Boycotts of businesses such as In-N-Out and Nike are popular in the Trump era, but do they work?

For many consumers in the Donald Trump era, it’s shop ʼtil politics makes you stop.

Calls to boycott businesses are increasingly prevalent, if not more popular, among liberals and conservatives. The California Democratic Party chairman was among those urging a boycott of In-N-Out in August after the iconic fast-food chain gave $25,000 to the California Republican Party.

Conservatives responded with social media posts of their In-N-Out orders. But many on the right burned their sneakers and cut swooshes from their socks after Nike in September launched an ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who took a knee during the national anthem in protest of racial inequality.

Companies can face boycotts from both ends. Trump critics called for a boycott of Nordstrom for selling Ivanka Trump products, only to face conservatives’ wrath when the retailing giant pulled those products, citing poor sales.

Company leaders’ comments are enough to trigger a boycott. In 2017, the hashtag #boycottunderarmour trended on Twitter after Kevin Plank, an executive with the maker of athletic apparel, said Trump was a “real asset” for the country.

Business boycotts aren’t new. But there have been more boycott calls on both sides since Trump became president, said Maurice Schweitzer, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School who attributes the increase to an increasingly polarized political climate.

Many so-called boycotts aren’t actually boycotts, but threats fueled by “a few thousand people saying, ‘I can’t believe this company is doing this thing,’ and going on public channels to make hay about a boycott,” said Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters For America, a liberal organization that routinely calls out conservative media.

Just the threat of a boycott, Carusone said, can be enough to influence image-conscious companies that invested heavily in a brand and don’t want to spend millions of dollars fixing it.

Social media bolsters boycotts. “Many companies have (social media) channels themselves. You have an easy way to connect to these companies,” said Carusone, whose organization has pressured companies to stop sponsoring Fox News personality Sean Hannity, among others.

“Politics is so broken; people feel impotent and powerless – you call your congressman and nothing happens,” Carusone added. “There’s something really satisfying and empowering about leveraging your power as a consumer, especially when a multi-billion dollar company replies – it recognizes that you exist.”

‘Outrage machine’

Founded in 2012, Nashville, Tennessee-based 2nd Vote rates business on a one-to-five scale based on their perceived friendliness or hostility to conservative political views and shares those ratings online.

Robert Kuykendall, the executive director of 2nd Vote, said his organization researches companies’ charitable donations and other records, sends letters to companies about their ratings and lists companies’ contact information so conservatives can engage them.

While 2nd Vote supports conservative companies, “what we want companies and we want our followers to understand is that being neutral is a good thing,” Kuykendall said. “If you’re spending money at a neutral company, your dollars are not supporting (liberal) causes or political activism.”

Carusone said he focuses on those who make hate and bigotry “part of their business model,” citing conservative commentators Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh as examples.

“If that’s in your business model to do that type of stuff, it needs to be corrected,” he said. “Also, is the company the most appropriate target? If someone at a network met those criteria but you never asked the network to respond, it doesn’t make sense to boycott.”

He added: “You don’t go after a company just because you don’t like something one time. Then you’re just an outrage machine and you’re not accomplishing anything … you want to strategically use consumer power.”

Industries like to maintain equilibrium, so when Apple removed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ InfoWars content from its app store, other tech companies followed suit, Carusone said.

Schweitzer is skeptical about whether boycotts work.

“In some cases, it’s very costly for companies,” referring to the Virginia restaurant that kicked out White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “Most people move on or business picks up.”

Nike’s stock price fell after the Kaepernick campaign launched. But its sales rose 31 percent over Labor Day, and the stock price ended Friday trading at $85.55, up from $79.60 on Sept. 4.

“It’s very difficult to sustain boycotts over a long period time,” Schweitzer said. “There’s so much noise coming in and so many companies to boycott that people lose interest. People don’t like being inconvenienced that much over time. People go with what’s more convenient rather than taking a principled stand.”