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Do U.S. consumers boycott products in response to international conflict? Two professors at the University of Virginia say that in the case of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the answer is "yes." Remember "freedom fries?" A brief refresher: As the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush was gearing up to wipe out what it called Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction," tensions were rising in the U.N. Security Council. France was deeply opposed to an attack and threatened to use its veto power to stop the action.
In the U.S., sentiment toward Paris plummeted, particularly among conservative Americans. Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly announced on the air he was boycotting French products and Capitol Hill cafeterias famously renamed French fries as "freedom fries," in an edible admonishment of the French government.
So talk of boycotts was in the air. But, as noted in a forthcoming paper in the journal Review of Economics and Statistics, measuring their economic impact has been a slippery affair.
"Most studies infer boycott behavior from indirect measures, such as bilateral trade patterns, abnormal stock market returns or consumer surveys, which are typically inconsistent with actual behavior," write associate professor of politics Sonal Pandya and business professor Rajkumar Venkatesan in their study, "French Roast: Consumer Response to International Conflict; Evidence from Supermarket Scanner Data."
It occurred to Pandya that supermarket scanners might offer some firm data on Americans' buying habits, so she and Venkatesan decided to dig deeper, studying weekly sales in 1,110 U.S. supermarkets in 50 regions across the country. For every week in 2003 they compared each store's sales of French-sounding brands to that same week in 2002. "Consumers' often use supermarket brands as an expression of their identity to others and also themselves," Venkatesan said.
[Paper]: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00526#.VUEShvBOKSp
[Source]: https://news.virginia.edu/content/study-tracks-us-boycott-french-sounding-products-during-2003-iraq-war
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday May 02 2015, @06:34PM
So. Lesson? "PROPAGANDA WORKS".
No it doesn't.
the week ending March 16, brands that consumers most strongly perceived as French saw a 0.4 percent average decline in store market share as compared to the same week in 2002,
The summary just stopped too soon.
They tried to compensate for any other influence, but they admit that they can't really do that. Further, it was a brief measure in time, and they never even addressed the prospect of everything else declining at the same time.
The only thing from France I might buy in a supermarket would be wine, and Australian, Argentinean, and South African wines are cheaper (and better IMHO), even after paying shipping, and California Washington an Oregon produce better wines domestically. I don't consciously shop by country of origin.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2015, @09:59PM
In the break room, there was a nearly-full canister of French vanilla coffee creamer.
Over the French, I put a piece of masking tape with Freedom written on it.
The overwrite didn't last out the day.
Apparently, there was a literalist there who didn't share my twisted sense of humor.
-- gewg_