Two-thirds of UK consumers in their thirties and forties – with a spending power of £4.5billion ($6.3bn) a week – are thought to have boycotted brands because of ‘unethical behaviour’, according to a survey.
Interviews with 1000 consumers this summer revealed that all but five per cent of those who boycott claim never to give back their custom, with ten per cent saying they went on to lobby ‘guilty’ companies with petitions and letters.
The research, carried out by the Quentin Bell Organisation (QBO), a public relations firm, shows that women are twice as likely to be consumer activists as men. QBO said the study showed men were ‘more cynical’ than women on ethical matters, with more than a fifth of males prepared to carry on using a company regardless of its actions.
Younger consumers in their twenties were much less likely to boycott a company they were dissatisfied with than those in their thirties and forties. Only a third of those questioned said they had boycotted a company for doing something ‘unethical’.
QBO chairman Trevor Morris said the figures suggested that consumers in their thirties and forties are ‘the most aware of their own value as customers and their ability to make or break a company’. He added: ‘Today’s so-called teenage rebels, on the other hand, probably won’t use their consumer power to influence behaviour until their thirties.’
The study also shows that 50 per cent of the sample believed boycotting was the most effective way of making a company change its practices.
A number of surveys of UK consumers have shown fairly widespread support for the idea of boycotting products and companies. But a Co-operative Bank study last year found this was not generally reflected in buying patterns (EP2, issue 6).
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