy. But do boycotts really spark change?
Some do; many don’t. Brayden King, a management professor at Northwestern University who researches boycotts, says that only 1 in 4 boycotts that reach national attention convince the company in question to change its policies. Still, boycotts are one of the best ways for the everyday person to put pressure on businesses. They’ve led to some very big wins throughout history, from the famous Montgomery bus boycott that ended with the desegregation of public transit, to a boycott of Ivanka Trump’s fashion label that actually shuttered the business in 2018.
What makes a boycott successful
There’s no perfect formula for an effective boycott, especially in the digital age. But there are some commonalities between the biggest winners. When there’s so much climate-concerning news going on in the world, aligning your dollars with your morals is more important than ever.
There’s a clear reason for the boycott. Effective boycotts “appeal to people’s conscience by laying bare the company’s wrongdoing,” says Paul Koku, a professor emeritus of marketing at Florida Atlantic University who researches boycotts. Convincing someone not to buy something they want requires an appeal to their conscience, he says—and for the argument to be convincing enough for them to not only say they support the boycott, but to also stick to it. It took decades for a boycott against South African goods (combined with other protests) to end apartheid in the country; although the effort began in 1959, a survey found that more than 1 in 4 Brits were engaging in it by 1986.
Organizers have specific demands. Boycotts are almost never enough to topple a company, so instead, the best ones push for specific policy change. The Target boycott, for example, demands that the company bring back its DEI practices. The goal of the Amazon boycott is much less clear. Is it for tax evasion, or workers’ rights, environmental issues, DEI practices, or something else entirely? Without a clear message, change isn’t likely to happen.
Consumers are actively involved. Unfortunately, there’s no magic number for how many people need to participate in a boycott for it to work, Koku says, but the more the merrier. One caveat: The people who participate need to be folks who actually patronize the company to begin with. It’s great to say you won’t shop at Walmart until it brings back its DEI practices, but it doesn’t help much if you didn’t shop there to begin with. It helps when organizers offer alternatives for boycotted products or companies. To get folks on board with ditching their daily Starbucks, for example, it helps to point out that Dunkin’ or Peet’s Coffee are still on the table.
Patience. Most boycotts aim to hurt a company’s profits or stock value by withholding purchases. But that’s not the only possible goal. Another common—and effective—strategy is to attack a brand’s reputation. To make the most impact, boycotters must come out swinging while the cause is still in the news cycle—but also hold the line, Koku says. Take the 1965 Delano grape strike and boycott led by Cesar Chavez, for which the strike lasted five years and the boycott lasted two before grape growing companies gave in to union demands for workers’ rights.