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I can't think of a successful boycott. I believe the largest attempt I witnessed was against BP when they just sank an old oil platform, including all sorts of

I can't think of a successful boycott. I believe the largest attempt I witnessed was against BP when they just sank an old oil platform, including all sorts of toxins and petrochemicals. I think that made a single-digit dent in their revenue. Politics and law enforcement are far better tools to get corporations to behave. They solve the coordination problem, they can far easier track changing and long chains of ownership, and they allow you to delegate the research work to someone you trust.

post_break 9y ago
They took down gawker by targeting their advertisers. Before the hulk thing their ad revenue was decimated.
piker 9y ago
Moving the NCAA Tournament out of North Carolina changed the bathroom law within a year if memory serves.
- macintux 9y ago
  Outrage over Indiana's "religious freedom" act led to several threatened pullouts and changes in the law.
bonaldi 9y ago
What do you mean by successful? Usually the point is not to dent revenue, it's to cause behaviour change. And there is a long list of boycotts that have achieved that. http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/boycotts/successfulboycotts.aspx http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/boycotts/successfulboycotts.a...
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  Looking at that list, I see two main categories. One are outcomes dubiously tied to boycotts - did Sea World change their orca problem to protect revenues, or because they feared legal intervention? The second is indirect outcomes, where the bad actor and the boycott-ee are different. If you threaten a purchaser over a supplier, or a supplier over a purchaser, they can hope to change behavior with no major loss of revenue. It's a very different situation than changing the actual bad behavior. (And in many of these cases the bad behavior was unchanged, some external company just dissociated from it.) There do seem to be some solid successes there, for instance with product safety, food source sustainability, or sweatshop labor. But even there, I'm curious whether the threat of boycott was a primary influence compared to the other activist campaigns around it.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > One are outcomes dubiously tied to boycotts - did Sea World change their orca problem to protect revenues, or because they feared legal intervention? They feared legal intervention due to the public attention drawn by the boycott. Affecting revenue of a targeted actor directly is not the only mechanism by which boycotts are intended to have an effect.
    - Bartweiss 9y ago
      I agree that revenue hits are not the only (and usually not the primary) effect of boycotts. But what I'm questioning is "due to the public attention drawn by the boycott." Was the consumer boycott actually a major reason SeaWorld feared legal action? When Blackfish came out, a lot of musicians cancelled planned SeaWorld concerts, which had a visible and immediate revenue impact. Share prices dropped 33%, even though revenue only dropped ~1%; presumably shareholders feared the possibility of legal action. And a range of state and federal Congressmen introduced bills on regarding orca captivity, explicitly citing Blackfish as a motivator. Boycotts are certainly correlated with major corporate and legal changes, but I'm skeptical that they're a significant cause. Examples like SeaWorld make me think that boycotts and policy changes have common causes (e.g. Blackfish), but the boycotts aren't themselves very impactful. The Chicago Tribune had a clever bit about the gun-seller boycotts, arguing that boycotts only matter as a way to keep the topic in the news, and it basically doesn't matter whether people actually participate. That's basically my guess, also. http://www.chicagotribune.com/g00/news/opinion/zorn/ct-perspec-zorn-nra-boycott-fedex-apple-amazon-0228-20180227-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/g00/news/opinion/zorn/ct-persp...
jf 9y ago
Recent successful boycotts include UFW's "no uvas" and the boycotts related to apartheid. Wikipedia also has a longer list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_boycotts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_boycotts
vermontdevil 9y ago
Indiana - NCAA, GenCon etc threatening to leave over the religious freedom law. It worked. Pence was forced to amend it - weakening it. The bus boycott in Alabama by MLK and others. Boycotts can be an effective tool.
- indymike 9y ago
  The biggest influence was Salesforce's threat to leave after just acquiring Indianapolis based ExactTarget. Benioff was very persuasive along with NCAA, GenCon and most of the Indiana business community.
ebbv 9y ago
Are you for real? How about the freakin' Civil Rights movement? Learn some history, my man.
nabla9 9y ago
There has been research into the effectiveness of consumer boycotts. They can be really effective especially against brands. Nike boycott in the 1990s was really effective. The company’s sales fell in short them, but the damage to the brand was even more significant. Nike had to work a decade to repair the 'child labor' reputation and adopt the global sustainable idea. On the other hand consumer boycotts against products without brand or network externalities have less effect. They suffer from free rider effect. Boycot is essentially subsidizing the consumption of those who use the boycotted product.
panarky 9y ago
The #DeleteUber campaign was remarkably successful.
- singularity2001 9y ago
  one week ago there was a link here on HN with data that it wasn't successful.
tclancy 9y ago
The NFL got Arizona to recognize Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by refusing to hold a Super Bowl there until they did.
ptaffs 9y ago
It's hard to identify cause and effect, but the large UK/European consumer boycott of South Africa in the 1980s may have had some effect, and there are US Federal laws against boycotting Israel (BDS), so i guess someone fears it is effective in some way.
desertrider12 9y ago
Boycotts aren't going to be effective against companies that make basic commodities, because those companies don't interact directly with their consumers. Facebook deals directly with its users and advertising clients. I think consumer-facing companies are a lot more careful to maintain good PR and avoid boycotts in the first place.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Boycotts aren't going to be effective against companies that make basic commodities, because those companies don't interact directly with their consumers. The grape boycott would suggest otherwise.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

post_break 9y ago

They took down gawker by targeting their advertisers. Before the hulk thing their ad revenue was decimated.

piker 9y ago

Moving the NCAA Tournament out of North Carolina changed the bathroom law within a year if memory serves.

macintux 9y ago
Outrage over Indiana's "religious freedom" act led to several threatened pullouts and changes in the law.

bonaldi 9y ago

What do you mean by successful? Usually the point is not to dent revenue, it's to cause behaviour change. And there is a long list of boycotts that have achieved that. http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/boycotts/successfulboycotts.aspx http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/boycotts/successfulboycotts.a...

Bartweiss 9y ago
Looking at that list, I see two main categories. One are outcomes dubiously tied to boycotts - did Sea World change their orca problem to protect revenues, or because they feared legal intervention? The second is indirect outcomes, where the bad actor and the boycott-ee are different. If you threaten a purchaser over a supplier, or a supplier over a purchaser, they can hope to change behavior with no major loss of revenue. It's a very different situation than changing the actual bad behavior. (And in many of these cases the bad behavior was unchanged, some external company just dissociated from it.) There do seem to be some solid successes there, for instance with product safety, food source sustainability, or sweatshop labor. But even there, I'm curious whether the threat of boycott was a primary influence compared to the other activist campaigns around it.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > One are outcomes dubiously tied to boycotts - did Sea World change their orca problem to protect revenues, or because they feared legal intervention? They feared legal intervention due to the public attention drawn by the boycott. Affecting revenue of a targeted actor directly is not the only mechanism by which boycotts are intended to have an effect.
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    I agree that revenue hits are not the only (and usually not the primary) effect of boycotts. But what I'm questioning is "due to the public attention drawn by the boycott." Was the consumer boycott actually a major reason SeaWorld feared legal action? When Blackfish came out, a lot of musicians cancelled planned SeaWorld concerts, which had a visible and immediate revenue impact. Share prices dropped 33%, even though revenue only dropped ~1%; presumably shareholders feared the possibility of legal action. And a range of state and federal Congressmen introduced bills on regarding orca captivity, explicitly citing Blackfish as a motivator. Boycotts are certainly correlated with major corporate and legal changes, but I'm skeptical that they're a significant cause. Examples like SeaWorld make me think that boycotts and policy changes have common causes (e.g. Blackfish), but the boycotts aren't themselves very impactful. The Chicago Tribune had a clever bit about the gun-seller boycotts, arguing that boycotts only matter as a way to keep the topic in the news, and it basically doesn't matter whether people actually participate. That's basically my guess, also. http://www.chicagotribune.com/g00/news/opinion/zorn/ct-perspec-zorn-nra-boycott-fedex-apple-amazon-0228-20180227-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/g00/news/opinion/zorn/ct-persp...

jf 9y ago

Recent successful boycotts include UFW's "no uvas" and the boycotts related to apartheid. Wikipedia also has a longer list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_boycotts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_boycotts

vermontdevil 9y ago

Indiana - NCAA, GenCon etc threatening to leave over the religious freedom law. It worked. Pence was forced to amend it - weakening it. The bus boycott in Alabama by MLK and others. Boycotts can be an effective tool.

indymike 9y ago
The biggest influence was Salesforce's threat to leave after just acquiring Indianapolis based ExactTarget. Benioff was very persuasive along with NCAA, GenCon and most of the Indiana business community.

ebbv 9y ago

Are you for real? How about the freakin' Civil Rights movement? Learn some history, my man.

nabla9 9y ago

There has been research into the effectiveness of consumer boycotts. They can be really effective especially against brands. Nike boycott in the 1990s was really effective. The company’s sales fell in short them, but the damage to the brand was even more significant. Nike had to work a decade to repair the 'child labor' reputation and adopt the global sustainable idea. On the other hand consumer boycotts against products without brand or network externalities have less effect. They suffer from free rider effect. Boycot is essentially subsidizing the consumption of those who use the boycotted product.

panarky 9y ago

The #DeleteUber campaign was remarkably successful.

singularity2001 9y ago
one week ago there was a link here on HN with data that it wasn't successful.

tclancy 9y ago

The NFL got Arizona to recognize Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by refusing to hold a Super Bowl there until they did.

ptaffs 9y ago

It's hard to identify cause and effect, but the large UK/European consumer boycott of South Africa in the 1980s may have had some effect, and there are US Federal laws against boycotting Israel (BDS), so i guess someone fears it is effective in some way.

desertrider12 9y ago

Boycotts aren't going to be effective against companies that make basic commodities, because those companies don't interact directly with their consumers. Facebook deals directly with its users and advertising clients. I think consumer-facing companies are a lot more careful to maintain good PR and avoid boycotts in the first place.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> Boycotts aren't going to be effective against companies that make basic commodities, because those companies don't interact directly with their consumers. The grape boycott would suggest otherwise.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]