The title here is a type of pun on math and how reporters spin the numbers to fit their agenda. It's a kind of nod to the idea lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Trying to make a boycott take off
On February 26, 2025, Betty Lin-Fisher, a consumer reporter at USA Today plugged the article she wrote for the outlet on LinkedIn thus:
This Friday, Feb. 28 is the one-day, 24-hour consumer economic blackout.
Consumers are encouraged not to spend money during the 24-hour period and if you need something, to buy local. The Feb. 28 event is one of several boycotts planned by groups of consumers or activists to protest what they call corporate greed, companies that have rolled back their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and President Donald Trump's efforts to eliminate federal DEI programs since taking office.
The Boomerang Effect Shown on Social Media
The comments showed that not everyone agreed with this approach, with many declaring that they'd make a point of shopping that Friday. Some added additional commentary on why they thought this was wrong.
For example, Kimberly wrote this:
I will go to Target and look for products by black businesses and purchase some. I disagree with this whole thing as it could affect those that have nothing to do with it. Treat people on merit and qualifications not race. Last I saw we've had a black President, VP, police chiefs, mayor's, governors I could go on and on into infinity. You can be anything you want to be. Only one standing in your way is yourself.And Jan wrote:We should agree to disagree and give the current administration 2 full years to show American just what they will do for us. I may not have liked prior Presidents but I never wished harm on our working people. After 2 years, THEN speak up and change things with the Mid-Terms. However, I believe we will see our economy turn around over the next 6 months and no one will want to change anything! It's only been 5-6 weeks...... Wish for the BEST for our Country! We the People have spoken with our votes
What does the data show?
Now that we're in early March, the numbers should be in to let us know if the boycott had any significant impact. So let's see what Betsy Lin-Fisher had to say in her follow-up on the first day of what was intended to be a one week "fast" from Amazon purchases and a full 40 day "fast" (the correspondence with Ramadan has to be deliberate, as Lent only began today -- Ash Wednesday) intended to harm Target and Walmart in USA Today.
She was forced to admit that rather than dent Amazon sales, as compared to the previous eight Fridays, sales were actually up 1%, as per Momentum Commerce. It doesn't appear she's getting this information first-hand but relying on Forbes reports, and the headline it used about Amazon on March 2 was Amazon Defies ‘Economic Blackout’ As Sales Climb During Boycott.
Lin-Fisher was willing to concede Amazon so long as she could claim Target. Again, that's based on a Forbes report: Target Loses Web Traffic As Costco Gains On Feb. 28 Economic Blackout Day The implication her is supposed to be that Costco, which did not yet make a statement about dropping DEI, is being rewarded -- as per an increase of 22% in web traffic and 3% in app visits [not sales but visits] --while the other evil retailers are being duly punished by a drop in traffic.
Let's now set aside the question of whether or not Costco benefitted from the boycotters' position, which actually contradicts their stance of avoiding all big retailers and buying locally instead -- and take a closer look at Forbes' figures for Target and Walmart., and I want you to notice something. Hint: it's in the calendar page that I used as the illustration for this blog.
On blackout day, Target website visitors dropped 9% compared to Friday, Feb. 14, from 5.2 million to 4.7 million.
Target app user traffic, representing the most loyal Target customers, was off even more, down 14%, from 4.2 million to 3.5 million.
On blackout day, the nation’s number one retailer, Walmart, experienced a 5% slump in web traffic, down from 11.7 million on Feb. 14 to 11.2 million and number two Amazon dropped by 2%, from 67.1 million to 65.9 million.
Did you pick up on my hint? Why are we comparing the 28th to the 14th? Wouldn't it make much more sense to compare the 28th to the 21st -- the closest Friday to it and one in which there was no special occasion that prompted people to spend billions of dollars on gifts?
SEe the illustration above of the level fs spending about the sales predicted for this year's Valentine's Day that would include spending on February 14th itself -- given the last minute habits of many consumers. They would have been able to shop online at retailers like Walmart and Target and still pick up in store to make sure they'd have the expected token of love ready. In fact, a good chunk of Valentine's Day shoppers do make their purchases online as you can see from the graphic below:
Deliberately taking February 14th as the baseline to "prove" a significant drop in shopping traffic at Target and Walmart on an ordinary Friday is the equivalent of weighing yourself just after a Thanksgiving dinner and then weighing yourself a few days later first thing in the morning before breakfast and claiming you lost five pounds. Anyone who tracks weight accurately would always tell you to weigh yourself at the same time of day each time for the sake of consistency with your baseline.
This tactic is known as stacking the deck, one of the logical fallacies you should have learned about it in a rhetoric course.
If you're in marketing but announced to the world that you have left X, you would not see this latest randing disaster as it unfold. There's something meta (not the company) about reception happening in real-time to the "Copy Nothing" Jaguar video copied from YouTube below. It wasn't greeted warmly on that channel either.
In fact, I predict that the comments will be closed there because this is the gist of the top ones on YouTube:
Shocking. An automotive marque with +100 years of tradition in making world record breaking, elegant cars degraded to weird fashion house like branding with the sloppiest logotype I've seen in a long time.
I drive a Jag, I film adverts, this is deeply upsetting. I've seen this type of advert a thousand times before, there is nothing original about it..?
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But back to the meta observation on virtue-signalling that you're leaving X and how it parallels this off-the-mark marketing: If you close yourself off from those who have different views and expectations than your own, and those people happen to also overlap with your primary customer base, you're marketing is likely to miss the mark. On X there are now thousands of comments in response to this video, , and not a single one of them seems to say, "You've piqued my interest." Instead they say things like this: @pixel_preet: "Umm where are the cars in this ad? Is this for fashion?" The poor intern in charge of the X account for Jaguar then responds: "Think of this as a declaration of intent." And is slammed by @dave_watches retort: "To go bankrupt? Got it" Another exchange: @SwitcherB: "What the actual hell is this?" Jaguar intern reaches for what has long ago become a cliche to answer: "The future." This comment ( and others like it) got 3K likes: @LodgieFromLanza "Oh... That is bad, very bad. You will lose your core clientel [sic] and fail to attract any person who wants to purchase a quality product. If you were seeking woke under 30's who are serially unemployed then you've hit the mark."
That's the thing: staying within your own bubble and deliberately closing off your ears to the voices of other points of view means you'll be convinced that your idea is brilliant with no reality check until after you've unveiled it to the world and fallen flat on your face.
P.S. added on November 20th: Don't think that this is only a problem for fuddy-duddy conservatives. John Aziz considers himself Th liberal, and this is what he posted:
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P.P.S. Did the "Where are the cars?" comments remind anyone here of the famous "Where's the beef?" Wendy's commercials? That was a memorable and effective ad campaign. This Jaguar one is only memorable the way the introduction of New Coke is memorable -- as a bad idea for most people. (Yes, I know some people still buy and enjoy the New Coke formula, though they're far from the majority.)
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be. Only one standing in your way is yourself.And Jan wrote:We should agree to disagree and give the current administration 2 full years to show American just what they will do for us. I may not have liked prior Presidents but I never wished harm on our working people. After 2 years, THEN speak up and change things with the Mid-Terms. However, I believe we will see our economy turn around over the next 6 months and no one will want to change anything! It's only been 5-6 weeks...... Wish for the BEST for our Country! We the People have spoken with our votes
What does the data show?
Everybody lies with visualizations