Boycott of pro spending cuts retailers takes off
boycott35 | 30.10.2010 07:35 | Public sector cuts | Social Struggles
We posted on Sunday about our plans to stop shopping with retailers whose senior managers publicly champion George Osborne's cruel, ideologically-driven spending cuts.
This month, we're targeting ASDA, Boots and Mothercare for boycott. Thousands of people have turned up to read and to join the campaign.
This month, we're targeting ASDA, Boots and Mothercare for boycott. Thousands of people have turned up to read and to join the campaign.
The chance to hit pro-cuts businesses where they'll feel it is catching on. Consumer boycotts can be effective, especially in an online age where reputation control is painful for corporates.
Only ten days after business leaders signed a Telegraph letter backing Osborne's cuts, consumers are redefining their notions of ethical business on the local scene.
Ethical business cannot, by definition, cheerlead a widely-criticised cuts programme that threatens jobs, economic recovery and retail and local commerce. Companies with brandnames that become synonymous with unethical business have good reason to feel the fear.
Ethical consumer groups point to - with considerable justification - a proud history of successful buyer pressure. Centuries-old anti-slavery sugar boycotts, the anti-fur trade campaigns of recent decades, consumer boycotts of battery-farmed animals and eggs - ultimately, all had profound effects on public perception and corporate reputation. A sulky corporate response goes down like a cup of the cold proverbial in the viral era.
Coke, for example, will never shake its sniffy 'we want people to drink our soda, not play with it,' response to legendary videos of guys blowing up diet coke by dropping mentos in it. BP will always be a dopey-looking Tony Hayward, corporate recklessness and rotting fish and bird cadavers. Trafigura's appalling efforts to shut down news of its poisoning of innocent people still echoes as corporate history's loudest online backfire.
There's also reason to hope that a boycott will hit the bottom line. Corporates rubbish consumer boycotts and point to healthy stock prices as evidence, but stock prices ain't always the tale. Academics Phillip Leslie and Larry Chavis ran a study about the effect of a consumer boycott of French wine in the US when the French refused to fight in Iraq in 2003.
Chavis and Leslie didn't look at stock prices for French wine. They took point-of-sale scanner data from supermarkets and merchandisers - the 'hard measures of consumer purchasing behaviour" that Stanford News reports. Leslie and Chavis concluded that the boycott meant French wine companies may have lost over a $1oom in US wine sales.
Those are the sorts of numbers pro-cuts businesses need to keep in mind - those numbers, and polls that suggest the majority of people don't support Osborne's cuts, or think cuts proposals are too aggressive, or unfair, or too much too fast. Government rhetoric is one thing. Voter response to it is another. Smart business will be looking at polls very closely about now and making smart calls about public mood - and the fact that Osborne's assault crosses the shopping classes.
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Only ten days after business leaders signed a Telegraph letter backing Osborne's cuts, consumers are redefining their notions of ethical business on the local scene.
Ethical business cannot, by definition, cheerlead a widely-criticised cuts programme that threatens jobs, economic recovery and retail and local commerce. Companies with brandnames that become synonymous with unethical business have good reason to feel the fear.
Ethical consumer groups point to - with considerable justification - a proud history of successful buyer pressure. Centuries-old anti-slavery sugar boycotts, the anti-fur trade campaigns of recent decades, consumer boycotts of battery-farmed animals and eggs - ultimately, all had profound effects on public perception and corporate reputation. A sulky corporate response goes down like a cup of the cold proverbial in the viral era.
Coke, for example, will never shake its sniffy 'we want people to drink our soda, not play with it,' response to legendary videos of guys blowing up diet coke by dropping mentos in it. BP will always be a dopey-looking Tony Hayward, corporate recklessness and rotting fish and bird cadavers. Trafigura's appalling efforts to shut down news of its poisoning of innocent people still echoes as corporate history's loudest online backfire.
There's also reason to hope that a boycott will hit the bottom line. Corporates rubbish consumer boycotts and point to healthy stock prices as evidence, but stock prices ain't always the tale. Academics Phillip Leslie and Larry Chavis ran a study about the effect of a consumer boycott of French wine in the US when the French refused to fight in Iraq in 2003.
Chavis and Leslie didn't look at stock prices for French wine. They took point-of-sale scanner data from supermarkets and merchandisers - the 'hard measures of consumer purchasing behaviour" that Stanford News reports. Leslie and Chavis concluded that the boycott meant French wine companies may have lost over a $1oom in US wine sales.
Those are the sorts of numbers pro-cuts businesses need to keep in mind - those numbers, and polls that suggest the majority of people don't support Osborne's cuts, or think cuts proposals are too aggressive, or unfair, or too much too fast. Government rhetoric is one thing. Voter response to it is another. Smart business will be looking at polls very closely about now and making smart calls about public mood - and the fact that Osborne's assault crosses the shopping classes.
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Comments
Hide the following 4 comments
Tell them why you are boycotting them...
30.10.2010 08:36
Here are the e-mail addresses for the top people in ASDA, Boots and Mothercare:
ASDA
Andy Clarke, Chief Executive
Boots
Stefano Pessina, Executive Chairman
Mothercare
Ben Gordon, Managing Director
How about e-mailing them to say why you are boycotting their companies?
informer
Who to target
30.10.2010 10:36
Will Adderley
CEO, Dunelm Group
Robert Bensoussan
Chairman, L.K. Bennett
Andy Bond
Chairman, ASDA
Ian Cheshire
Chief Executive, Kingfisher
Gerald Corbett
Chairman, SSL International, moneysupermarket.com, Britvic
Peter Cullum
Executive Chairman, Towergate
Tej Dhillon
Chairman and CEO, Dhillon Group
Philip Dilley
Chairman, Arup
Charles Dunstone
Chairman, Carphone Warehouse Group
Chairman, TalkTalk Telecom Group
Warren East
CEO, ARM Holdings
Gordon Frazer
Managing Director, Microsoft UK
Sir Christopher Gent
Non-Executive Chairman, GlaxoSmithKline
Ben Gordon
Chief Executive, Mothercare
Anthony Habgood
Chairman, Whitbread
Chairman, Reed Elsevier
Aidan Heavey
Chief Executive, Tullow Oil
Neil Johnson
Chairman, UMECO
Nick Leslau
Chairman, Prestbury Group
Ian Livingston
CEO, BT Group
Ruby McGregor-Smith
CEO, MITIE Group
Rick Medlock
CFO, Inmarsat; Non-Executive Director lovefilms.com, The Betting Group
John Nelson
Chairman, Hammerson
Stefano Pessina
Executive Chairman, Alliance Boots
Nick Prest
Chairman, AVEVA
Nick Robertson
CEO, ASOS
Sir Stuart Rose
Chairman, Marks & Spencer
Tim Steiner
CEO, Ocado
Andrew Sukawaty
Chairman and CEO, Inmarsat
Michael Turner
Executive Chairman, Fuller, Smith and Turner
Moni Varma
Chairman, Veetee
Paul Walker
Chief Executive, Sage
Paul Walsh
Chief Executive, Diageo
Robert Walters
CEO, Robert Walters
Joseph Wan
Chief Executive, Harvey Nichols
Bob Wigley
Chairman, Expansys, Stonehaven Associates, Yell Group
Simon Wolfson
Chief Executive, Next
Info
What if you support the cuts?
30.10.2010 20:02
Lemon sequence hoof
They are scum even if you support the cuts.
30.10.2010 23:45
This is a campaign that should have broad support from all sides of the political spectrum.
anon