Beware “Local-Washing”
Last winter as the economy spiraled downward, many big retail chains reported double-digit sales declines. Some filed for bankruptcy. But a survey of 1,100 independent retailers found that revenue was down just three percent on average. What accounted for this relative good fortune? Many of those surveyed said that more people are deliberately seeking out locally owned businesses.
But here’s what is perhaps the strongest – and, undoubtedly, the most bizarre – evidence to date that people’s priorities are changing: Many massive, globe-spanning corporations are now trying to figure out how they can be “local” too.
Hellmann’s, the mayonnaise brand owned by the processed-food giant Unilever, is test-driving a new “Eat Real, Eat Local” marketing campaign. Frito-Lay is using farmers to pitch its potato chips as local food. Barnes & Noble, the world’s top seller of books, has launched a new campaign under the tagline, “All bookselling is local.” Winn-Dixie, one of the largest supermarket chains in the U.S., has a new slogan: “Local flavor since 1956.” The International Council of Shopping Centers, a global consortium of mall developers, is pouring millions of dollars into television ads urging people to “Shop Local” – at their nearest mall.
Most astounding of all, Starbucks, a company that has spent untold millions developing one of the most recognizable brands on the planet, is now beginning to un-brand some of its outlets. The first of these just reopened as “15th Avenue Coffee and Tea” in Seattle and, unless you read the fine print on the menu, you would quite easily assume it was an independent coffee house. Corporations desperately want to turn the local economy movement into nothing more than a cheap marketing trick they can appropriate for their own ends. These attempts at imitation are unnerving. But in the end I think this new variation on corporate green-washing – let’s call it local-washing – will backfire. In the meantime, I’m heartened by what it says about the current consciousness. After all, these companies spend enormous sums on market research and they would not be doing this unless they had detected a sizeable shift in public attitudes.
Full text of Stacy Mitchell’s talk.
Comments are closed.