In the prior blog post in this series, we discussed how corporate social justice stands are not significant drivers of net-positive or -negative consumer purchases (buycotts) or boycotts. In this final blog post of this series, we will explore what corporate and brand activity tended to attract consumer attention and alter purchasing behavior.
It is interesting to note that, in many ways, all of your corporate social justice activities attract attention from consumers. We studied thirteen activities that brands, companies, leaders and employees do that cause consumers to notice and then buycott or boycott. All thirteen activities were selected by between 7% and 10% of U.S. consumers as reasons for buycott purchases, and all thirteen were chosen by between 5% and 9% of respondents as the cause of their boycotts. No one activity was conspicuously more powerful (or weaker) than the others. In short, everything you say and do matters.
Once again, I cannot share all of our data, which is available exclusively to Gartner clients. But I can reveal what activity drove the most buycott purchases and which drove the most boycotting:
- An advertisement from the company or brand was the top answer for what dove “buycott” purchases. One in ten consumers cited advertising as to why they purchased from a brand in support of its social justice stand. Interestingly, ads were the lowest driver of buycott purchases among Gen Zers but the highest among Gen Xers and Boomers.
- Brand’s political contributions to candidates or parties were the top driver of consumer boycotts. Overall, 9% of respondents cited this as their top reason for abandoning a brand from which they previously purchased.