A new app that promotes “values based shopping” is empowering shoppers of all political stripes to ditch brands that don’t align with their values. Veebs is targeted at both conservatives looking to abandon woke products and liberals who want to boycott labels they perceive as racist or homophobic.
Veebs, a name based on the phrase “values based shopping,” is an app that was created for consumers who wish to put their money where their mouth is and stay away from brands that promote or endorse views or causes that don’t align with their own, the official website explains.
Similar to a credit score, the Veebs app takes into consideration a brand’s public statements, advertising campaigns, social media activity, and more in order to produce a “V-Score.” The V-Score is a ranked out of 100, representing where a brand is placed on the left-right spectrum.
The app is bi-partisan, and contains “value packs” for liberals, conservatives, those concerned about climate change, LGBT rights, or the America First agenda. By choosing a pack, customers can boycott or support brands based on their own specific viewpoints. In store, the app allows users to scan barcodes to check a product’s V-Score, and points users towards brands that may better align with their values if necessary.
In a sponsored video, conservative golf influencer Bri Teresi argued that the app was necessary and provided the “best way to fight against these woke brands is with their wallets.” Some examples of left-wing products that Teresi pointed out were Ben and Jerry’s, which recently demanded that Mount Rushmore be given back to Native Americans, and Tampax, which sponsored transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
But while the app does technically appeal to people all across the political spectrum, the marketing has leaned towards appealing to those to the right-wing of politics. Comparing each of the specific Twitter accounts for right-wing and left-wing ideologies, the accounts for the “value packs” that lean right have tweeted 13 times more in total than those on the left of the spectrum, even though there are fewer of them.
Despite having four accounts based on left-wing ideologies, the official Veebs account, which has 41 tweets in total at the time of writing, has never once replied to or retweeted any of the accounts for its left-wing customers.
Writing in Unherd, Oliver Bateman also expressed suspicion that Veebs was entering into the data aggregation market, currently “dominated” by Google and Meta. “These corporations have built their fortunes on collecting vast troves of personal information, using it to shape marketing and advertising strategies. Veebs seems to be hoping for a slice of that huge market, albeit through more overt, value-based methods,” Bateman argued.
In a post to Twitter on Wednesday night, the official Veebs account categorically denied the accusation. “Not a Trojan Horse,” they wrote. “Our data policy is clear. We don’t sell or share the user’s phone/email data.”
