Introduction
Residents of the United States are ready to refuse products for any reason. Harsh statements by top managers, low salaries, or the use of harmful products are the most popular reasons for customers to stop buying products. This often has the effect of managers apologizing for the company’s decisions or abandoning their ideas. However, there are also moments when the effect is quite the opposite.
Consumer Boycotts Are Effective
The consumer boycott is often associated with the economic impact on the brand. However, as it will be noted later, this is an ineffective method. Thus, it is worth noting that a boycott should not always be aimed at reducing the company’s profit. Sometimes it is more effective to attack the brand image. Indeed, the more social networks and the media discuss it in a negative way, the more likely it is that the company’s management will change course (Beck, 2019). There is an economic reason for this: studies claim that the share price of a particular company declined every day when the media mentioned a boycott of this brand’s products (Beck, 2019). However, if the goal of the boycotters is to force the company to reconsider its views, then this approach can be called successful.
For example, such a situation happened with Nike in the nineties. The brand of clothing and sporting goods on the rights of a monopolist mercilessly exploited workers in developing countries and answered activists’ questions that they were not involved in this (Birch, 2016). The campaign against Nike became so large-scale that it even affected the brand’s sales, prompting Nike to abandon the sweatshop system of work (Birch, 2016). The American brand still has gaps in ethical reports. It does not make its supply chain and production completely transparent. However, this still does not compare with the beginning of the nineties when production ethics were not even out of the question.
Refusing to make purchases is a common practice for those who want to emphasize their disagreement with specific decisions of managers and employees of the brand. The cases with various companies show how solid and substantial public condemnation can be for an entrepreneur (Watson, 2015). Nevertheless, there is a significant difference between a small family business, where almost every client is essential, and the market’s giants. In this case, it becomes a challenging task to affect the performance of the company significantly.
Consumer Boycotts Are Not Effective
Actions should confirm the intentions of the boycott: it is difficult to prove a consumer’s determination if it does not go beyond words. This is the reason why boycotts are always difficult to be carried out: over time, the number of people inevitably decreases, and information guides are forgotten (Friedman, 2001). However, even if all these conditions are met, there is no guarantee that everything will work out. An example is the boycott of Nestle, which has been going on for more than forty years, but it is difficult to talk about the results of which, even after almost half a century.
It should be understood whether the Nestle boycott can be considered effective. From an economic point of view, it is unlikely: the company’s revenues are estimated at billions of dollars, today Nestle is one of the wealthiest companies in its segment (Mihai, 2021). However, the widespread and, importantly, negative-public attention made it possible to achieve essential decisions on the ethics of advertising breast milk substitutes on the issue of the easy availability of these substitutes and their actual and potential impact on children. If people take these changes as a starting point, then the Nestle boycott, of course, can bring the solution of all these crucial issues closer.
Conclusion
If a person decides to boycott Nestle, then they need to stop buying any of the company’s products, and this is an impressive list of brands. Certainly, people can find a replacement for each of them for the same money, but the search takes time and desire. It is difficult for customers to change their buying habits, and most people are more concerned about the price-quality ratio than questions of production ethics.
References
Beck, V. (2019). Consumer boycotts as instruments for structural change.Journal of Applied Philosophy, 36(4), 543-559. Web.
Birch, S. (2016). How activism forced Nike to change its ethical game. The Guardian. Web.
Friedman, M. (2001). Ethical dilemmas associated with consumer boycotts. Journal of Social Philosophy, 32(2), 232–240.
Mihai, A. (2021). Why Nestle is one of the most hated companies in the world.ZME Science. Web.
Watson, B. (2015). Do boycotts really work?. The Guardian. Web.