Consumer boycott

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A consumer boycott (or purchase boycott or buyer boycott) is a means by consumers to influence the behavior of companies in the long term.

In the case of a consumer boycott, a person's purchase decision is no longer based solely on the satisfaction of individual needs (cf. Müller et al. 2006). Rather, the consumer makes his decision morally or politically motivated and specifically avoids products and companies. The choice of product should support those companies whose corporate policy is in line with the basic beliefs of the consumer. Companies that act contrary to the expectations of the consumer and, for example, do not behave in a socially or environmentally compatible manner, should be punished by lost sales and, if possible, induced to rethink and steer. If consumers use their buying behavior in a targeted manner, a large part of the market power ultimately rests with them. For this reason Smith propagated consumer sovereignty as a new marketing paradigm as early as the 1980s . With every purchase or non-purchase, the consumer influences the success of the company and thus its future decisions.

Definition of the consumer boycott

Following Friedman (1999), Hoffmann (2008, p. 13) speaks of a consumer boycott when "activists (protest groups, non-governmental organizations, etc.) convince potential boycott participants (consumers) to make use of their consumer sovereignty by Refrain from buying certain products from the target company in order to express their displeasure with their behavior (expressive goal) and / or to try to induce them to change their behavior (instrumental goal). "

Goals of the consumer boycott

Depending on the overall goal, Friedman distinguishes two forms of boycott:

  • Instrumental boycotts aim to achieve a change in the behavior of the target object (i.e. the company). The deprecated condition and behavior should be changed.
  • Expressive boycotts, on the other hand, express the frustration of the boycotters.

Trigger of the consumer boycott

Analyzes of historical boycotts show that the appearance of the expressive form is increasing and that its triggers change (e.g. Friedman 1999). While boycotts used to be primarily aimed at achieving political or moral goals (for example the Montgomery bus boycott to abolish racial segregation), they are now more and more the result of socially incompatible behavior by companies that often directly serve the interests of employees or consumers concern (e.g. layoffs, cf. among others Klein et al. 2004). Current German examples are the boycotts against Electrolux in 2006 and against Nokia in 2008 (see below).

Boycott participation

A consumer boycott can only develop its effect if it arouses strong media interest (media-oriented) and / or as many consumers as possible take part. Hoffmann (2008) suggests a framework that can be used to explain the participation of individual consumers in a boycott. Accordingly, the willingness to boycott is triggered by some form of consternation. The consumer then weighs up promoters (e.g. control beliefs) and inhibitors (e.g. free-riding) of boycott participation. Boycott participation arises from the interplay of different manifestations of affectedness, promoters and inhibitors. The underlying mechanisms of boycott participation have so far been empirically investigated for the following triggers: environmentally damaging behavior, unjustified price increases or socially incompatible plant closings. In the German-speaking area, participation in the boycott of AEG / Electrolux products was examined in particular (cf. Müller et al. 2006; Hoffmann 2008). This protest came about as a reaction to the planned relocation of the Nuremberg plant to Eastern Europe.

Examples of a consumer boycott

Brent Spar (1995)

see main article Brent Spar

The call to boycott the Shell oil company because of its planned sinking of the Brent Spar oil platform in 1995 was the most successful consumer boycott to date. Around 50% of the population responded to the call by environmental groups to avoid Shell petrol stations in future. Companies such as the Mülheim Tengelmann Group also took part in the campaign and asked the almost 200,000 employees at home and abroad to avoid Shell filling stations when refueling their private cars. Guido Westerwelle , then FDP general secretary , arranged that all service vehicles of the party headquarters were no longer refueled with Shell petrol. Radio stations called on people to avoid Shell petrol stations.

AEG / Electrolux (2006)

The boycott of AEG / Electrolux products in 2006 was declared because the Swedish company Electrolux was planning to relocate its German subsidiary AEG to Eastern Europe. The relocation of the plant resulted in the loss of numerous jobs in Germany.

Nokia (2008)

Similar to the boycott against Electrolux in 2006, the boycott against Nokia was about relocating a German subsidiary to Eastern Europe. Again, numerous jobs in Germany were affected.

RWE / Innogy (2018)

The electricity company RWE is planning to clear the Hambach Forest , which is why consumers have been called on by environmental organizations to switch electricity providers. Since it is much more cumbersome to change the electricity provider than to avoid a certain petrol station brand (see above), it is now difficult to assess the long-term consequences these calls will have on the electricity company RWE and other coal-fired electricity providers.

Legal situation in Germany

In a landmark judgment of January 15, 1958, the so-called Lüth judgment , the Federal Constitutional Court made it clear that calling for a boycott is a permissible exercise of freedom of expression under Article 5, Paragraph 1 of the Basic Law , unless a competitor becomes a boycott Calling competitors.

criticism

Apart from the companies concerned themselves, other critics also appeared in various boycotts. The Shell boycott (see above) was criticized to the extent that it also hit the leaseholders of the Shell petrol stations, who had no influence whatsoever on the decision of the top management and, under certain circumstances, might not even agree. In this way, not only the responsible corporate management is hit, but also an “innocent” group of people who belong to the proverbial “little people”.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Protests against Shell expand , in Die Welt , June 21, 1995
  2. ^ Wave of protests against Shell , in Die Welt , June 14, 1995
  3. ↑ The very personal coal exit , in Die Tageszeitung , October 1, 2018
  4. ↑ Federal Constitutional Court: judgment of January 15, 1958 (1 BvR 400/51)
  5. ↑ http://www.berliner-zeitung.de/archiv/zahlreichen-autofahrer-boykottieren-konzern-tankstellen-berliner-paechter-fuehlen-sich-als-pruegelknaben,10810590,8965996.html

literature

  • Monroe Friedman (1999): Consumer Boycotts: Effecting Change through the Marketplace and the Media . New York.
  • Jill Gabrielle Klein, N. Craig Smith, Andrew John: Why we Boycott: Consumer Motivations for Boycott Participation . in: Journal of Marketing , 2004, 68 (3), 92-109.
  • Stefan Hoffmann (2008): Boycott Participation. Development and validation of an explanatory model through a fully integrated research design Gabler, ISBN 978-3834914354
  • Stefan Hoffmann (2011): Anti-Consumption as a Means of Saving Jobs, European Journal of Marketing, 45 (11/12), 1702–1714.
  • Thomas Löding, Kay O. Schulze, Jutta Sundermann: Group, criticism, campaign! Ideas and Practice for Social Movements . VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-89965-199-5
  • Stefan Müller, Katha Wittig, Stefan Hoffmann: Empirical Findings on the Consumer Boycott. The AEG / Electrolux case . Dresden Contributions to Business Administration No. 116/06, 2006
  • N. Craig Smith: Consumer Boycotts and Consumer Sovereignty . in: European Journal of Marketing, 1987, 21 (5), 7-19.
  • Karoline Boehm: Boycott of goods !! From industrial action to attack on the image . In: Schönberger, Klaus; Sutter, Ove (Ed.): "Come down, get in line!" A short history of the forms of protest of social movements. Association A, Berlin 2009, 148–163.
  • Mara Brede: »Apartheid kills - boycott South Africa!«. Posters of the West German anti-apartheid movement . In: Zeithistorische Forschungen 13 (2016), pp. 348–359.