kierandelaney.net

Stop With The Petrol Related Emails!

I got an e-mail today, regarding petrol. Yes, the same e-mail that everyone has probably had once a month for the last 2 years. Every other month some herbert decides he’s had enough of paying over the odds for an essential product, and instead of getting really down with anarchy and blowing up a refinery, he decides to send his mates an e-mail.


> See what you think and pass it on if you agree with it.
>
> We are hitting 106.9 p a litre in some areas now, soon we will be
> faced with paying £1 .10 a ltr. Philip Hollsworth offered this good idea:
>
> This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the 'don't buy petrol on a certain
> day' campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies
> just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to hurt
> ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us
> than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come
> up with a plan that can really work.
>
> Please read it and join in!
>
> Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us
> to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take
> aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the market place not
> sellers. With the price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need
> to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come
> down is if we hit someone in the pocket by not purchasing their Petrol! And
> we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here's the idea:
>
> For the rest of this year DON'T purchase ANY petrol from the two
> biggest oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP.
>
>
> If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce
> their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to
> follow suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of
> Esso and BP petrol buyers. It's really simple to do!!
>
> Now, don't wimp out on me at this point... keep reading and I'll
> explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!
>
> I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each of you send i t
> to
> at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at
> least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the message
> reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE
> MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and pass this on to
> ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it
> goes one level further, you guessed it... ..
>
> THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!
>
> Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all.(and
> not buy at ESSO/BP) How long would all that take? If each of us sends this
> email out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION
> people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! Acting
> together we can make a difference If this makes sense to you, please pass
> this message on.
>
> PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE
> RANGE
>
> It's easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your
> petrol at Shell, Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons Jet etc. i.e.
> boycott BP and Esso.

In August 2000, some people decided to boycott the forecourts of petrol stations up and down the country. The media got really excitable but eventually nothing happened.

The chain letter above first surfaced in Summer, 2000, after the petrol boycott. The anonymous author reasoned the failure of previous campaigns was that people just can’t go without getting petrol - even for a couple of days. It was an instant hit, but its popularity faded as gas prices stabilized in late summer. It resurfaced when petrol prices spiked again in the springs of 2001 and 2002 and in fact everytime petrol so much as fluctuates by a penny. The 2002 version is the one posted above.

Also, in 2002, the chain letter went international, with versions popping up in the US and Australia. Language, measurements, currency units and oil company names (Exxon and Mobil, instead of Esso and BP) were switched to their American or Australian equivalents, but otherwise it was the same letter.

Predictably, this nearsighted boycott e-mail surges in popularity each spring, as nature and market trends regularly contribute to a seasonal peak in prices. It reliably resurfaced in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 practically unchanged from the 2002 version - and now its 2008 and I’ve got it again…..

So, will avoiding one company’s petrol stations effectively and permanently drive prices down? No. In fact, it would likely have the opposite effect, if any at all. Petrol is a commodity. Commodity markets work on the principle of supply and demand. When supply is higher than demand, sellers lower the price until the two factors equalize again. When demand is higher than supply, sellers raise the price to curb use and stretch supplies until, once again, the two factors equalize.

Just for the sake of argument, let’s say we successfully organize the Esso/BP boycott. Esso/BP loses business and lowers prices to lure you back. The other stations will follow suit and lower prices to compete, right? Not quite. To avoid Esso/BP you go to the Tescos in your town, instead. Tesco’s business increases, causing them to raise their prices to try to control demand, otherwise their supply would be quickly depleted. Their higher prices drive customers to Sainsburys across the road, who in turn raise their prices and drive customers to Jet, and so on. Eventually, supply and demand will equalize and all stations will have the same price again. Never mind where Tesco/Sainsburys and the rest of the smaller players get their petrol from. Obviously they’ll get the best deals from the biggest companies. Who are the biggest companies? Esso and BP. Oh dear - you thought this through didn’t you chaps, whilst all the while Esso and BP laugh all the way to the bank.

As consumers, we can do little to control supply, but we can control demand. However, effectively doing so means reducing demand overall, not just at one station. The reduction in demand must be as severe as possible and long-lasting. If you want to save money at the pump, slow down on the motorway, plan outings to get everything in one trip, walk more and trade in that gas-guzzling Tonka toy for an economical compact car for starters.

Historically, chain-letter boycott campaigns are almost always failures. Reaching people is different from getting them to participate. People will receive duplicates, some will dismiss it out of hand, some e-mails will never reach their recipients. It will take a lot more than “the sixth iteration” or “8 days” to get 300,000,000 supporters. But, since e-mail chain letters are easy to distribute, we do so, fooling ourselves into thinking we’re doing a good thing. Instead, we’re propagating nearly a decade’s worth of Armchair Activism based on a faulty premise.

Break this chain of e-mail stupidity. Save my inbox and stop forwarding mindless crap!

Filed by Kieran at February 8th, 2008 under Blog, Complaint!, Topical?