About a year ago, I contemplated a lot about existentialism in marketing: if a product engages an audience (especially the consumer) with an actual experience, the product--and in turn, the brand--becomes priceless, the added value becomes invaluable. I also made an ethical distinction between outreach and marketing. You can read that post here. Now, I'm finding a continuum between community-based ethical enterprises and stories: stories humanize our relationship with whatever good or service we engage.
Ironically, my revelations are heightened by the fact that I'm starting to work closely with an Australian company to examine the "story of stuff" for sustainability in global supply chains--while many people whom I know are focused on very exciting sustainability and community building on a local level.
Hansen and Lydersen: "Exquisite Smoked Salmon"
Playing music as Ole smokes the salmon gives a story that differentiates his product from others, and adds value to the smoked salmon altogether. It's clever marketing that makes consumerism a bit more humane thanks to the touch of a story and a product procured with passion. But how integral is the music to enriching a customer's experience?
Interface: Net-Works
Interface is a carpet company. For those who might not be familiar with building materials and sustainability in industry, carpet companies pack a surprising punch when it comes to re-imagining how our economy can function [1].
Interface's net-works program might be considered a "social enterprise", but they're throwing in a fine new phrase that's worth noting in the lexicon of commerce: "restorative enterprise", which asks: How can a company improve a place or process for the human and ecosystemic community?
While they might not explicitly say so in their marketing, it's focused on using their supply chain to cultivating a coherent thread of sustainability that removes discarded fishing net from coastlines and benefits island communities.
I recently got back from a summit (check out the highlights from ReRoute) in New York which poses the same kind of question for business and economics in general: "How can we make business and economics more enriching and non-degrading to the people, and other co-habitants we live with?"
There's a movement/field of study called solidarity economics, which looks at this, and from discussing with conference luminaries, it's clear that the "new economics" movement is well underway.
Telling the story of our stuff looks like an excellent start in a global economy. Yet at the end of the day, I think we beam the most when people we know, see, and embrace directly do well.
I'm really excited at the prospect of consulting Interface's Australian company to show the global story of their sustainability initiative, and will look forward to the time when I do the same here in the Great Lakes bioregion as well.
[1] The Ellen MacArthur Foundation's "Circular Economy" video gives a good big-picture overview of how the carpet industry's business of "cradle to cradle" material reuse happens.
#11 VIII 2013
Ironically, my revelations are heightened by the fact that I'm starting to work closely with an Australian company to examine the "story of stuff" for sustainability in global supply chains--while many people whom I know are focused on very exciting sustainability and community building on a local level.
Hansen and Lydersen: "Exquisite Smoked Salmon"
Playing music as Ole smokes the salmon gives a story that differentiates his product from others, and adds value to the smoked salmon altogether. It's clever marketing that makes consumerism a bit more humane thanks to the touch of a story and a product procured with passion. But how integral is the music to enriching a customer's experience?
Interface: Net-Works
Interface is a carpet company. For those who might not be familiar with building materials and sustainability in industry, carpet companies pack a surprising punch when it comes to re-imagining how our economy can function [1].
Interface's net-works program might be considered a "social enterprise", but they're throwing in a fine new phrase that's worth noting in the lexicon of commerce: "restorative enterprise", which asks: How can a company improve a place or process for the human and ecosystemic community?
While they might not explicitly say so in their marketing, it's focused on using their supply chain to cultivating a coherent thread of sustainability that removes discarded fishing net from coastlines and benefits island communities.
I recently got back from a summit (check out the highlights from ReRoute) in New York which poses the same kind of question for business and economics in general: "How can we make business and economics more enriching and non-degrading to the people, and other co-habitants we live with?"
There's a movement/field of study called solidarity economics, which looks at this, and from discussing with conference luminaries, it's clear that the "new economics" movement is well underway.
Telling the story of our stuff looks like an excellent start in a global economy. Yet at the end of the day, I think we beam the most when people we know, see, and embrace directly do well.
I'm really excited at the prospect of consulting Interface's Australian company to show the global story of their sustainability initiative, and will look forward to the time when I do the same here in the Great Lakes bioregion as well.
[1] The Ellen MacArthur Foundation's "Circular Economy" video gives a good big-picture overview of how the carpet industry's business of "cradle to cradle" material reuse happens.
#11 VIII 2013
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