With word of Google censoring its new Chinese Search portal, there are calls for a boycott of the world's largest search engine and Internet ad-seller.
Boycotts have been all the rage. Many websites call for boycotting Walmart, Amazon.com, and others as punishment for various sins. So pervasive is the boycott mentality that if everyone followed all the demands for boycotts out there, you'd be able to buy nothing from a national chain.
The sad part is that all this boycotting does little good. A lot of energy is spent on colossal boycott campaigns that in the end achieve nothing, other than making the advocates of the boycott look ineffective or at worse petty.
This isn't to say that people can't choose to not go to a store they don't like, but if you're going to make a federal issue of it, you have to follow some rules.
Rules for Boycotts
1) Have a Good Reason
A boycott must have a good reason behind it, more importantly, it must be something that would get people up in arms enough to inconvenience themselves over it.
Reasons that don’t work would include things like "XYZ company gave $X to support…" Corporate appropriations don't excite people. In fact, every Corporation supports controversial causes, due to the nature of the people who populate our nation's board rooms. Another reason not to boycott is internal policies like Domestic Partner benefits. Those are not only unlikely to change, but really are hard to get excited about.
I think that a recent successful example is the boycott of NBC and Burlington Coat Factory (the network and prime sponsor respectively of "The Book of Daniel.") The show's blasphemous content served to galvanize social conservatives around a boycott.
If the reason doesn't play well, then people aren't going to become involved or they'll lose focus and the boycott will go bust. Consider the 1990s boycott of Disney that had no impact on the international entertainment monolith.
2) Choose a Good Target
Whoever you boycott should be vulnerable to the use of the boycott. NBC, as an old media company who was already losing money on "The Book of Daniel" is a prime example. Trying to boycott everything from China is utterly ineffective.
3) Set a Goal and Make Sure the Boycott Will Accomplish It
What do you want to happen from the boycott? Set an achievable goal and make your focus accomplishing it. The goal of getting a show cancelled was easy enough with NBC. Walmart faced a boycott from the Catholic League because a search for the word "Christmas" brought up a "Holiday page" while Kwanzaa and Hanukkah brought up specific items immediately. The boycott ended quickly and painlessly when Walmart changed its website. Also during the Christmas, several stores added "Merry Christmas" to their ads and renamed "Holiday Trees" to "Christmas Trees" to avoid the public relations problem.
Of course, the goal can sometimes be punishment for its own sake. A few hundred million lost in revenue and a drop in a Stock Price can sometimes send a shockwave through boardrooms that outraged letters don't.
However, boycotting Walmart or another business because of labor or immigration law violations misses the point. If laws are being violated, pressure needs to be brought to bear on government officials who've sworn to uphold the law and aren't.
4) Think of the Boycotters
In calling for a boycott, real human needs must be considered. For example, calling for a boycott of the only hospital for a hundred miles around because it performs abortions would be foolish as most people really have no choice where they go in an Emergency.
If you want people to join a boycott, particularly one where the goal is hurting the company in its wallet book, you have to consider the people you're asking to join the boycott. If they're in a town where Walgreens is the only place some things they need can be bought, asking them to boycott the store forever is unreasonable. This why many boycotts lose steam over time.
To avoid this, set a limited boycott for a set period of time. While webmasters who depend on Google for a supplemental income or even as their full-time income won't be able to dump Adsense forever, what about a one week boycott?
If realistic goals are set, and the needs of people are considered, we'll have a lot less boycotts and more of them will be successful.
Adam Graham is the author of the Screwtape Report which is available at http://www.lulu.com/content/165415. He was the 2000 Montana State Coordinator of the Alan Keyes Presidential Campaign. He and his wife live in Boise, Idaho. He is a columnist for AmericanDaily.com, RenewAmerica.us, TheConservativeVoice.com. and Conservatown.com. You can visit his blog at http://www.adamsweb.us/blog You can also subscribe to his nightly podcast at http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/blgH
