The economic boycott caught fire. What’s next?

This article is adapted from a Boycott Central newsletter email.

Across social media, many are arguing about the value of the Feb. 28 economic boycott. That boycott was called as a 24-hour economic blackout to protest corporate greed and companies like Target, Walmart and Amazon that have rolled back their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts following pressure from President Donald Trump. The event was called by one person and organized nearly entirely online through memes and varying descriptions of its goals.

When assessing what happened on Feb. 28, there are two realities: no one-day boycott has ever achieved its ultimate outcome. And in the United States, this was one of the largest one-day boycotts ever.

However, with no central organizing infrastructure, it was hard to tell how many people participated. 

The boycott was turned into organizing, like Chicago clergy who held a press conference endorsing it, a gratitude demonstration held in Athens, or the Resistance Revival Chorus in New York singing, protesting, and urging people to participate in their Tesla action the next day.

The boycott was a chance to say no and yes. Folks at Free DC hung signs outside of Target saying no but also made a booklet of local stores to support. Many places compiled local businesses to support, including Magic City Books in Tulsa and Auntie’s Books in Spokane.

The boycott was endorsed by many celebrities: Cyndi Lauper, Pearl Jam, Taraji P. Henson, Stephen King and John Leguizamo.

Companies had a vested interest in showing there was no economic impact. But there are reports of the boycott having impact, like a cashier saying, “it was so slow they only needed to have two registers open most of the day.”

It forced many people to reflect on their personal spending priorities: Do we want to give money to big corporations who keep screwing us? What alternatives do we have?

For many people, it was their first public step against this ghastly regime of bullies and billionaires. We agree with Zi Teng Wang, who wrote: “If you see someone who has never taken any action before doing a symbolic one-day boycott, don’t tell them that their actions are futile. … People need practice doing things!”

How do you measure the success of a boycott?

The ultimate yardstick of a boycott is this: does the target accede to your demands?

In this case, the boycott was so nebulous it didn’t even have any clear demands. Boycotts cause economic pain, but then the company needs to know what it needs to do to stop it. And the people boycotting need to know when they have won. Having no clear demand was one of many valid critiques made about this day of boycott.

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The boycott was poorly organized in that it didn’t have a structure and couldn’t gauge either economic impact or even rough estimates of people participating. Again, valid critiques.

But it clearly caught fire.

And there are other measurements that matter: how much did you show people want to take action — and is this a tactic they’re willing to try?

In that regard, we think of Feb. 28 like exercising. You don’t get muscles after your first workout. You have to push your muscles over and over again, and prepare for more.

By the yardstick of getting interest and practice taking action, the boycott was a wild success.

Still, if the extent of action truly is just one day, companies can weather the storm and return to business as usual.

Boycotts can work, but not without structure

The quality of organizing boycotts needs to increase. The People’s Union USA, who initially called the Feb. 28 action, has a litany of follow-up boycott days with different targets. But its lack of organizing people into any structure or any clear demands means the tactic will inevitably fail — and successive failures will lead people to the wrong conclusion that the tactic can’t work.

A group of us created Boycott Central because we saw there was clearly an appetite for boycotting as a tactic. We list some common boycotts and have created a list of over 4,000 people who are interested in effective boycotts — for whatever groups want to design ones grounded in real strategy. Our website describes elements of what’s needed in a good boycott, because they can work. 

The United Farm Workers’ grape boycott was an industry-wise boycott against California grapes that forced growers to negotiate in good faith with farmworkers. It worked after months of carefully planned organizing: organizing support groups across the country, a national tour by farmworkers, pickets outside grocery stores, and more.

Boycotts in the social media era have often struggled. People often skip the organizing and just launch it as a social meme. But to work, boycotts require structure and ways to measure pressure. For example, the infamous Bud Light boycott was highly successful (21 percent loss in sales) — it had these elements.

Boycotts traditionally require a lot of coordination to make them work. They require:

• a target (who is supposed to change behavior)
• a demand (so the target knows what they have to do to get the boycott to stop)
• boycotters (a lot of people who used to be customers refusing to be customers anymore)
• leadership/negotiation committee (people who can show the target they’re hurting their bottomline and negotiate over demands)
• a way to communicate with the boycotters (a structure and massive social reach!).

Most of the boycotts launched since Trump took office do not have these. But that’s not a reason for despair, because good boycotts take time to organize well.

There are experiments brewing. Atlanta-area pastor Rev. Jamal Bryant has called for a 40-day fast from Target starting March 5, which marks Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent (targetfast.org). Latino Freeze is calling for an ongoing freeze on money from companies that abandoned their DEI policies (latinofreeze.com). There are so many different calls that haven’t yet coordinated themselves and their dates.

Many of us are watching Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, which is taking their time to do research and negotiation before picking two targets. They will announce their plan in about 45 days.

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The Tesla boycott campaign is the most effective boycott right now — it’s not just a social media meme. It involves pressure on shareholders (American Federation of Teachers just sent a letter to major asset managers) and street protests. Tesla Takedown has been organizing actions at Tesla showrooms all across the country. 

Already they’ve notched serious damage to Tesla’s brand. In 2024, Telsa had a 1.1 percent slump in worldwide sales, the first decline in a dozen years. And the recent sell-off of Tesla’s stock has knocked over $100 billion off of Elon Musk’s net worth.

More boycotts are going to be called in the future. As each of us share memes, we’ll need to assess if they have the ingredients to be effective and become more selective so that energy doesn’t wane. But the vast interest in the economic blackout on Feb. 28 shows that there is a deep hunger to hit major corporations where it hurts.

Update (March 7):

On Wednesday, Forbes reported that Target web visitors dropped 9 percent compared to previous Fridays and its most loyal customers (app users) was down 14 percent. Walmart similarly had a 5 percent reduction (though Amazon’s app and some other companies rose during that time).

The next day they published an op-ed that noted that there were 11 percent fewer people in Target stores on the boycott day as well. Most startlingly, 16 percent of consumers in a poll said they were participating in the Feb. 28 national shopping boycott — which if statistics held would mean over 40 million people!