U.S., UK Study: Boycotts, 'Buycotts' Have Little Impact On Sales

A study conducted by two US universities and another one in UK has shown that boycotts and “buycotts,” which counters boycott, have little long-term impact on sales of targeted brands.

Photo Insert: The temporary increase in sales of Goya products was due to the purchases by non-core customers in Republican areas.

The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (IORMS) reported for SciTechDaily that researchers Jūra Liaukonytė of Cornell University, Anna Tuchman of Northwestern University and Xinrong Zhu of the Imperial College Business School in London conducted a study on the impact of the boycott and “buycott” of Goya products in the US after the company’s CEO endorsed losing Donald Trump in the 2020 US presidential election. The study was published in the journal Marketing Science.

“After the CEO made his statements, Goya sales temporarily increased by 22%,” says Jūra Liaukonytė.

“But these net sales boost fully dissipated within three weeks.” Anna Tuchman added “there was a lack of empirical evidence on buycotts, and we wanted to know, ‘What was the net effect of the boycott versus the buycott movements on sales? How long did the sales impact last, and how did it vary across local markets based on political affiliations?’"

Xinrong Zhu said “Goya’s sales were historically stronger in more Democratic markets. Among consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, Goya is one of the most Democratic brands. Consistent with this, we found that the boycott generated 75% more chatter on social media than the buycott. And related media coverage was overwhelmingly dominated by the boycott narrative.”

Still, the researchers found that the actual sales response went in the opposite direction, which suggested that in the case of political consumerism, social media metrics may not be a good proxy for actual demand.

In fact, the buycott effect dominated the boycott effect, increasing the company’s sales by around 22% on net in the weeks after the scandal. The effect, however, was short-lived.

Tuchman said the temporary increase in sales of Goya products was due to the purchases by non-core customers in Republican areas.

In Democratic counties, the boycott effect outlasted the “buycott” impact as long as eight weeks after the CEO’s endorsement. In short, boycotts and “buycotts” do not last long enough to be significant, business-wise.

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