From Where I Stand — Bombs Away

It seems that product boycotts have become the summer obsession for some consumers. Bud Light kicked off boycott season and that has since spread to Target, Patagonia, Chick-Fil-A, Major League Baseball, Cracker Barrel, and dozens of other brands. If you think hard enough, you can recall hazy memories of boycotts from the past few yearsUnited Airlines, BP, Nike, Amazon, the NFL, Goya Beans, etc.

I’m sure the details of these past boycotts have grown hazy for these companies, too. Yet, if you asked those brands in the throes of the boycott, most would have been losing their minds. They probably called emergency meetings, staved off mutinies from shareholders, hired PR firms, flooded social media, issued statements, and tried a whole bunch of other stuff that totally didn’t work.

A company being boycotted is like a person with the hiccups. At first, they are annoyed they have to deal with this. That immediately gives way to absolute panic that they will have the hiccups for the rest of their lives. Then, the hiccups just go away as mysteriously as they arrived.

This column is going to discuss two sets of hiccups — boycotts and negative reviews known as Review Bombs. Boycotts and bombs, bombs and boycotts.

I am going to spend just a little time on boycotts because most landscape businesses, outside of a few mega-agrichemical companies will never have to deal with one. Landscape companies are too small to matter to the boycottn’ crowd. The closest we have to a boycott is probably No Mow May and that is really just a minor eye-roll for most service providers.

Even 150 years after Captain Boycott, companies are still miserable at dealing with them. Anheuser-Busch will be taught in PR classes for years about how NOT to deal with a consumer boycott. At every turn, Bud Light tripped over themselves with meandering messaging, acts of contrition, self-flagellation, claims of ignorance, playing both sides, bizarre counter messaging, before finally coming to a spot where everyone was either mad, annoyed, or exhausted.

The reason this occurred was because Bud Light assumed the boycott was about Bud Light. Their myopic view was that they must be the star of this show because people are angry at them and blasting shotgun shells through their product. Boycotts are never about brand, just like the first boycott wasn’t about Charles Boycott. Boycotts fall into two classes: instrumental where the goals of the activists are clear or noninstrumental where consumers want change, but are very vague and not even satisfied when they get it. Non-instrumental boycotts like Bud Light have very high emotional intensity. That intensity is further heightened the more the boycott grows. That intensity peaks when a direct hit is scored on the brand in terms of negative press, financial loss, personnel changes, and a cratering of the stock price.

The Bud Light boycott hit on all fronts. It was the perfect non-instrumental boycott. Brands are powerless because the act of the boycott is more important than the product being boycotted. Brands issue bland statements like, “Our product is supposed to unite, not divide.” That is seen either as disingenuous or weak depending on what side you are on.

Eventually all boycotts end in the opposite way in which they start. In the beginning, the loudest, galvanizing forces attract less committed voices. Over time, those less committed to the boycott want to stop driving past Target to get to Meijer or want a $12 case of Bud Light and quiet quit the boycott. The loud, motivated core continues to urge solidarity, but the boycott fades. Boycotts all start with a bang, and end with a whimper.

Speaking of bangs, let’s talk bombs. Negative review bombs on your social media are quite different than boycotts. With a review bomb, it is absolutely, 100%, without fail, no bones about it, about the brand. These are direct assaults with one singular purpose — to wipe the brand off the face of the earth. If a company hunkers down and waits it out like with a boycott, that bunker needs to be pretty deep.

It is almost guaranteed that landscape companies will fall victim to negative reviews. As much as seasoned, hardened small business owners want to admit, negative internet reviews drive them insane. This is partly because landscaping is a referral-based industry with a massive amount of competition. The other reason is that we are all human beings. When we pour our heart and soul into a business is it such a big ask for everyone to like us?

First, to clarify. A review bomb is much different from a legitimate negative review on Google, Yelp, or any other review aggregator. A legitimate review is going to be from an actual customer who had a bad experience and are using a platform to share that bad experience. These reviews should be publicly addressed by the business, head-on, and with a high degree of care and empathy. A business should address the problem, apologize, offer a remedy, explain steps put into place to prevent a repeat incident, and offer a direct line of communication for a follow-up. The negative review will stand, but how the business responds to a legitimate review will illustrate a commitment to customer service. It also helps differentiate between a legitimate review and the most insidious of all online vandalism — the review bomb.