Latest / Trumponomics / 29: From Apple to Chick-fil-A: When Companies Play Politics

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29: From Apple to Chick-fil-A: When Companies Play Politics · Trumponomics

0:00
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has called for a boycott of all Apple
0:03
Speaker 1: products until they cooperate. Though I would like to know.
0:06
Speaker 1: I saw his tweets and he has still been tweeting
0:09
Speaker 1: from his iPhone, so he personally hasn't kept up with
0:11
Speaker 1: this boycott, but it's out there. Hi, and welcome back
0:22
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg Benchmark, a podcast about the global economy. It
0:25
Speaker 1: is Thursday, March seventeen. I'm Tori Stillwell and economics reporter
0:30
Speaker 1: with Bloomberg News in d C. And I am flying
0:33
Speaker 1: solo today, but I am getting help from not one,
0:36
Speaker 1: but two great guests. They are going to help me
0:39
Speaker 1: unpack a pretty interesting topic given that we are in
0:41
Speaker 1: the throes of this ever fascinating, sometimes intensely depressing election season.
0:48
Speaker 1: It's almost like I can't even remember what my life
0:50
Speaker 1: before the election cycle was like. But in the studio
0:53
Speaker 1: with me, I have Kurt Carlson and Chris Hidoch of
0:56
Speaker 1: Georgetown Institute for Consumer Research. Hey guys, how are you doing? Hi?
1:01
Speaker 1: Good beer? So On a related note to the election frenzy,
1:05
Speaker 1: we've had some situations in recent memory where companies have
1:09
Speaker 1: taken political stances, and it's possible that we could see
1:12
Speaker 1: a bit more of that, maybe a lot more of
1:14
Speaker 1: that as the election rhetoric heats up further. And so
1:18
Speaker 1: you guys have actually done some research on some of
1:20
Speaker 1: the economic consequences of that. You know, how do consumers
1:24
Speaker 1: respond when companies weighed into politics. But before we get started,
1:29
Speaker 1: I drew up a short list of a few examples
1:32
Speaker 1: that came off the top of my head, so we
1:34
Speaker 1: can jog everyone's memories together. So the first one I
1:37
Speaker 1: thought of, given my love for it, was Chipotle. So
1:42
Speaker 1: two years ago, a representative or representatives of a group
1:46
Speaker 1: called Open Kerry Texas took an armed trip to a
1:49
Speaker 1: Dallas area Chipotle and they had military style assault rifles
1:55
Speaker 1: with them, like, took pictures and stuff, which would be
1:58
Speaker 1: I don't know, I would probably be terrified happened here,
2:01
Speaker 1: And I mean it couldn't happen here. I guess in
2:03
Speaker 1: d C. Right, it's probably a much lower tolerance stubble
2:07
Speaker 1: for that here. So Chipotle came out and it asked
2:12
Speaker 1: its customers not to bring guns into its restaurants unless
2:16
Speaker 1: they were authorized law enforcement personnel. And do you guys
2:20
Speaker 1: remember hearing about this Adida's example from February It had
2:25
Speaker 1: to do with Valentine's Day. Our listeners may remember if
2:29
Speaker 1: you follow Adida's on Instagram, they posted a couple a
2:33
Speaker 1: picture of a couple that appeared to be both women,
2:36
Speaker 1: and a commenter threatened to start buying Nike instead, like,
2:40
Speaker 1: how could you do this on Valentine's Day? It's for
2:42
Speaker 1: like boys and boys and girls, not girls and girls whatever,
2:45
Speaker 1: And Adida's responded with the handwave emoji, like essentially saying
2:50
Speaker 1: like by Felicia to this comment, so we don't care.
2:54
Speaker 1: And then Chick fil A. Maybe you guys can talk
2:56
Speaker 1: about the Chick fil A one because I remember this,
2:58
Speaker 1: It still comes up today and a lot of conversations
3:00
Speaker 1: that I have with Ppo, so so yeah, chick floy
3:03
Speaker 1: Is is definitely the incidents that motivated this whole research project.
3:08
Speaker 1: One of our our co authors was heard about the
3:11
Speaker 1: story um and obviously we acknowledge that Chick fil A,
3:14
Speaker 1: we were all talking about it in the news at
3:16
Speaker 1: that point. But we again to wonder what is the
3:18
Speaker 1: effect on consumers. Do consumers even care about this at all?
3:23
Speaker 1: Are they just going to look past this and and
3:24
Speaker 1: never think about it again, or is there going to
3:27
Speaker 1: be some some kind of net effect on in terms
3:30
Speaker 1: of a positive or negative result in terms of increased
3:33
Speaker 1: or decreased visits to Chick fil A after after their
3:36
Speaker 1: anti gay marriage stands, right, And so that's the game
3:39
Speaker 1: what really drove this project. Yeah, and that was all
3:42
Speaker 1: the way back in twelve It's hard to believe that
3:44
Speaker 1: was that long ago, but the CEO, Chick fil A
3:47
Speaker 1: CEO came out and said he was guilty as charged
3:50
Speaker 1: in his religion based opposition to gay marriage, and as
3:54
Speaker 1: a result, same sex marriage supporters protested at Chick fil
3:57
Speaker 1: A locations, while those who would agree with him sort
4:00
Speaker 1: of crammed into Chick fil A stores this year their
4:02
Speaker 1: support and actually, fun fact, in an interview two years later,
4:06
Speaker 1: Kathy actually seemed to regret waiting into that and said
4:11
Speaker 1: that Chick fil A had no place in culture wars.
4:13
Speaker 1: So um lots to talk about. I don't wanna neglect
4:18
Speaker 1: mentioning apple and privacy, but we'll get into that later
4:21
Speaker 1: since that's a sort of a recent area of discussion here.
4:25
Speaker 1: So in some of the cases that we've talked about,
4:27
Speaker 1: it seemed like they were sort of forced to take
4:29
Speaker 1: a stance because something happened in their store. So I
4:32
Speaker 1: mean how does that, how does what does the company
4:34
Speaker 1: do with that? How does that affect them? So that's
4:38
Speaker 1: that's an interesting question, I think. Uh, one of the
4:40
Speaker 1: things I've actually thought about with chick Folio itself is
4:44
Speaker 1: uh that they are privately run business. They're not too
4:47
Speaker 1: shy about the fact that religion does play a big
4:49
Speaker 1: part in how they operate their business. For example, they're
4:52
Speaker 1: not open on Sundays, um, and so their stands when
4:56
Speaker 1: it came to a gay marriage kind of fit with
4:59
Speaker 1: the beliefs that have UM exerted at other points in operating.
5:03
Speaker 1: And so it becomes really unclear if if that will
5:07
Speaker 1: be something that um that differentiates a four stance from
5:12
Speaker 1: a voluntary stance. Yeah, I would just I would just
5:16
Speaker 1: chime in that you've got the entire spectrum operating here.
5:19
Speaker 1: You can imagine at one end of the spectrum, you've
5:21
Speaker 1: got a divisive political issue that has nothing to do
5:25
Speaker 1: with the business at hand, and the company simply chooses
5:29
Speaker 1: to enter into the conversation, perhaps because the CEO thinks
5:33
Speaker 1: that it would be wise to share that opinion on
5:37
Speaker 1: social media, or because um they think that somehow it
5:40
Speaker 1: will draw attention and bode well for the company, or
5:44
Speaker 1: they're just not even thinking. And then maybe they're not
5:45
Speaker 1: even thinking about it right six and one, half a
5:48
Speaker 1: dozen of the other maybe it hurts some, helps some,
5:50
Speaker 1: they're not worried too much about it. On the other
5:52
Speaker 1: end of the spectrum, you've got you've got instances like
5:55
Speaker 1: people carrying semi automatic machine guns into your store and
5:59
Speaker 1: potentially scaring off your average patron. And so now you're
6:03
Speaker 1: it really does seem like you're being forced into it.
6:05
Speaker 1: And you mentioned, um, you mentioned the case of Apple.
6:08
Speaker 1: I think that you know that's also an instance where
6:11
Speaker 1: they're being forced in by by the government requesting that
6:13
Speaker 1: they actually do work on behalf of the government's request
6:18
Speaker 1: that would violate its current policy. So you've got the
6:20
Speaker 1: spectrum out there, and in some of these instances, when
6:25
Speaker 1: we opt to weigh it in, like Chris said, it's
6:28
Speaker 1: going to be much more central to whatever our business practices.
6:31
Speaker 1: And you could make the claim that to the extent
6:33
Speaker 1: that the typical consumer at Chick fil A sees themselves
6:38
Speaker 1: as someone who's you know, faith abiding, that they might
6:42
Speaker 1: actually they might actually appreciate the stance taken taken by
6:46
Speaker 1: the CEO, and it seems like a lot of them did.
6:48
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember reading reports about people sort of
6:51
Speaker 1: like waiting out the door of lines wrapping around those
6:53
Speaker 1: stores when this happened in show and show of support
6:57
Speaker 1: for that. Yep. So then that you know, the question
6:59
Speaker 1: that that that we were focused on is if you
7:03
Speaker 1: take any particular divisive issue and there's two sides to it,
7:08
Speaker 1: we're just we're gonna let's just define it that with
7:10
Speaker 1: Let's just say, Okay, a divisive issue has two sides,
7:11
Speaker 1: and it doesn't mean that it has to lanmages, but
7:14
Speaker 1: that let's play in that, in that in that sandbox.
7:16
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because there's about on each side of
7:22
Speaker 1: the issue. It's it's hard to come up with divisive
7:24
Speaker 1: issues where people agree, right, I mean, it just seems
7:28
Speaker 1: like it's not terribly divisive. It's an issue, but not
7:30
Speaker 1: terribly divisive. So if you've got you know, a sizeable
7:35
Speaker 1: percentage of people on either side of a divisive issue,
7:38
Speaker 1: you can ask the question, what happens when this brand
7:42
Speaker 1: or this company that may or may not need to
7:45
Speaker 1: wade into this adopts one side of this, Right, some
7:50
Speaker 1: of the people are going to agree with that, and
7:52
Speaker 1: some are going to disagree for example, what are the
7:55
Speaker 1: reactions of those two groups going to be and and
7:58
Speaker 1: will they be equal? They'll almost certainly be opposite, right,
8:02
Speaker 1: they have to be opposite, But will they be equal?
8:04
Speaker 1: And so that was sort of where we entered. We
8:06
Speaker 1: came in and we said, let's look in a broad
8:09
Speaker 1: range of context, with a broad range of issues, and
8:13
Speaker 1: then let's see what happens to those that agree with
8:17
Speaker 1: the position they took and those that disagree. What what
8:19
Speaker 1: does that do to attitude towards the brand and willingness
8:22
Speaker 1: to buy the brand? That was our question, right, So
8:25
Speaker 1: I mean, let's look at at one of those buckets first.
8:28
Speaker 1: And so in a situation where a company representatives just
8:33
Speaker 1: sort of like Yolo, let's let's take a stance here,
8:37
Speaker 1: what happens to them? What happens to their business? Chris,
8:40
Speaker 1: It's time for the big reveal. So when when those representatives,
8:46
Speaker 1: with the CEO or anyone on anyone high enough up
8:49
Speaker 1: to garner some attention, takes that stance. Um, what we
8:53
Speaker 1: ended up seeing is we saw this kind of by
8:55
Speaker 1: valent reaction among consumers. Uh. Some obviously are gonna support that,
8:59
Speaker 1: some are going to oppose that. Uh. What we see
9:02
Speaker 1: is that those consumers who support the stance, we see
9:05
Speaker 1: a small kind of increase in their attitude towards the
9:08
Speaker 1: brand um. But more importantly what we see is those
9:12
Speaker 1: consumers that oppose the stance that that that company member took,
9:17
Speaker 1: we see this significant, much more significant decrease in attitude
9:21
Speaker 1: towards the brands. Just thinking in my own personal life,
9:24
Speaker 1: I know people who to this day refused to eat
9:27
Speaker 1: at Chick fil A, even though that happened almost four
9:30
Speaker 1: years ago. Now they still will not eat there um,
9:33
Speaker 1: despite the fact that they love their chick that happening.
9:37
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a perfect example. So you get you
9:39
Speaker 1: get the you get the maybe slight positive increase in
9:43
Speaker 1: the attitude for those that agree with the position on
9:46
Speaker 1: this case opposing gay marriage, and you get this really
9:49
Speaker 1: strong aversive reaction to the people that that disagree. And
9:53
Speaker 1: so we're finding that in the attitude measures and the
9:56
Speaker 1: choice and the willingness to pay measures that there's just
9:58
Speaker 1: not a whole lot of upside. Right, the subset that
10:01
Speaker 1: that aligns with the position you're going to take as
10:04
Speaker 1: you wade into this divisive political issue. The subset that
10:08
Speaker 1: that that aligns with it just isn't gonna do that
10:10
Speaker 1: much to help you out. I do that because they've
10:13
Speaker 1: are already eating their one chicken sandwich a week, right,
10:15
Speaker 1: and they're just they've got a quota any more than
10:18
Speaker 1: one chicken sand much a week or that. There's just
10:21
Speaker 1: there's just they're not going to reward you for for
10:23
Speaker 1: for wading into that. On the other side, man, people,
10:27
Speaker 1: when when you wade into one of these divisive political issues,
10:29
Speaker 1: the people that disagree with it seem like they like
10:32
Speaker 1: they've found a reason to choose an alternative over you.
10:36
Speaker 1: And so you could start to ask the question, which
10:39
Speaker 1: maybe we'll get into in a bit, is what's the
10:42
Speaker 1: net net of this right? You can start to ask,
10:44
Speaker 1: and the answer to that is probably gonna come down
10:47
Speaker 1: to the composition of your your customer base. Right, if
10:52
Speaker 1: your customers agree with the stance you took, maybe the
10:54
Speaker 1: slight benefit right added up over those for you works out.
11:01
Speaker 1: You lose more on the ten percent they don't come
11:03
Speaker 1: to you anymore at all, but but they coming to
11:05
Speaker 1: you one more time a month from offsets it. But
11:09
Speaker 1: remember what we said to start this, right, is that
11:11
Speaker 1: these are divisive political issues. So there there are issues
11:14
Speaker 1: that are divisive by definition, meaning there's a good chunk
11:18
Speaker 1: of people on each side, to the extent that there's
11:21
Speaker 1: about fifty fifty or sixty forty, it's going to be
11:23
Speaker 1: really hard for this small positive effect to outweigh the
11:28
Speaker 1: big negative effect that we're seeing. So yeah, so I
11:31
Speaker 1: think with national brands that's definitely the case. You can
11:33
Speaker 1: imagine maybe maybe a smaller brand in a local area
11:37
Speaker 1: um that has where maybe nationally again that this is
11:41
Speaker 1: a debate in this local area, that might be and
11:44
Speaker 1: maybe those smaller brands are able to take advantage of this.
11:47
Speaker 1: So maybe Pete's local bait shop in North Carolina might
11:51
Speaker 1: be able to take advantage of certain issues that a
11:54
Speaker 1: national brand like Starbucks or Target could not. Yeah, I mean,
11:57
Speaker 1: thinking again of my own personal life. I live in
12:01
Speaker 1: DuPont near DuPont Circle here in d C. And for
12:04
Speaker 1: our listeners who aren't familiar with DC, it's a very
12:07
Speaker 1: gay friendly neighborhood. Has all has been that way for
12:11
Speaker 1: decades now. The annual Pride parade stretches across many DuPont streets.
12:15
Speaker 1: We have a yearly high heel race where drag queens
12:19
Speaker 1: will race each other uh down a street like right
12:22
Speaker 1: next to my house. Um and year round, a lot
12:25
Speaker 1: of businesses have rainbow flags or rainbow stickers on their doors,
12:29
Speaker 1: and I've got to believe that's in some sense taking
12:32
Speaker 1: a political stance. So would they benefit in a situation
12:36
Speaker 1: like that. I think that's the perfect example, um that
12:39
Speaker 1: a lot of these local businesses around here, Uh, they
12:41
Speaker 1: will take the stance that they know pretty much everybody
12:45
Speaker 1: in DC supports UM And you don't see the national
12:49
Speaker 1: businesses do it, but you do see the local brands
12:51
Speaker 1: do it. Right. And so if we're thinking back then
12:55
Speaker 1: to our sort of second scenario where a company is
12:57
Speaker 1: forced into doing this, um, so a Chipotle or Starbucks
13:02
Speaker 1: in this situation where people are just sort of bringing
13:05
Speaker 1: these big scary guns and small inoffensive guns I guess
13:08
Speaker 1: into their into their stores. I mean, how did they
13:11
Speaker 1: figure out what to do? Then? Wow, that's a great question.
13:15
Speaker 1: UM know that that based upon our results, it's it's
13:20
Speaker 1: not going to buy you too much with those that
13:23
Speaker 1: are aligned already with the position, and it's going to
13:25
Speaker 1: hurt you. On the other side, if you look at
13:28
Speaker 1: other research and behavior economics, people are extremely forgiving of
13:34
Speaker 1: actions that businesses take that they didn't have a choice
13:38
Speaker 1: in taking UM. Just as an example, the single best
13:42
Speaker 1: way to increase your price is to tell people that
13:46
Speaker 1: you had no choice because your costs one up. Have
13:48
Speaker 1: you increase price because demand is high. It's called price cougy,
13:53
Speaker 1: and you end up in front of Congress, right right. So,
13:55
Speaker 1: But if if you like attract the ire of everyone
14:00
Speaker 1: around you, if we were to make a prescription in
14:02
Speaker 1: this context, it would be, you know, take the position
14:05
Speaker 1: that applies to your values. Know that there's going to
14:08
Speaker 1: be a subset of your customer base that probably is
14:10
Speaker 1: not going to like that, and do your best to
14:13
Speaker 1: communicate to them that that you really didn't have a
14:16
Speaker 1: choice in this, not not in the choice of which
14:18
Speaker 1: direction to go, but that you were forced to make
14:20
Speaker 1: a choice. And I think that will probably buy you
14:23
Speaker 1: a certain amount of insulation against retribution. UM. Let's talk
14:29
Speaker 1: a little bit more about Apple because it has become
14:32
Speaker 1: a pretty hot topic lately, and in case our listeners
14:37
Speaker 1: haven't been following. Apple was served with a court order
14:40
Speaker 1: last month to help the FBI unlock a phone used
14:44
Speaker 1: by one of two attackers who killed fourteen people in
14:47
Speaker 1: San Bernardino, California. Apple has refused to do so, saying
14:51
Speaker 1: that creating software to help the FBI would set a
14:54
Speaker 1: really bad precedent and open the door for other foreign
14:58
Speaker 1: governments to make similar demand. And they've gotten a ton
15:01
Speaker 1: of backup from other tech giants, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft,
15:06
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, the US government's argument is that, you know,
15:09
Speaker 1: one of the world's most technologically savvy companies can easily
15:13
Speaker 1: help it with one one little phone without risking the
15:17
Speaker 1: security of its operations or the privacy of its customers.
15:20
Speaker 1: So I mean, walk walk me through how you guys
15:24
Speaker 1: might see this and in any possible economic consequences, good
15:28
Speaker 1: or bad, that could befall Apple, because Donald Trump has
15:31
Speaker 1: called for a boycott of all Apple products until they cooperate.
15:35
Speaker 1: Though I would like to know. I saw his tweets
15:37
Speaker 1: and he has still been tweeting from his iPhone, so
15:40
Speaker 1: he personally hasn't kept up with this boycott, but it's
15:44
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah, there's there's the boycott on purchase, the boycott,
15:48
Speaker 1: and then there's the boycott on use, two totally different things, apparently.
15:52
Speaker 1: So I think when we look at this example, there's
15:55
Speaker 1: two sides there. There's the um Apple logistically wanting to
16:00
Speaker 1: ensure the privacy of their phones and ensure that ensure
16:03
Speaker 1: that their consumers that their their data that they transmit
16:06
Speaker 1: on their phones and contain on their phones UM is private.
16:09
Speaker 1: And then you all can also look at this as
16:11
Speaker 1: as kind of Apple taking a stance for privacy more general,
16:14
Speaker 1: UM more generally, and I think that is uh partially
16:18
Speaker 1: what they're doing by blowing this issue up. UM. They
16:21
Speaker 1: look at this as a great chance to build up
16:22
Speaker 1: a reputation for a company that champions privacy UM. And
16:26
Speaker 1: so when we especially when we look at it in
16:28
Speaker 1: that sense, we can look at again, how how is
16:31
Speaker 1: this going to affect consumers? And we ended up running
16:34
Speaker 1: a study trying to look at this exact thing with
16:36
Speaker 1: with privacy rights and technology companies, and we see the
16:39
Speaker 1: exact same effects that we saw another studies are grand
16:42
Speaker 1: with immigration or gun rights or healthcare. Again, we see
16:47
Speaker 1: the same pattern where consumers who supported the stance they
16:51
Speaker 1: there was a bumping attitudes was bumping kind of willingness
16:53
Speaker 1: to purchase for those brands UM, and for the consumers
16:57
Speaker 1: who opposed, we see the significant decreasing in so we
17:01
Speaker 1: we kind of end up at the same place that
17:03
Speaker 1: we think this will have a very h a much
17:06
Speaker 1: bigger effect on those who oppose Apple stands than those
17:08
Speaker 1: who support it. And then it comes down to do
17:11
Speaker 1: more consumers support or oppose apples stands here? Right? And
17:15
Speaker 1: that also would purchase their products to begin with? Because
17:18
Speaker 1: I guess if if they if they're like Samsung users,
17:21
Speaker 1: this doesn't really affect them. Maybe they were never going
17:23
Speaker 1: to buy an Apple phone to begin with and they
17:25
Speaker 1: just disagree with that. So I mean that's when when
17:28
Speaker 1: we look at it or yeah, if the disagree as yeah,
17:31
Speaker 1: or you can as canned, Apple use this to attract
17:33
Speaker 1: some Samsung users over to their side. Right. So we
17:37
Speaker 1: talked about a loyalty effect earlier, Um, could this help
17:41
Speaker 1: sort of engender greater loyalty among people who already have
17:46
Speaker 1: Apple products? I mean, I don't even really know what
17:49
Speaker 1: encrypted phones mean. I just know I have like my
17:52
Speaker 1: little four number password here on the phone and hopes
17:56
Speaker 1: that I hope that takes care of the problem. But
17:58
Speaker 1: I mean, what sort of loyalty effects are we looking
18:01
Speaker 1: at here? Well? So this is a really interesting question.
18:05
Speaker 1: What are the long run consequences of of adopting a
18:09
Speaker 1: position that that someone agrees with based upon something that
18:13
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily have a whole lot to do with the
18:15
Speaker 1: business that the company's in. UM. In different work work
18:19
Speaker 1: that that that I've done with Shani b Energy is
18:23
Speaker 1: at the University of Texas, San Antonio. We look at
18:26
Speaker 1: the question of what is it that makes consumers fiercely loyal?
18:30
Speaker 1: Like I mean, and this is by first of all,
18:32
Speaker 1: we mean irrationally loyal. The people that will defend a
18:36
Speaker 1: brand even when the evidence is stacked up against it.
18:41
Speaker 1: The people that used to think of as sort of
18:44
Speaker 1: like Harley David said, um writers, and and maybe some
18:48
Speaker 1: people early in the days of Starbucks. Um Dan, I
18:52
Speaker 1: think our my coast would definitely fall into this category,
18:56
Speaker 1: and that a lot of a lot of apples consumers
18:58
Speaker 1: too would fit that as well. And so we studied this.
19:01
Speaker 1: We we said, what is it that makes these people
19:03
Speaker 1: unique over people that just buy a product quite frequently?
19:06
Speaker 1: And what we found was that, um it's different. It's
19:09
Speaker 1: a form of love, but it's different than sort of
19:12
Speaker 1: puppy dog love, because you can you can love your
19:15
Speaker 1: puppy and you can also love the neighbor's puppy. But
19:18
Speaker 1: in these instances, these fiercely loyal consumers. They loved their
19:22
Speaker 1: brand and they hated the alternatives. So what we discovered
19:29
Speaker 1: as part of studying this is that that in order
19:31
Speaker 1: to create this sort of fierce loyalty, there had to
19:34
Speaker 1: be some antagonists. There had to be there had to
19:36
Speaker 1: be both the brand that you could fall in love with,
19:38
Speaker 1: but then something else that was pushing you towards it
19:41
Speaker 1: that you were you were in some sense disgusted with.
19:45
Speaker 1: And so in this context, that's not another brand, but
19:48
Speaker 1: that that's the federal government. And so so it's entirely
19:56
Speaker 1: possible that that we won't see a huge uptick in
20:00
Speaker 1: sales or necessarily even attitudes, but we will see some
20:05
Speaker 1: of these loyal Apple consumers convert into what we might
20:09
Speaker 1: call fiercely loyal, like rationally loyal consumers, and that could
20:13
Speaker 1: bode well for them in the future upsell cross sell,
20:17
Speaker 1: insulating them from mistakes they might make in the future,
20:20
Speaker 1: insulating them from bricing mistakes where they raise price without
20:24
Speaker 1: raising costs, all because fiercely loyal consumers are just really
20:28
Speaker 1: really forgiving of all kinds of mistakes that companies would make.
20:32
Speaker 1: So to the extent that that the federal government is
20:35
Speaker 1: going to act in the mind of the consumer as
20:38
Speaker 1: this sort of antagonist. Then this adopting this position might
20:43
Speaker 1: actually work well to convert some of Apple's borderline loyal
20:47
Speaker 1: fiercely loyal to really fiercely loyal consumers. Fascinating. UH. When
20:53
Speaker 1: we were talking earlier, one of your research associates and
20:56
Speaker 1: Wilson mentioned how there are actually apps that let you
21:01
Speaker 1: see political stances that companies support UM, so I researched
21:06
Speaker 1: some of the ones that she talked about. There's boycott,
21:09
Speaker 1: which has a built in bar code scanner to let
21:12
Speaker 1: you quote vote with your wallet, and you can learn
21:15
Speaker 1: about a products history, make a purchase decision, and then
21:19
Speaker 1: also communicate your decision to the company, tell them why
21:22
Speaker 1: you are or are not buying a product. And there's
21:25
Speaker 1: also the Bipartisan app, which is a very clever name
21:30
Speaker 1: buy partisan um that also lets you scan a products
21:34
Speaker 1: bar code, and in this case you can see the
21:36
Speaker 1: political contributions of the company, CEO, board of directors, um
21:42
Speaker 1: even their employees. So it seems like never before have
21:45
Speaker 1: we had the intense level of transparency that allows us
21:50
Speaker 1: to sort of get all this information about politics and
21:54
Speaker 1: and sort of these divisive issues that we've talked about
21:57
Speaker 1: before making a purchasing decision. I mean, how does that
22:00
Speaker 1: play into all of this. It's really hard to find
22:03
Speaker 1: an issue that's not politicized, and there are a lot
22:06
Speaker 1: more opportunities now. Well, yes, so the opportunities is one.
22:11
Speaker 1: The second thing is that the instance that you mentioned,
22:14
Speaker 1: the Chick fil a instance that started this whole thing, right,
22:16
Speaker 1: that that happened through the media. People for the most part,
22:19
Speaker 1: became aware of it through the media. So as we've
22:21
Speaker 1: been talking here, we've been talking mainly about consumers reacting
22:25
Speaker 1: to things that they see in the media. What these
22:28
Speaker 1: applications are doing is they're they're actually allowing consumers to
22:32
Speaker 1: initiate this process right on a one on one basis,
22:35
Speaker 1: with any brand that they want um. And so, yeah,
22:38
Speaker 1: we think that the scope of the implications for the
22:41
Speaker 1: results that we found this bi valent right, small positive,
22:45
Speaker 1: big negative effect. We think that the scope is just
22:47
Speaker 1: made substantially larger by the technology and the access that
22:51
Speaker 1: people have to this information. That it doesn't have to
22:54
Speaker 1: be anything that's in the news at all, or that
22:56
Speaker 1: or that anybody else really cares about. If I care
22:59
Speaker 1: about it, I can bring my concerns to bear on
23:03
Speaker 1: this particular decision and my attitudes towards this particular brand.
23:07
Speaker 1: With the aid of these technologies, yeah, we think, we
23:10
Speaker 1: think that that the general phenomenon will translate to situations
23:14
Speaker 1: that have nothing to do with with any media broadcasting
23:18
Speaker 1: anything about the stance that's adopted. Thank you guys so much,
23:21
Speaker 1: Kurt and Chris for joining us, and thanks to you
23:24
Speaker 1: all for listening to Bloomberg Benchmark. We will be back
23:27
Speaker 1: next week and until then you can find us on
23:29
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg terminal and Bloomberg dot com, as well as
23:31
Speaker 1: on iTunes, Pocketcast, Stitchard, and a few other places. And
23:35
Speaker 1: while you're there, please take a minute to rate and
23:38
Speaker 1: review the show so more listeners can find us, and
23:40
Speaker 1: please let us know what you thought of the show.
23:43
Speaker 1: You can talk to and follow me on Twitter at
23:45
Speaker 1: Tori Stillwell, and you can look up our guests research
23:50
Speaker 1: at Consumer Research dot Georgetown dot du if you're interested
23:54
Speaker 1: in learning more, and if you can think of any
23:56
Speaker 1: examples of brands taking political stances that we miss, please
23:59
Speaker 1: feel free to let us know and we'll see you
24:01
Speaker 1: next week. M m hm