Boycott and boycott: how shopping has become a means of expression

Marketers spend a lot of effort to encourage customers to leave more money in the store. Specialists study psychology, cognitive distortions, look for pain points where they can hit in order to increase sales. It seems that all that remains for us is to dodge advertising attacks and try to spend finances rationally.

But modern seller-buyer relationships are more complex than they used to be. The abundance of presented goods and services allows customers to choose. And more than that - to influence the opinions of other buyers. For example, now, if a person is dissatisfied with something, he will most likely write about it on social networks.

Of course, if we talk about large organizations, most often bad review won't have much effect on the brand. Which is generally fair - opinions are subjective and simply add up to a mosaic of the overall impression of the company. However, if a business does something egregious, buyers can rally and the effect is powerful.

How consumers boycott brands

The word "boycott" is often used to describe everyday situations when a group of people somehow ignores a person. For example, students stop communicating with a classmate. The word itself came into use at the end of the 19th century, when Irish peasants applied the method to the manager of the lands, Charles Boycott. They did not say hello, they sat down from him in church and so on.

Boycott - this is one of the forms of political and economic struggle, which consists in the complete or partial termination of relations with an individual, organization, state.

People can refuse from buying or fully interacting with a brand and encouraging others to do the same.

At the same time, modern consumer boycotts often arise for ethical reasons, and not because of deterioration in quality, price increases, and so on. Usually the motives are more complex and may not directly affect buyers.

Yes, boycott faced Nike company. In the 90s, she transferred production to Asian countries on the basis of subcontracting. That is, working conditions remained on the conscience of local contractors. As a result, people in factories worked in poorly equipped premises and for extremely low wages. Then the facts of hiring children became known. The company itself assured that they were not aware of what was happening, and for a long time adhered to this position. However, later they were forced to “move”.

In fairness, it should be noted that the role was played, perhaps not so much by a passive boycott, as by active protests, due to which Nike lost contracts with sports organizations. As a result, since 2005 the company has been publishing social responsibility reports.

Of course, Nike is not the only corporation that has been suspected of this. It was simply one of the largest and most profitable, and the boycott set a precedent. As a result, the activists did not, of course, deprive the company of income, but they were able to significantly influence their level. Obviously, after the collapse of such a goliath, smaller companies have already responded to similar claims much faster. For example, when in 2010 started talking about problems in factories in India, Gap, Next and Marks & Spencer no longer ignored the situation, but began their own investigation. Although problems with sweatshops in production still remain.

There are examples successful boycott and in Russia. In 2017, information spread that Natura Siberica uses in its premium line cosmetics deer antlers that are cut off from animals. The public was outraged, many stopped buying the company's products. In Natura Siberica, they first tried to explain themselves, and then asked their subscribers how they feel about the use of animal horns. As a result, the company announced the abandonment of this practice.

When the boycott works

It is obvious that the ethical problem must be serious, and the protest must be massive, otherwise the voices of individual dissatisfied customers will simply will not hear. But there is another important point.

For a boycott to really solve a problem, and not just be noise for noise's sake, the company must have room to maneuver. This is a temporary measure that gives the brand the opportunity to reflect on their behavior and improve. And he's more likely to do it if he sees prospects for yourself. For example, in the case of Natura Siberica, not only the use of horns was publicized. All steps of the company were public. Accordingly, thanks to its reaction, the company was remembered as a brand that is ready to listen to the opinions of customers and change its policy towards a more ethical one. And those who scolded the company began to praise and promised to return to the ranks of customers.

Let's imagine a situation where an organization is trying to fix everything, but the boycotters all show that they buried it in their hearts. What is the point of a brand trying to solve the problem and regain reputationif this segment of buyers has already fallen off? None.

The stick must be accompanied by a gingerbread.

At the same time, the effectiveness of the boycott affects the specifics of the segment in which the organization operates. If goods cannot be replaced because they are, for example, the cheapest on the market, few will be able to refuse them.

How shoppers encourage and support brands through purchases

As the opposite of boycott, "boycott" appeared - the beginning of the word was replaced by the English buy ("buy"). This phenomenon means buying brand products because of its policies. And here again everything is tied to ethics. Borrowing t-shirts from the same label because they are cool is not activism. To do the same, because the company uses recycled materials and transfers part of the money from sales to the center for the support of victims of violence - already he. However, research showthat negative information is more motivating to abandon purchases than positive information is to make them.

A reaction to a boycott is also called a boycott, when a part of the buyers who approves the actions of the company specifically purchases products in order to support the brand. However, experts considerthat this does not have a special effect: sales do increase, but the effect quickly passes.