The app, Boycott Trump, features more than 250 businesses tied to Trump, breaking down how they’re connected for consumers who no longer want to spend their money on any of his ventures.
The app was created by the Democratic Coalition Against Trump, an extension of the political action committee Keep America Great.
“Make Trump and his allies pay, literally, for their hateful rhetoric and regressive policies,” reads a description on the app’s iTunes page.
The Trump Organization declined to comment.
Some of the companies featured directly tie to Trump, including his multiple businesses. Others such as Dr. Pepper and Sprint are included because of sponsorships for Trump’s NBC show Celebrity Apprentice. Businesses including Nike and Gucci are on the app for flagship stores located in Trump Tower, while some companies are listed because of Trump endorsements from executives. The app also lists stores that sell clothes from Ivanka Trump.
The Boycott Trump app is one of two that appear on iTunes and Google Play urging smartphone users to refuse to spend money at companies either connected to or endorsing Trump.
Apps like Boycott Trump are rare in the mobile app space. The most notable is Buycott, which allows users on iOS or Android to scan barcodes to learn the history of products and how they’re made, as well as join crowdsourced campaigns based on certain causes. One of the campaigns featured on Buycott’s website focuses on companies tied to Trump.
How effective the app will be is uncertain. The Boycott Trump app only provides a searchable list of companies linked to the President-elect, which could make it difficult to become popular and capture a mobile audience, says Morley Winograd, a senior fellow with the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy.
“If it’s just an informational site that doesn’t give them a chance to share the fact they boycotted with their friends and didn’t buy X, Y, or Z, then it’s missing a key component of being successful with millennials, which is creating a social environment … to share the information,” Winograd says.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/11/28/app-lets-users-boycott-trump/94541732/
