The Breakdown Of Boycotts
In early 2011, the New York Times reported that college students across the country were calling for the removal of Chick-fil-A restaurants on campuses, in response to one restaurant donating food to a local Pennsylvania anti-LGBT group. Over the course of the next year, further investigations revealed that Chick-fil-A donated millions of dollars to strictly anti-gay and “traditional family” organizations. Proponents of gay rights sharply criticized this move, gay advocacy groups told members to stop eating there, and a change.org petition was even started to dissuade the restaurant from these practices. Despite support from well-known politicians such as Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy issued an apology statement, and tax records showed that by 2012, Chick-fil-A had significantly reduced or ended contributions to the controversial organizations. In the meantime, sales figures were soaring.
So why did Chick-fil-A change its policy even though the boycott never produced a significant drop in revenue that would compel that change? Looking at a range of recent boycotts, almost all have failed to inflict a cost, monetary or otherwise, that would make it worthwhile for a company to mitigate the damage by acting on the offending issue. We know that these boycotts inflict minor costs at best by looking at a few indicators: a company’s yearly profits, its stock price, and the number of boycotters. These indicators are not perfectly reliable, and therefore, analyzing the impact of a boycott can be difficult, especially when it concerns a private company. The number of people who boycott is seldom a trackable number, there may not be a set date when a boycott starts or ends, and different individuals or groups may have different demands. Sales figures could include other markets the company is in. Tracking stock prices isn’t a reliable measure either, as stock prices can be driven by many different factors; government changes, stock market predictions, even a CEO’s tweets can all influence the price. Nevertheless, we can reasonably infer if the consumers are satisfied with a company or not if we take the company’s numbers with a grain of salt. And consumers are frequently satisfied even while calls for a boycott are at their peak. More and more, companies post increased or even record profits, while media outlets report on Americans boycotting the same companies across the United States. How is this possible?
Unfortunately, it’s just as difficult to find why boycotts today fail as it is to find whether they fail. One reason could be the trend of increasing globalization. As companies expand their brands to foreign markets, they gain access to consumers that might not care about certain social or political issues affecting Americans and will continue to buy their products regardless. But some companies do not have products marketable to the rest of the world. Restaurants like Chick-fil-A or sports leagues like the NFL don’t have foreign markets to rely on. Companies can also alienate one demographic to attract more support from another opposing group. While many were outraged at Chick-fil-A supporting anti-LGBT causes, influential politicians on the opposing side provided free advertising for the restaurant. It could also be too difficult to boycott a company if it provides a unique or necessary service. In the aftermath of the infamous video showing a passenger being dragged off a United Airlines flight, many swore not to fly United, only to admit later that in some cases, United was often the cheapest or only viable option to get to certain destinations.
[su_pullquote align=”right”]No one announces to the world that it is their 45th day not eating at Chick-fil-A. [/su_pullquote]In many cases, however, boycotts fail simply because public interest fades. It is easy enough to choose not to use a product or service. But a boycott is a movement. It requires more and more people to sign on, and it needs those people to stay until they achieve their objective. Frequently, boycotts simply fizzle out as the public becomes distracted and the boycotters fall into old habits. One reason for this could be that boycotts themselves don’t lend themselves to being remembered; after all, it is the act of not going somewhere and not buying something. No one announces to the world that it is their 45th consecutive day not eating at Chick-fil-A.
Ironically, it seems it can be the threat of a boycott, rather than a boycott itself, that prompts corporations to change. Frequently, negative publicity and the general dissatisfaction of consumers, even if the complaints have no threat or weight behind them, can cause a company to react quickly. At Chick-fil-A, while there may not have been many actual boycotts, the media coverage certainly did not favor the restaurant. Most news outlets reacted with contempt, and the opinions of left-leaning consumers soured. While it is impossible to know exactly what caused president Dan Cathy to cut donations to anti-LGBT causes in 2012, in the face of rising profits and new franchise openings across the United States, it certainly doesn’t seem like the boycott helped.
For a more recent example, take the Papa John’s controversy. In May 2018, John Schnatter, Chairman of the Board for Papa John’s Pizza, used a racial slur during a private meeting with a marketing firm. On July 11, Forbes first reported the event. That same day, Schnatter resigned from the company. Certainly, no observable change to the company’s revenue could have occurred in that short amount of time that would require mitigating damage to the brand. Yet the board at Papa John’s did not wait to see whether Schnatter’s comments would have an impact on the company, which might have meant they could have kept the face of the company on board. While the Louisville Courier-Journal and a few other news outlets reported on smaller groups that called for boycotts, the Papa John’s controversy ultimately fell out of the spotlight.
As the Papa John’s boycott quickly died down, other events in the news have drawn the public interest since then. Take the 50+ calls for boycotts on ethicalconsumer.org, a site dedicated to keeping track of major boycotts, ranging from Nike to Israel. The Nike boycott against the purported use of kangaroo leather in their football cleats is rather old and has been rather unsuccessful: there was no apparent change on Nike’s part, and over the past 5 years, Nike stock and sales have steadily increased. However, in just the past few months, there has been a new call for boycotting Nike, this time for their support of Kaepernick. This boycott of Nike failed as well, judging by Nike stock, sales, and social media mentions, which all grew rapidly directly afterwards. So, it is no surprise that as controversial as Kaepernick is, the company would be inclined to keep him onboard. Clearly, Nike doesn’t need to worry about losing money to boycotts because they support Kaepernick, or even because they use kangaroo leather. So it becomes unusual when the marketing success of Kaepernick for Nike contrasts with the NFL’s viewership drop, which many argue is also a result of Kaepernick
The NFL anthem controversy is a rare case where a boycott was effective at reducing an entity’s revenue, and subsequently led to the corporation addressing the issue. As Kaepernick’s decision to kneel quickly became divisive, many football fans swore off watching the NFL as no action was taken against Kaepernick for his protest. From 2016 to 2018, average viewership diminished by about 1 million people per season, and ratings fell as well. But it wasn’t until September 2017 that those opposed to Kaepernick’s actions gained their biggest supporter, President Trump, who tweeted out a call to boycott the NFL until “players stop disrespecting our flag and country.” However, on September 25, Twitter analytics showed over 2.4 million mentions of the “taketheknee” hashtag, but only about 100,000 mentions of the “boycottNFL” hashtag. This discrepancy suggests that after the president boosted the topic to the top of trending, more people took to twitter in support of Kaepernick than against.
Despite the widespread support for Kaepernick, NFL owners approved a rule change requiring players to stand during the national anthem in May 2018. Naturally, the owners did not provide reasoning for why they made the change in their comments; even the NFL commissioner rebuked the notion that players were unpatriotic for refusing to stand. But it’s reasonable to conclude that the NFL boycott was successful. Unlike the other boycotts examined in this piece, there was a measurable decline in patrons in the seasons following Kaepernick’s protest. The popularity of the “boycottNFL” hashtag also showed that many people still cared a year later, a good sign that people were dedicated to abstaining from watching the NFL. This is a remarkable success for a modern boycott, but it is not the trend. Boycotts against Chick-fil-A, Papa John’s, United, Nike and others have failed in recent years. We can no longer count on boycotts to make companies respond to consumer interests. That is not to say that there is no way to hold a company accountable when the time comes; the NFL provides some hope that the boycott is not dead, and the quick response of Papa John’s shows that just the fear of bad public opinion can sway a company’s decision-making.
It is ultimately worth noting that sometimes publicity isn’t always enough to change the direction of a company either. Going back to Chick-fil-A, it is true that in 2012, donations to anti-LGBT organizations were substantially reduced. But just a few years later, Chick-fil-A has resumed those same donations. So what is there to do now? It would be pessimistic to say nothing. So perhaps it is time to bring the boycott back, one unspent dollar at a time.
Kyle Fry ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at k.fry@wustl.edu.