Do Boycots Work?

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Zeta

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Tonight, I got into an argument with a friend of mine. He discovered that, supposedly, some people who modded their Wiis to play import titles had their homes raided by "Homeland Security" and had them sued out of house and home.

First of all, can anyone verify this story?

Second of all, his reaction was to boycott the entire videogame industry. I personally, have never seen a boycott work. When you end up boycotting yourself, usually you're only HURTING yourself. A company isn't going to notice a lack of sales unless:

A) A VERY significant amount of people stop buying their products.
B) They know precisely the reason sales are down are because of a policy issue, and not because of marketing or something.


I know people SAY it adds up, but I don't think they realize how large a drop in sales has to be to get them to notice. And even if you do buy from a place you approve of, whose to say that the person you're buying from won't go around and buy a product from someplace you hate? Circulation of monies is inevitable, and there's no way to certainty that your money will not end up in the hands of someone objectionable regardless of your actions.

It's like that boycott that the Baptist church did for Disney. They disliked Disney's policy of allowing "gay days" and gay employees. They boycotted Disney products for 5 years. Ultimately, Disney did not change their policites, and the boycott was called off because the Baptists missed Disneyworld. All they accomplished was depriving themselves of what they wanted to do.

You CAN control my actions on a personal level and try to be a good person. But you can't control other people, even by putting pressures on them.

You can speak with your wallet, but how many people are really going to listen.

Ultimately, if this case is real, it would probably be better for the people hurt in this situation can join together in a class action suit. With this grevious breach of civil liberties, I'm sure the ACLU would be happy to assit. Hell, I would even gladly donate my money towards a lawsuit against Nintendo. Because that might actually accomplish something. Five people not buying Mario Galaxy probably will not.

When I argued this, I got called a condescending, complacent, corporate tool.
 
Zeta said:
Tonight, I got into an argument with a friend of mine. He discovered that, supposedly, some people who modded their Wiis to play import titles had their homes raided by "Homeland Security" and had them sued out of house and home.

First of all, can anyone verify this story?
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If someone can, then Chartoff crazier than I thought.

Second of all, his reaction was to boycott the entire videogame industry. I personally, have never seen a boycott work. When you end up boycotting yourself, usually you're only HURTING yourself. A company isn't going to notice a lack of sales unless:

A) A VERY significant amount of people stop buying their products.
B) They know precisely the reason sales are down are because of a policy issue, and not because of marketing or something.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Boycotts only work if the people you're boycotting KNOW you're boycotting them, and you have a large enough group. BUT, with a large enough group and a message, boycotts HAVE worked.

I know people SAY it adds up, but I don't think they realize how large a drop in sales has to be to get them to notice. And even if you do buy from a place you approve of, whose to say that the person you're buying from won't go around and buy a product from someplace you hate? Circulation of monies is inevitable, and there's no way to certainty that your money will not end up in the hands of someone objectionable regardless of your actions.

It's like that boycott that the Baptist church did for Disney. They disliked Disney's policy of allowing "gay days" and gay employees. They boycotted Disney products for 5 years. Ultimately, Disney did not change their policites, and the boycott was called off because the Baptists missed Disneyworld. All they accomplished was depriving themselves of what they wanted to do.

You CAN control my actions on a personal level and try to be a good person. But you can't control other people, even by putting pressures on them.

You can speak with your wallet, but how many people are really going to listen.

Ultimately, if this case is real, it would probably be better for the people hurt in this situation can join together in a class action suit. With this grevious breach of civil liberties, I'm sure the ACLU would be happy to assit. Hell, I would even gladly donate my money towards a lawsuit against Nintendo. Because that might actually accomplish something. Five people not buying Mario Galaxy probably will not.

When I argued this, I got called a condescending, complacent, corporate tool.
Click to expand...

Enough people, with enough backing, can enact change. Why did the Baptists' boycott of Disneyworld fail? No Baptist REALLY backed it (none of the ones I knew, anyway). And, besides, how many Baptists ACTUALLY GO THERE in a given year? If it's 5, and 5 boycott...what changes? Millions of people still go there. Nazarene's tried something similar, local response was hilarious. Nothing, ultimately, happened.

Boycotts CAN change things. But the problem is finding enough people to actually make them notice. And, as I said earlier, the people you're boycotting have to KNOW you're boycotting them. Just not buying something is only going to make them change their marketing campaign (if you have enough people. If you don't, then nothing happens) and fire Todd in accounting.

But boycotts have worked in the past, though largely they're used to gain public support before suing whoever you're suing for whatever reason. Boycotts are, largely, just a show of support. But they do a good job when done properly.
 
I think the answer is rather plain, they only work when a company is lacking in sales to begin with and there is more then, ah, I'd say . . 40% of potential buyers that are boycotting the stuff. It's never going to work with a company like Disney, because, duh, they're Disney. They're global, and some Baptist Churches going against is like .001% of their buyers? I know, this is exaggerating, but you get the point.

You could relate this to Pokémon and the whole "boycott the new voices" thing that SOVA had for a while. If there was a noticable drop in veiwers (like, from 5 million to 800,000), something would've definitely been done, and I'm not talking about playing more of the "four time a week" premiers. But, when you think about it, how many people who watch the anime actively go on forums? Seeing as the majority of the fanbase are children, probably only about 10%.
 
I have actually tried boycotting before, and trust me, it just won't work. I was stupid at that time, but I have since grown wiser.

What I tried to boycott was a public transport company, but the situation here is that public transport is basically a duopoly between two companies; the company I tried to boycott had a monopoly on the bus and metro services in my area. I ended up making huge detours around the country im my (laughably) futile attempt to avoid them, all the while thinking that it would have some sort of effect; the only effect was that I ended up spending more time and money on public transport while they probably didn't even notice what they were losing, as it was only one person out of the millions of their commuters. And the thing about mass support? Realistically speaking, would most people even care which company's buses or trains took them from point A to B when they just want to do so quickly?

Unless there's mass support, good reasons for it, and practical alternatives to whom you are boycotting, and coupled with campaigning or some other action against whatever that lead to the boycott, boycotts are doomed to fail. A better way, I have since learned, is to rather speak directly with someone who can really help (in my case, the company itself or the agencies that regulate public transport in my country) and let them really understand your concerns. Boycotts don't send any concise message to the people you are against other than saying "I/We hate you", and unless that's just the reason why you boycott them and you want to bring them down, they won't really solve your problems.
 
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Of course--the point is that a real boycott, by which you actually intimidate a company to change something, requires a lot of people, and is also effective.
 
I don't eat Nestlé because they kill children, I let them knows this by writing in.
 
barónmon said:
I don't eat Nestlé because they kill children, I let them knows this by writing in.
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Well... unless you have good alternatives to their company's products, happy suffering yourself.

You will need more people to know about your boycott and get people to rally behind you if you want your boycott to work. They, being a faceless mega-coporation, won't care about just one person like you. They will when there's thousands or millions.
 
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