Why do corporations fall for twitter boycotts?

NowOver the last few years, I've noticed this strange trend of companies who sponsor obviously partisan shows suddenly dropping their sponsorship because of complaints on social media.

The latest example is Laura Ingram losing some sponsors for her Fox News show because she dared to clash with the Florida Gun Control Moppets.

I would think that whoever advertises on her show knows thta this isn't exactly a non-controversial thing to do.  Presumably their marketing people determined that right-of-center viewers tend to buy the product they sell.

One would also think that they are aware that left-of-center people may not like this and because they routinely scream and show and throw tantrums, at some point they will threaten a boycott.

This has been going on basically since I've been alive.  The left is always boycotting something because they are miserable people whose only source of happiness is making other people even more miserable.

This has happened to Rush Limbaugh a number of times, also Sean Hannity and so on.

Usually it doesn't work out for the company because the people demanding the end to the sponsorship had zero interest in buying stuff from them in the first place.

Social media is almost entirely bluster.  If you wait ten minutes, the mob will find someone else to hate on and forget all about you.

But core customers have longer memories.  Once you piss them off, you're going to have a hard time getting them back.

Consider the example of Delta Airlines, who stupidly decided to cancel the discount they offered to NRA members.  Delta's proper course of action was to do nothing, perhaps making a statement that they offer deals to a variety of groups with a number of political viewpoints and they aren't going to take sides.

Instead, they jumped on board the Progressive Outrage Train and severed their ties.

That in turn caused the GOP-controlled Georgia Legislature to kill their tax break because Delta had obviously chosen sides.  Delta lost tens of millions of dollars.

Making this even funnier is the news that apparently only 13 people bothered to use the NRA discount in the first place.

Now it's entirely possible that Delta figured that only those 13 people would care, but of course they were wrong.  Lots of people cared and now Delta has picked a side in the culture wars.

Great job, doorknobs.

Speaking of corporate stupidity, it turns out that now-defunct Toys R Us was in fact a donor to Planned Parenthood.  That's right - a business whose entire operation depends on a growing population of children was backing birth control.

That's almost as stupid as when Smith and Wesson tried to suck up to the gun control crowd back in the 1990s.

Complete and total idiocy.

The level of stupid here is legion.  Twitter itself leans hard left, so only an idiot would think its ravings are a representative sample.  Similarly, Facebook goes out of its way to drive conservatives off of its platform, so anything "trending" there likely has a high percentage of astroturf involved.

And yet, CEOs continue to take same awful advice and get the same awful results.

Comments

[T-Mo]

Spot on, K.N.!
Here's a different perspective: Maybe being boycotted and denounced by the leftist media and academia is actually a winning strategy.
Take Chick Fil-a, for example. Remember how, a few years ago, leftists from coast to coast raged about boycotting the popular fast food restaurant because its founder stated he opposed gay marriage?
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee organized "Chick Fil-A Appreciation Day," and many of the restaurant locations had lines winding outside the door and spilling out into the streets. In the long run, the restaurant's popularity and sales did not suffer.
You are correct that Delta probably alienated a lot more customers and potential customers than they gained by caving in to the leftist brownshirts. Had they done as you suggested and stated they don't take sides, the company would have fared much better.
In a sense, having the rabid left threatenng they will boycott your business is kind of like how the Republicans don't want the bitter and delusional HildaBeast to go away. The more she goes out and whines, pointing the finger at deplorables and mouth-breathing Neanderthals in flyover country, the better the GOP's prospects come November.