We are at an interesting crossroads in consumer culture. Where luxury purchases used to be the ultimate sign of affluence or, at least, aspiring affluence, more consumers now may be driven to make conspicuously conscious purchases. According to research co-authored by Aronte Bennett and mentioned in her MediaPost article, corporate social responsibility (CSR) seems to be becoming a strong motivator influencing consumers today – even in these bad economic times. As she put it:
In a variety of experiments, our research found that consumers like CSR-associated products for two distinct reasons.
First, the fact that these products send out highly visible, social signals to their friends, family and co-workers regarding their kindness and charitable nature.
Second, they like the more private, self-signaling potential associated with the purchases of these products, even when a strong public social signal is absent to others.
According to report, but is it moralistic to put a price on children? we all seem to have value when it comes to the economy, but it's not right, we are humans! not just numbers that have disposable incomes and make money for corporations, even though this is how it seems.
Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from junk food and violent video games to bogus educational products and the family car. Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world.Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless... more
Kellogg is rationing its Eggo products due to flooding and equipment problems at two bakeries. The shortfall could last through mid-2010.
Better hoard your Eggos!
Grocery stores will be experiencing a shortage of the waffles until mid-2010 due to problems at two bakeries, a Kellogg's spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
Flooding at an Atlanta bakery during heavy rains in October forced Kellogg, which makes Eggo products, to shut down production temporarily, said company spokesman Kris Charles. Plus, equipment at Kellogg's largest waffle facility, based in Rossville, Tenn., needs extensive repairs.
Costco customers may have to look elsewhere for Coca-Cola products now that the retailer has stopped carrying them because the pair are fighting over prices.
The public squabble between one of the nation's largest wholesale club operators and the world's largest soft drink maker is likely to fizzle quickly. But it reveals real tensions as retailers and product makers square off on prices
As shoppers continue to grapple with the recession, retailers want to win their favor by giving them low prices. But that has been creating tension between product makers like Coca-Cola Co., who are working hard to maintain profit margins while meeting retailer demands.
Typically such negotiations take place behind the scenes, but once in awhile, a public dispute erupts.
"Beneath this surface of harmony, it's a dogfight out there," Gerry Khermouch, editor of Beverage Business Insights, said Tuesday at an investor meeting held by the soft drink maker at its hometown of Atlanta.
Retailers want to wield more power in determining pricing with product makers, who they depend on to stock their customers' favorite brands, Khermouch said.
Costco has been aggressive in putting up signs on store shelves and notices on its Web site.
"Costco is committed to carrying name brand merchandise at the best possible prices. At this time, Coca-Cola has not provided Costco with competitive pricing so that we may pass along the value our members deserve," said a message on the company's Web site labeled "Price Alert!"
A Costco executive confirmed the move Monday but would not discuss the matter further.
Yes, these are real and available just in time to nip our consumer panic in the bud -- now you know exactly what to give to the greenie in your life...or not!It sure is getting chilly outside, and as the temperatures plunge, the majority of us... more
This excerpt is from Development Crossing most recent news release regarding the ties between social media, corporate social responsibility, and the economic downturn.
Given the economic downturn, several studies have come out over the past few months looking at the attitudes of both consumers and senior executives regarding the state of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Throw in the (relatively) new world of social media, where news is spread in a matter of seconds, and the topic becomes even more interesting. So what’s everyone thinking?
Senior Executives
The Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship surveyed 756 executives across the United States for its “The State of Corporate Citizenship, 2009” report. And the findings are quite promising. More than 50% of executives believe corporate citizenship is even more important in a recession, and while reputation came out as the number one driver (for 70% of executives), many are seeing additional benefits from a more sustainable approach.
According to the report, 65% of large companies (1,000+ employees) are designing and offering sustainable products or services and 85% are reducing costs through improved materials efficiency. The benefits to employee engagement are also becoming more visible with 45% of companies compensating employees for ideas benefiting the bottom line and the environment or community, compared to 37% in 2007.
Few things have changed faster than the way we communicate. Coupled with the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or green movement, there has been an explosion of information available about how and what companies and organizations are doing to improve society and the environment.
During the past year, at least three major events have influenced how communications relate to CSR:
1) The new administration in Washington is focused on volunteerism, green-collar jobs, alternative energy and other CSR issues.
2) Bernie Madoff and the “collapse” of Wall Street spotlighted (once again) the need for greater transparency and corporate governance.
3) Consumers are demanding information about what the companies from which we buy our goods and services are doing to have a positive impact on society, improve the environment, and in general “save the world.” Companies are finally starting to be held accountable and responsible for the impact and influence they can have to affect change, and they realize the need to communicate it. From a media and PR perspective, this presents both opportunities and challenges.
Any company can issue a press release talking about all the good they’re doing, and consequently greenwashing — and a lack of authenticity has become almost epidemic. It seems every brand wants to capture the green consumer.
The media challenge: To communicate effectively in ways that a growing, “green-focused” audience, consisting of varied demographics, is responsive to and can trust. Authenticity must absolutely be obvious. The age-old, traditional press release isn’t what it used to be. Yes, there’s still a place for it in modern communications, but it’s become widely accepted that its impact is diminished.
Enter blogs and bloggers, videos, podcasts, and various commentaries … all new and different ways to reach an audience no longer receptive to traditional methods such as press releases. Combine this with issues that people are passionate about, that affect their lives and their children’s lives, such as corporate responsibility and sustainability … and that’s the mix that must be communicated. To address that, successful organizations have begun to realize that the value of delivering their messages, consistently in all different media formats, engages a passionate audience.
--an excerptFew things have changed faster than the way we communicate. Coupled with the Corporate... more
We limit the combined total dollar amount of item-labeled produce that any single grower can sell under our two item labels to less than $1 Million US dollars annually. This is our small effort to even the playing field between larger and smaller farms. Research shows that larger farms, particularly those with annual revenues in excess of $1 Million per year have a significant competitive advantage as compared to small family farms. Top 10 Produce LLC will invite socially conscious consumers to play a role by alerting the consumer that our brand provides a strategic advantage in favor of smaller farms, and by reminding buyers that we only license independent growers. 100% of our items have a transparency enabling barcode.
This item level barcode will be scanned by mobile phones to tell the consumer about the farmer, whether the produce is locally grown (including a map showing the location of the farm as compared to their current location based on their cell phone's GPS ), and anything else the consumer is interested to know about that produce item. Consumer reviews of fresh produce will be available to shoppers and chefs alike.
Suggestions are encouraged and welcome, so please share thoughts, concerns, criticisms and questions. We are listening carefully.We limit the combined total dollar amount of item-labeled produce that any single... more
In the good old days consumers were easily persuaded by advertisers who pulled on their heartstrings and convinced them to buy low quality merchandise at a ridiculous price. But now consumers look up their potential buys on the internet, where they have access to consumer reports, social networking sites, and comparisons from competitors.
Nowadays consumers buy because of value and morality. It's valuable to save money but it's morally better to buy a better quality product even if it may cost a little more.
The only problem I have with this article is the following quote: "When we buy at Wal-Mart (WMT) instead of, say, Bloomingdale's, we are not only spending less, we are also doing our small part to reverse the toxic greed that so spun our world out of control." Hasn't Wal-Mart added to the toxic greed that has spun our world out of control? They pay their employees so little that they can only shop at Wal-Mart, the sheer presence of a Wal-Mart completely devastates a local economy, and their work conditions abroad are deplorable. How exactly has shopping at Wal-Mart and supporting that type of corporate culture a constructive route to ending an environment of toxic greed?In the good old days consumers were easily persuaded by advertisers who pulled on... more
The sun had just crested the distant ridge of the Rocky Mountains, but already it was producing enough power for the electric meter on the side of the Smiley Building to spin backward.
For the Shaw brothers, who converted the downtown arts building and community center into a miniature solar power plant two years ago, each reverse rotation subtracts from their monthly electric bill. It also means the building at that moment is producing more electricity from the sun than it needs.
"Backward is good," said John Shaw, who now runs Shaw Solar and Energy Conservation, a local solar installation company.
Good for whom?
As La Plata County in southwestern Colorado looks to shift to cleaner sources of energy, solar is becoming the power source of choice even though it still produces only a small fraction of the region's electricity. It's being nudged along by tax credits and rebates, a growing concern about the gases heating up the planet, and the region's plentiful sunshine.
The natural gas industry, which produces more gas here than nearly every other county in Colorado, has been relegated to the shadows.The sun had just crested the distant ridge of the Rocky Mountains, but already it was... more
Your clothes may have a chemical-dependency problem.
The cotton in your shirt was likely grown with a strong dose of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Many synthetic fabrics such as nylon, acrylic and polyester are petroleum-based.
But it's getting easier for consumers to break the habit, as more clothing made from organic cotton or renewable and reused fabrics hits store shelves and the Internet.
Q: Why should I be concerned about chemicals used to make my clothes?
A: We probably won't experience any ill effects from these chemicals when we wear the clothes. It's the farmers or factory workers and their families, usually thousands of miles away, who face the greatest risk.
About half the pesticides used to grow cotton globally are classified as hazardous, according to the London-based Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF). Children commonly suffer from pesticide poisoning because of the closeness of their homes to cotton fields and the reuse of empty pesticide containers.
The environment pays a price as well. Hazardous cotton pesticides have contaminated rivers in India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Brazil, Australia, Greece, Western Africa and the U.S., says the EJF. Petroleum used in synthetic fabrics contributes to global warming.
Q: Hasn't the cotton industry reduced its use of pesticides?
A: Since 1996, the global environmental impact of insecticides used on cotton has decreased nearly 25 percent due to the development of genetically modified, insect-resistant cotton, says the industry organization Cotton Inc. However, some researchers have concerns about long-term effects of genetically engineered crops.
Three percent of the world's agricultural land and 8 percent of all pesticides are used for cotton production, Cotton Inc. says. Some environmental groups claim the percentage of pesticides used for cotton is much higher.
Please follow link for more Q & A and for additional resources for going 'green' with your wardrobeYour clothes may have a chemical-dependency problem.
The cotton in your shirt was... more
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia should take urgent steps to curb animal smuggling to the Middle East that is cutting into export earnings worth tens of millions of dollars to the poor country every year, a senior official said.
Livestock exports are an important source of hard currency for the Horn of Africa nation, which boasts 50 million cattle, 50 million sheep and goats and more than half a million camels.
It made $53 million from exports last year, but Berhe Gebreigziabher, at a top official at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said crime was slashing revenue.
"A significant number of live animals ... are being smuggled to neighboring states to be re-exported to Middle Eastern countries," he told Reuters on Friday.
"Our animal sector resources are being stolen and taken to other nations. The government must adopt strict policies and control mechanism to stop the illegal trade undermining us."
Berhe, who heads the ministry's Animal and Plant Regulatory Department, said the authorities should support economic growth by adding value to their exports, not just selling livestock.
The government has converted tens of thousands of acres in the Oromia, Amhara and Somali regions to rangeland for the leather goods sector, which it hopes will earn $200 million from exports in 2009/10 (July-June), up from $100 million in 2008/09.
The country used to export mostly raw hides and skins to markets in Europe and Asia, generating about $30 million a year in the late 1990s. It has since built dozens of tanneries, shoe factories and other leather-working facilities.
Among the major buyers of Ethiopian-made shoes are Germany, Italy, China, India and the United States.ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia should take urgent steps to curb animal smuggling to... more
The idea behind COMMERCIAL BREAKERS is simply to sabotage the meaning of advertising and undermine the power of brands. The average TV ad presents the consumer with a crisis: a crisis of identity, a crisis of hunger, a messy floor, an unsightly blemish or erectile dysfunction. The crisis is always a crisis of choice, but there is only one choice: the product being advertised. Each ad expresses an individual brand’s vision of utopia; a perfect world constructed around a singular message: if you buy the product being advertised, you will be happy and content … if only for a moment.The idea behind COMMERCIAL BREAKERS is simply to sabotage the meaning of advertising... more
Gandhi's India, or at least his influence on economics, has all but disappeared in the past decade. Until the country opened up to the world in the 90s, its leaders backed Gandhi-ite ideas and championed equality and social stability over wealth creation. After 1991, that all changed.
Notions of speed and efficiency were stamped on to a civilisation that traditionally took a slower, more relaxed view of life. The message was similar to that of China during the 90s, in the phrase attributed to Deng Xiaoping: "To get rich is glorious."
This sentiment appears dwarfed by India's teeming millions of poor people. The awful reality is despite India's rise, the rate of malnutrition in children under five is a shamefully high 45%. The talk of making poverty history sounds hollow in India, a land that is home to a third of the world's poor and where some 300 million people live on less than $1 a day.
Yet another world is growing up, fueled by the immense wealth that is being amassed by India's new monied classes. Their appetite for goods has seen a new money culture – how to make it and how to spend it. India's masses were, under the more equal state-run economy, denied shopping choices. The country is today undergoing a consumer boom. For some, this is proof enough that, in opening up, India has gained from globalisation – allowing Dior, Bulgari, Rolls-Royce and Montblanc into the country. Consumption in this India is nothing if not conspicuous.Gandhi's India, or at least his influence on economics, has all but disappeared in the... more
As the real-world benefits of buying local and organic food prove to be negligible, is going veggie our only hope?As the real-world benefits of buying local and organic food prove to be negligible, is... more
"People who claim that population growth is the big environmental issue are shifting the blame from the rich to the poor
It’s no coincidence that most of those who are obsessed with population growth are post-reproductive wealthy white men: it’s about the only environmental issue for which they can’t be blamed. The brilliant earth systems scientist James Lovelock, for example, claimed last month that “those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth. These two huge environmental problems are inseparable and to discuss one while ignoring the other is irrational.”(1) But it’s Lovelock who is being ignorant and irrational.
A paper published yesterday in the journal Environment and Urbanization shows that the places where population has been growing fastest are those in which carbon dioxide has been growing most slowly, and vice versa. Between 1980 and 2005, for example, Sub-Saharan Africa produced 18.5% of the world’s population growth and just 2.4% of the growth in CO2. North America turned out 4% of the extra people, but 14% of the extra emissions. Sixty-three per cent of the world’s population growth happened in places with very low emissions(2).
Even this does not capture it. The paper points out that around one sixth of the world’s population is so poor that it produces no significant emissions at all. This is also the group whose growth rate is likely to be highest. Households in India earning less than 3,000 rupees a month use a fifth of the electricity per head and one seventh of the transport fuel of households earning Rs30,000 or more. Street sleepers use almost nothing. Those who live by processing waste (a large part of the urban underclass) often save more greenhouse gases than they produce.
Many of the emissions for which poorer countries are blamed should in fairness belong to us. Gas flaring by companies exporting oil from Nigeria, for example, has produced more greenhouse gases than all other sources in sub-Saharan Africa put together(3). Even deforestation in poor countries is driven mostly by commercial operations delivering timber, meat and animal feed to rich consumers. The rural poor do far less harm(4)."
More:
"While there’s a weak correlation between global warming and population growth, there’s a strong correlation between global warming and wealth. I’ve been taking a look at a few superyachts, as I’ll need somewhere to entertain Labour ministers in the style to which they’re accustomed. First I went through the plans for Royal Falcon Fleet’s RFF135, but when I discovered that it burns only 750 litres of fuel per hour(5) I realised that it wasn’t going to impress Lord Mandelson. I might raise half an eyebrow in Brighton with the Overmarine Mangusta 105, which sucks up 850 l/hr(6). But the raft that’s really caught my eye is made by Wally Yachts in Monaco. The WallyPower 118 (which gives total wallies a sensation of power) consumes 3400 l/hr when travelling at 60 knots(7). That’s nearly one litre per second. Another way of putting it is 31 litres per kilometre(8)."
More excerpts:
"James Lovelock, like Sir David Attenborough and Jonathan Porritt, is a patron of the Optimum Population Trust (OPT). It is one of dozens of campaigns and charities whose sole purpose is to discourage people from breeding in the name of saving the biosphere. But I haven’t been able to find any campaign whose sole purpose is to address the impacts of the very rich."
"So where are the movements protesting about the stinking rich destroying our living systems? Where is the direct action against superyachts and private jets? Where’s Class War when you need it?"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------As culture jammers, how can we live in a world that is poisonous to our souls, harmful to our minds and at odds with our ideals? Common sense tells us that we have two options: either imitate or hate the world. But if we remain stuck within this binary opposition, we will lose ourselves. If we imitate the world we sacrifice our core beliefs. If we hate the world we succumb to being reactionary and lose the passion that grounds our affirmation. What then can we do? This is the question that Seneca, the great Stoic philosopher, posed nearly two millennia ago. And his answer speaks to today’s struggle of being culture jammers in a consumerist society.
~Micah White
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sit down this one might be a thinker.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------... more
In the wake of the housing crisis, self-storage spaces hold a lurid fascination. Some contain all that remains of people's formerly middle-class lives. Others are mountains of neurotic garbage. The NYT magazine has an amazing story about self-storage culture.
Writer Jon Mooallem visited self-storage container minicities where blank, featureless boxes stretch as far as the eye can see. Apparently, there are now 2.3 billion square feet of self-storage space in the United States, mostly full of things that people never see or use or even think about for years on end. They're full of the garbage we can't part with.
And now that so many people can no longer afford homes that fit all their furniture, they represent a hope that someday we'll all be able to have more space to live in. Rather than cheap containers to store our crap in.
But what's truly intriguing in this article is Mooallem's colorful history of the self-storage boom. Who are the barons of this anti-real estate form of real estate?
Mooallem writes:
By the end of the '90s, there seemed to be almost limitless, pent-up demand for storage around the country, more than life events readily explained. Storage was seen as an invincible investment and became the go-to solution for developers with awkward, leftover scraps of land. After an industry report found that Hawaii ranked among the states with the least amount of storage space in the nation, storage barons rushed in, almost doubling the available square footage there between 2004 and 2007. One man converted a network of caves on Oahu, used to house munitions during World War II, into a storage facility. (The caves are naturally climate-controlled, perfect for wine.) Around the United States, newcomers to the industry were building even against the advice of their expert consultants. "We were cranking these things out at exponential rates," an industry veteran named Tom Litton told me. "It was just nuts."
He also talks to compulsive storage-users, whose tales are as weird and sad and mundane as you might imagine. If you want to understand the future of built space, you must check out this article:
