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The Boycott Formula - How conservatives can restrain left-wing corporate culture
City Journal ^ | 3 Nov, 2023 | Christopher F. Rufo

Posted on 11/04/2023 6:35:48 AM PDT by MtnClimber

Conservatives have recently scored surprise victories against left-wing corporate culture, with successful pressure campaigns against a trio of blue-chip companies—Disney, Target, and Bud Light—that have revealed the potential of a culture-war tactic once considered the Left’s stock-in-trade: the consumer boycott.

The campaigns are notable because they drew blood, figuratively speaking. Disney, which promised to embed radical gender theory in its children’s programming, watched its stock price plummet and signaled a retreat from the culture war. Target, which featured “breast binders” as part of its seasonal “Pride Collection,” saw a decline in sales and promised to “pause, adapt, and learn.” Bud Light featured a transgender “influencer” in an advertising campaign, sending its reputation and sales into freefall.

What lessons can be drawn from these examples? And how can conservatives use boycotts to fight left-wing cultural capture?

To answer these questions, let’s consult the academic literature on consumer boycotts. First, it’s important to understand the genesis—or, in narrative terms, the “inciting incident”—of a potential boycott. Research suggests that in successful boycotts, activists often highlight a firm’s “egregious act,” a transgression of some deeply held value among consumers, and channel the resulting “negative arousal” into a boycott. To expand participation, activists must create a sense that partaking in the boycott provides an opportunity to “make a difference,” change company behavior, and join in a widely shared cause. The research also suggests that boycotts must begin with a sense of optimism, as the “perceived efficacy” of a campaign significantly determines its likelihood of success.

Next, the mechanics. Northwestern University professor Brayden King collected data from 133 boycott campaigns conducted between 1990 and 2005 and used statistical analysis to identify which tactics are most correlated with success. King argues that boycott campaigns succeed through “market disruption,” targeting a firm’s stock price, and “mediated disruption,” targeting a firm’s public reputation. These two strategies are mutually reinforcing, as economic damage can lead to greater media coverage, and greater media coverage of a company’s difficulties can lead to economic damage.

King’s paper proposes that boycott leaders consider two factors: target selection and activist tactics. The data from King’s study suggest that the ideal target is a large company with a high-status reputation and, to a lesser extent, one without access to “slack resources”—what another scholar defines as “actual or potential resources which allow an organization to adapt successfully to internal pressures for adjustment or to external pressures for change in policy.” Disney, Target, and Bud Light all fit this bill. Each is a large company with a carefully cultivated public reputation, and each was somewhat vulnerable economically: Disney has had ongoing financial problems, Target operates on razor-thin margins, and Bud Light is easily substituted with other products. Associating those firms with gender theory, breast binders, and transgender activism, respectively, stood in stark contrast with each firm’s status quo ante, creating the opportunity for a reversal and a successful boycott.

On the activist side, research suggests that the most important determinant of a successful boycott is driving sustained media coverage, with celebrity endorsements and public demonstrations providing effective multipliers for this form of “mediated disruption.” The data also indicate an additional benefit to having a large, professionally staffed activist organization lead the boycott. These “social movement organizations,” which have proliferated on the left, help garner media coverage, recruit high-profile allies, pressure corporate executives, and orchestrate on-the-ground protests to create additional leverage. Conservatives have not yet established effective pressure groups, but even decentralized social-media activists can force a firm into a negative financial and media cycle, such as happened to Bud Light, which suffered a $400 million decline in revenues following its transgender controversy.

The good news is that conservatives have a promising method for restraining left-wing corporate culture. The recent boycott campaigns against Disney, Target, and Bud Light demonstrate that aligning social-media activists with mass-market outlets, most importantly Fox News and The Daily Wire, can shape public perceptions and convert a firm’s “egregious act” into significant financial and reputational damage. Moving forward, conservatives need to develop professional activist organizations to formalize, direct, and sustain “protracted siege” campaigns against recalcitrant corporations. This combination—social-media agitation, mass-media amplification, and formalized pressure groups—has the potential to be enormously effective.

Conservatives face challenges. First, they must organize. Nonprofits such as the New Tolerance Campaign, American Principles Project, and Consumers’ Research are starting to build the infrastructure for corporate-pressure campaigns, but more needs to be done. Conservatives also must discover whether corporate commitments to critical race theory, gender ideology, and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” are superficial or deeply held. The basic formula for determining a boycott’s success is whether “economic pressure” and “image pressure” are stronger than a firm’s “policy commitment.”

In the years ahead, conservatives will be able to measure these forces more accurately. If American companies are using left-wing ideology for cynical and fleeting purposes, conservatives could continue to secure victories in the corporate sphere. If, on the other hand, corporations are authentically committed to left-wing cultural ideology, and these commitments are cemented in corporate life through countervailing pressure, bureaucratic necessity, and civil-rights law, conservatives will need to fight even harder to tip the scales.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society
KEYWORDS: agitprop; wokeism
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1 posted on 11/04/2023 6:35:49 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

It would seem like corporations would know better than to offend a large percentage of their customer base. There must be people who think EVERYONE is woke.


2 posted on 11/04/2023 6:36:00 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

“First, they must organize.”

Conservative organizations can and will be targeted.

In the case of Bud Light, it is a case of simple revulsion.

New small businesses must be created to create true consumer choice.


3 posted on 11/04/2023 6:49:38 AM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: MtnClimber

“There must be people who think EVERYONE is woke.”

Living in DC, NYC and LA can give people an incorrect view of the USA.


4 posted on 11/04/2023 6:52:13 AM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: MtnClimber

It is clearly possible to brew a better beer than Bud Light.

My mother drank much better beer for many decades.


5 posted on 11/04/2023 6:55:05 AM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: Brian Griffin

They live and work in a DEI bubble. Not even executives that think this woke crap is bs will standup and say it so its just easier for them to stay silent and let the woke marketing types self destruct.


6 posted on 11/04/2023 6:55:33 AM PDT by Maelstorm (Free is just another word for someone else has to pay.)
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To: MtnClimber

I just saw a commercial of an possible male who says, “my parents tell me to quit trying to grow a mustache. I tell them to quit using wifi.”. Apparently this was trans pandering. Whatever the product was I wouldn’t buy it.


7 posted on 11/04/2023 7:02:00 AM PDT by Gen.Blather (Wait! I said that out loud? )
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To: MtnClimber

My boycott list is getting longer, too. It’s amazing how great Capitalism IS. If one vendor/manufacturer puts a foot wrong… go down the street, because for sure some other guy is selling the same thing and you don’t have to do without. And so what if you do??!!


8 posted on 11/04/2023 7:02:59 AM PDT by SMARTY ("A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies." Tennyson)
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To: MtnClimber
I would add another factor: Understanding the boycott from both sides. For example, during McGovern's presidential bid in the 70's, Caesar Chavez led the Lettuce Pickers to a strike against the growers. McGovern, in a photo op with Chavez, said he would boycott lettuce and not eat another salad until the union won its strike. One of my colleagues, a Sociologist, came into my office claiming that the boycott was a great move for the workers. I told her McGovern did exactly the wrong thing. She was shocked. The resulting conversation went like this:

Me: If people go along with the boycott, what will happen to the price of lettuce?

Her: It will fall.

Me: I agree. And given the lower price, what happens to the growers' ability to give a wage increase?

Her: (Long pause...) It will go down.

Me: Now, what would happen if McGovern had said: "I'm going to eat 5 salads a day until the strike is over and I want you to also." What would happen to the price of lettuce?

Her: (Another long pause) It would go up.

Me: With the higher price of lettuce, the cost of letting it rot in the field unpicked goes up, right?

Her: Yes.

Me: At the same time, the higher price not only induces the growers to settle more quickly, it gives them the funds to pay a higher wage.

Her: (Longer pause) Well, that may be, but I don't believe it!

And she stomped out of my office.

Moral: Don't confuse Liberals with the facts...it just pisses them off.

9 posted on 11/04/2023 7:04:27 AM PDT by econjack
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To: MtnClimber
First, they must organize.

If an organization set up the Bud Light, Target or Disney boycotts then the companies and cultural leftists could have come against them. There would have been slander and libel lawsuits against them, protests at the homes of the leadership, and death threats against them and their children.

A leaderless revolution gives them no target. It is very hard to to make threats against a cultural zeitgeist. It's like using a tennis racket to swat at a swarm of mosquitoes.

10 posted on 11/04/2023 7:12:00 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (Democrats' version of MAGA: Making America the Gulag Archipelago. Now with "Formal Deprogramming")
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To: All

Yes, conservatives were on-board.....but these high profile companies did it to themselves:

<><>Disney aimed radical gender theory at kids, and stupidly re-worked the beloved Snow White.
<><>Target featured gay merch in its supremely stupid “Pride Collection.”
<><> Bud Light’s inane transgender in an ad, sent its top-rated sales into oblivion.


11 posted on 11/04/2023 7:13:50 AM PDT by Liz (“The only time Biden gets his hands dirty is when he’s taking cash from foreign countries." Trump)
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To: MtnClimber

.


12 posted on 11/04/2023 7:17:02 AM PDT by sauropod (The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly.)
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To: Brian Griffin

Why buy Bud Light when I can get it from the faucet in my kitchen.


13 posted on 11/04/2023 7:23:27 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

As a conservative consumer, it has been an incremental process. One cause at a time. That way it is not overwhelming.

* Target
* Disney/ESPN
* Bud (I don’t drink alcohol anyway)
* Costco (they give a lot of corporate money to ONLY Democrats, so please stop feeding them)
* Pro sports, and increasingly, college sports. Stop giving your money, time, and influence to Liberal causes. Put your time toward something Godly and productive.
* Movies/TV - the major studios are major purveyors of societal decay

Instead:

* Develop hobbies (music, fitness, remodeling, lawn and garden, etc.)
* Get involved in your church
* Volunteer to worthy causes
* Take a class, or at least learn something

Both lists are FAR from complete. Do what works for you. But get started. Taking action develops your mindset.


14 posted on 11/04/2023 7:53:15 AM PDT by Eccl 10:2 (Prov 3:5 --- "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding")
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To: MtnClimber

All-State Insurance with the transgender “ woman “ is boycott-able.

So is T-Mobile, with the 2 gay singing neighbors.


15 posted on 11/04/2023 7:55:03 AM PDT by BrexitBen
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To: MtnClimber; All
"It would seem like corporations would know better than to offend a large percentage of their customer base. There must be people who think EVERYONE is woke."

I surmise that some corporations have been threatened with boycott if they don't comply with pro-LGBT optics.

16 posted on 11/04/2023 7:57:16 AM PDT by Amendment10
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To: Brian Griffin
It is clearly possible to brew a better beer than Bud Light.

There's plenty of better brews than Bud Light. It's all about the marketing and branding.

Check out Shiner Beers. I think your mother would approve.

17 posted on 11/04/2023 7:59:43 AM PDT by Tommy Revolts
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To: SMARTY

I used to keep a ban list but dumped it when it reached about 165 pages. Some were posted on FR through the years.


18 posted on 11/04/2023 8:00:58 AM PDT by bgill
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To: MtnClimber

blackrock is driving this

they own large blocks are most major corporations

they put directors on the board pushing this crap


19 posted on 11/04/2023 8:05:15 AM PDT by joshua c (to disrupt the system, we must disrupt our lives, cut the cable tv)
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To: MtnClimber

The activists are pissing in the wind if they don’t go after BlackRock.

BlackRock: Masters of the Universe

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4171693/posts


20 posted on 11/04/2023 8:11:51 AM PDT by matthew fuller (PEDOCRAT Cho Bye-Dun, triator forever.)
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