Kill the boycott!
The last days I have followed the discussion on this post and Mark (bicyclemark) wrote this as a comment:
Ill tell you what disturbs me Chris.. despite the boycott, which I wish would have better success, Coke posted an increase in profits last quarter.
This led me to this page on karmabanque which includes this section:
I clicked on the Yahoo! link and came to this page which only links to this news item as a reason to why we should boycott Yahoo.
Doing a bit of googling myself, I found this blog, which looks interesting. This post gave more information about why one should boycott yahoo.
The problem with knowing something others do not – for instance the situation today where Turkey is attacking kurds in Northern Iraq, or whatever Coca-Cola or Yahoo or Starbucks or X western government is doing in developing countries – is that we have a communication problem.
How do we reach others?
How do we make it easier for us to add something to the boycott which makes Yahoo or Coca-Cola or Monsanto or Starbucks feel it more heavily than just yet another customer that chooses another product?
Also, how can we stop boycotting from being such a subversive act? I mean: To normalize it, be something the CEO of a medium-sized company in Italy would do.
bicyclemark
03.44.2008 2:44 pm
Barring some amazing turn of events, I would say that the era of effective boycotts is over. PRoducts are too global, people are too passive, and governments and corporations understand collective human behavior far better than ever before… so they know how to head off what used to be effective campaigns of boycotting. Sure you can still try, but the hydra has many heads, so cutting one or two off won’t change much of anything. Its a different era.. boycotts either dont work or theyre simply not enough.
Raymond
03.55.2008 8:38 am
yes, i agree. so – what options DO we have?
what is a successful campaign anno 2008 like?
my 2 captcha words: ethic to