What's supply without demand

In her article "Contextualizing Boycotts and Buycotts: The Impure Politics of Consumer-Based Advocacy in an Age of Global Ecological Crises", Phaedra C. Pezzullo assumes that the political system that is, is corrupt, or as she puts it, "impure".   It is all very Noam Chomsky sounding, the reasoning behind her assumption.  But it is interesting what she does with the mindset, which is, she makes the case that there should be more attention placed in analyzing "boycotts and buycott campaigns as a significant communication practice offering varying economic and cultural critiques", more specifically, how "the efficacy of boycotts and buycotts, then, pivots on how advocates identify, frame, and resist specific relations" (128). This involves being specific about the focal points of the campaign, which may help clarify the power relations in the struggle between the stakeholders.

For working definition, Pezzullo clarifies "boycotts and buycotts share many characteristics, though they do differ. A boycott campaign is a concerted refusal to spend money* as well as to convince others to refuse to spend money*on a product or service in the hopes of changing specific condition(s) or practice(s) of an institution. In contrast, a buycott or procott or girlcott campaign is a concerted effort to make a point of spending money* as well as to convince others to make a point of spending money*on a product or service in the hopes of affirming specific condition(s) or practice(s) of an institution. Both involve nonviolent collective critique constituted by communicative acts that are verbal (e.g., press releases and chants at protests) and nonverbal (e.g., marches and spending or not spending money on a specific commodity or
service)" (125).

After reading her article, I have decided boycotts and buycotts are like the opposite sides of the same coin. By boycotting one company, you are effectively placing your money into the companies of substitute goods.  By buycotting a company, you are diverting your money to a specific company away from other options.  They both seek to reform bad qualities by reaffirming good qualities, at least what is perceived as "good" and "bad".  For example, after the BP oil spill, BP looked pretty bad in the eyes of the American people, and their PR team didn't do a very good job at swaying that perception, they still looked like environmentally hazardous and still contained the fragrance of some big-oil-assholes.  According to a Bloomberg article, BP's profits fell after the incident, like a big 66% drop.  American people were boycotting the British company, opting for Exxon and Shell both of which saw an increase of profit in regards to BP's fall.  This isn't a buycott because it isn't like Exxon has better business practices that need reaffirming, rather they were perceived as not being as bad as BP and thus more deserving of the dollar.  Buycotts are a bit more complicated because it is not as common of a term, but as Pezzullo states "a buycott is promoted as a necessary step during impure politics" (136).  Boycotts are not as effective as the campaigns seem to only attract a target group of users, and in some cases there is even backlash against the boycott, check Chick-Fil-A. Money speaks and everybody wants to listen.  As a society and a culture we vote with our dollar on a company with proper business ethics or a good product or service, it would then seem economically beneficial for a company to then work hard to having a good product and business practices such that consumers will buy the company's product or service based upon their liking of the company.  It seems to me that there would be a lot of PR influence going on with a buycott campaign and perhaps maybe even branding manipulation,  but that is all part of the "impure" free-market.  It's easier to be recognized being the book cover than it is to being the pages.