ideas

Brain Dump on Beneficial Marketing

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Many cast marketing as a manipulative industry that distorts our beliefs into craving another taquito or plastic injection-molded toy to fill the voids of our stomachs and closets. Even if we see marketing that espouses the concept of an energy-efficient, locally-based, low-carb widget, we tend to think that the whole thing has been ‘greenwashed‘. Wal-Mart can’t actually be a net positive for the environment, can it?

Is there a place for a marketing agency that promotes only truly net-positive goods and services? And not just promotion with the goal of increasing sales, but with the goal of bettering our world. Obviously this flies in the face of capitalism and the need for profit, but I think there are plenty of business owners who would agree with that sentiment, and who believe their products do such a thing.

I’m thinking things like Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacket“. One of the premises behind Patagonia’s values is that its goods are built to last, and that due to their quality you don’t need to replace them as often which means less waste. For “Cyber Monday,” Patagonia said don’t buy things. This worked for them because no one else had this message.

This hypothetical agency would have a high bar for clients. Being a client of the agency would be as much as a certification as being a ‘B-corporation‘. The agency would only use the most efficient means of advertising. Maybe some of the resources would be used to attack greenwashing, exposing other companies ‘Yes Men‘-style.

This type of marketing would usually be called activism. But if it participates within the system and remains profitable, it could be another gear in the progress machine.

A Less Radical Adbusters

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tumblr_memipykDGg1rjaonho1_1280The NYTimes story of Adbusters’ Kalle Lasn didn’t do him much of a service. This is the first time I’ve read about him, and a longer explanation of Adbusters, but it seems the organization is a bit too wacky to work well toward its goals.

I’ve read copies of Adbusters before, and they are confusing as hell. If you haven’t, check out their website to get a taste. Sure, there’s a video on living in an economy beyond growth, but there’s also a story on something to do with men peeing outside. Maybe the title of that piece, “The End of Men,” is supposed to hint at some sort of sarcastic take on the recently released book of the same title. But for people who might be actually interested in ‘culture jamming’ or finding better routes for society to travel, the story just confuses and turns potential collaborators off.

Co-founder of Adbusters, Lasn, “commutes 30 minutes each way from the magazine to his home.” The organization also attempts to sell Converse-like Blackspot shoes to fight Nike, but the original style will be discontinued seemingly due to lack of sales. The article sums up these contradictions well:

Such apparent inconsistencies, and the magazine’s incendiary tone, can be maddening and even offensive, yet this rambunctious approach is also deeply appealing, some critics say. As Mr. Haiven, of New York University, puts it: “I’ve certainly been very critical of them but I’m also very glad they exist. I think they do very important work sometimes, in their own way.”

He adds: “I think the answer is not so much that they should be doing something different but that there should be more alternatives out there. There is nothing else quite like Adbusters.”

Could such an alternative to Adbusters exist? Is there room or support for less radical, more focused organizations? How about a coalition of independent brands, like the Blackspot shoes, for an eco-minded consumer to turn to for the products they need? Only the most sustainable products make the cut, and it becomes the hippie goto place. An Amazon of sustainability and quality. Just spitballing.

City Country Fingers

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Imagine living in a city, with all the amenities like late night tacos, early morning cafes, and nearby schools. Imagine living in the country, with gorgeous wide open fields and quiet solitude. Jam ’em together, what do you get? City country fingers. This is just one of the many patterns in Christopher Alexander’s “A Pattern Langauge”. You can read the specifics straight from the book here, but a quick summary is below.

The main takeaways:

  • Interlock city and farmland, with city never being more than a mile wide, and farmland being at least a mile wide.
  • While the farmland can be cultivated, it should remain free for anyone to respectfully enjoy and wander.
  • The limit of a mile of city ensures that everyone is within a 10 minute walk of country.

Imagine it! Is there anyplace in the world that has this? I’m guessing towns in Europe, perhaps where the mountains have limited construction. Otherwise, urban places are packed tight — giving the feeling of being pushed into the ocean in New York City.

This book is filled with awesome ideas and facts, like a chart plotting “nuisance distances,” that is where a trip becomes a nuisance depending on how far away something is and how frequent the trip is. Apparently, if something is greater than 50 feet away and you have to make the trip twice an hour, it’s right on the border of being a nuisance. I’ll highlight more of these ideas in coming posts.