Tunnocks teacake boycott backfires

A Scottish nationalist campaign against Tunnocks teacakes has failed spectacularly, with the company revealing that sales have actually risen.

In January, Tunnocks dropped its lion rampant logo for an ad campaign based on the Great British Bake Off and featuring a foil-wrapped 'Great British Tea Cake'.

But traditionalists objected to the scrapping of the 126-year-old logo and launched a social media campaign calling for a boycott.

Protests were held outside the company's Lanarkshire headquarters by the 'Scottish Resistance', and a video appeared online showing a swearing man smashing boxes of teacakes.

But it seems that the campaign may actually have raised the profile of the chocolate-covered snacks, with the company reporting that sales have actually risen by 10%.

"It meant the Tunnock's name was being talked about all over the world and people are still talking about it," Fergus Loudon, the company's operations director, tells the Daily Telegraph.

"It prompted a lot people to go out and buy tea cakes and has been fantastic for us in terms of sales. There was a definite spike."

And the company has pointed out that the lion rampant still appears on the packaging, and that there's no plan to drop it permanently. It's now capitalising on the publicity by launching a series of branded products, including teddy bears, key rings and beanie hats.

According to Ethical Consumer, there are currently 50 active boycotts in the UK, ranging from whole countries - China and Israel, for example - right down to small businesses such as dairies in areas where badger culling is being carried out.

But they rarely have more than a temporary effect at most. When, thirteen years ago, the US boycotted French wines, sales dropped by a quarter - but returned to their original levels within months.

Unsurprisingly, research has revealed that the amount of media attention a boycott gets is the biggest factor in its success. More interestingly, though, it seems that consumers don't even need to cut sales very much for a boycott to achieve its aims and persuade a company to change.

Kellogg School assistant professor Brayden King found that a targeted company's stock price falls by 1% for each day of national print media coverage - giving it a big incentive to respond.