Boycott or Buycott?: Internal Politics and Consumer Choices

Abstract

Do political tensions affect economic relations? In particular, does politics significantly affect consumer choices? Firms are often threatened by consumer boycotts that pretend to modify their business strategies and behavior. Sometimes these are caused by general political conflicts. The main objective of the paper is to study the consequences of political conflicts between Spain and Catalonia (a region of Spain) and the subsequent boycott calls on sales of Catalan sparkling wine (cava) in the aggregated Spanish market and also in different regions of the country. We use data from sales of sparkling wine in supermarkets and similar outlets. To determine with precision the boycott period we use data on the number of news about the issue that appeared in the main national Spanish daily newspapers. Although we present some preliminary evidence that the boycott calls affected the market share of Catalan cava in Spain, the results of our main econometric exercise indicate that, once we control for the time trends of the different varieties of sparkling wine, the boycott effects cease to be significant in the aggregate Spanish market. This does not necessarily mean that the boycott calls did not have any significant impact, because we actually find that the effects are very different in each regional market. As a matter of fact, our results indicate that the insignificant impact of the boycott calls at the Spanish aggregate level is a consequence of the combination of a negative impact of the boycott on sales of Catalan cava in some regions and the opposite effect in the Catalan market.

COVID-19 Impact on Buying Behaviour

“…Political consumer nationalism is further classified into two types: boycott and buycott. Nationalist boycott refers to punishing brands and businesses for their unfavourable behaviour, while nationalist buycott refers to rewarding businesses for their favourable behaviour (Cuadras-Morató & Raya, 2016; Neilson, 2010). This concept was further expanded by Castelló and Mihelj (2018); according to the authors, nationalist boycott involves a refusal to purchase products tied to a particular nation, while nationalist buycott refers to buying domestic goods at the expense of foreign goods in general.…”

Impact of consumer animosity, boycott participation, boycott motivation, and product judgment on purchase readiness or aversion of Kurdish consumers in Iraq

“…Germany's push to implement austerity measures during the Euro crisis caused Italian and Spanish consumers to show a negative reaction for German products and to prefer to purchase local products instead (De Nisco et al ., 2016). In Spain, there were calls for boycotts against the purchase of Catalan wine in other territories of Spain because of political tensions between Spain and Catalonia; however, consumers boycotted Catalonian products only in certain regions, thus making the boycott campaign unsuccessful (Cuadras‐Morató and Raya, 2016). The conflict between Ukraine and Russia has affected the consumer demand for Ukrainian and Russian products in their respective countries by damaging business transactions (Makarin and Korovkin, 2018).…”

Gender Difference in the Perception of Guilt in Consumer Boycott in Brazil

“…Two of them show ideological (social, religious, minority groups, and ecological boycots) and economical (economic boycot) dimensions [19]. The third dimension is experiential and highlights the consumer's experience with a company (relational boycot) [20] or products and services (experiential boycot). We understand that political boycot [20] is motivated by ideological reasons and we aggregate this kind of boycot on ideological dimension.…”

“…Political boycots happen when consumers decide not to buy because of political reasons involving states or countries (such as Catalan and Spain). South Spain consumers boycoted Catalan Cava wine from Catalonia because of a historical conlict among Catalonia and others parts of Spain [20].…”