Claiming to use the most ‘eco-friendly’ packaging available to the bottled water industry as a response to learning about how many plastic bottles end up in landfills, this company sure is making a big splash in sustainability!

Removing tongue from cheek for a moment here, I put Plant It in the same pile as Fiji Water (OMG, let’s bottle up someone ELSE’s water and ship it over here to sell!) and ethos water (sold at your local Starbucks). I grapple with whether the execs at these companies understand what sustainability means. That perpetuating the notion of packaged water as a necessity for our western tastes will hold up the barriers to developing, installing, and maintaining free, clean drinking water in our municipalities. By the way, Tetra-paks may feel less petroleum-offensive than plastic water bottles, but these handy dandy cartons are not easily nor readily recycled by consumers.

Thank you for giving a tree back to the world, Plant It. Now stop robbing her blind.

Probably because I’m a creature of patterns and I was used to thinking about things in terms of “environmental impact” first and foremost. I have lately been trying to take a systems-perspective on things I ponder… Anyway, this is now changing the way I think about things I put in my body as well as on my body.

My first experience with a SLS-free facial scrub by Burt’s Bees was great. I came out of the shower with soft and fresh skin on my face, and my first reaction was not to reach for the moisturizer. Usually my skin feels tight after a shower, but not tonight. 

So, nothing ground-breaking. But a breakthrough for me, personally. 

By the way, I highly recommend taking a systems-thinking class with Russell from Kwela Leadership. His next session is some time in May. Stay tuned.

From a responsible mobility perspective, I’m intrigued by this new dialogue. There’s new promise and new hope because we’re experiencing a brew of special events that gives the EV a chance this time around.

• Price of gas: It’s up, it’s down… While OPEC and other oil-producing nations sort themselves out, consumers are looking for options that will get them off oil-dependency. Even if those options aren’t available right now, we want to know they’re on the way. For example, Chevy has been posting info about it’s Volt and taking orders on its wait list. Clever?

• Detroit vs. Washington: If the Big Three want a big cheque from Washington, they better be ready to play by new rules. While the debate continues on whether the Detroit auto manufacturers should be bailed out, it’s pretty clear that there is a great opportunity now to turn them around. President Obama has been quite consistent about new rules for Detroit, even when he was pounding the campaign pavement. Check out Thomas Friedman‘s suggestions.

• Network effects: New infrastructure is being developed to push the EV along. Not just being “developed”… a company called Better Place has actually signed on with some auto makers in Japan, and with actual STATES (California being the biggest, and the most car-dependent in the world) to implement charging stations. Without the supporting “stuff”, people won’t adopt something new, even if it is really cool. Think HDTV and HD programming; think iPods and iTunes.

• Oh yeah, and climate change: sometimes we forget about it. Especially when it keeps snowing and covering everything in cold white stuff here in BC. But the latest science suggests we’re at the brink of no return. I know climate change is too vast a concept to make everyday people switch consumption patterns. But chipping away at our oil-dependency and greenhouse gas emissions just might.

What’s in store for British Columbia? We’ve had our share of relationship ups and downs with the EV. We’re also supposed to be publicly carbon neutral by 2010. Here’s keeping our fingers crossed.

Simplifiers sound a lot like ‘awakening consumers’, which I had the good fortune of learning about from The Green Team‘s Mr. Hank Stewart at this 2008 Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Conference a couple weeks ago. They also sound a bit like my Gen X lot, a generation of floaters who didn’t really see the value in their parents’ (the boomers) material success… except with more money in the bank.

I’m pretty sure simplifiers have always been around – those who rejected the typical yuppy lifestyle as a symbol of success… but I’m glad that simplifiers are getting attention and that marketers are paying attention. Pay attention:

Simplifiers want a legacy of experiences, not things. To live with meaning. That could mean that we only buy from businesses we believe are doing something good for this world. Or that we prefer to spend money on life-enhancing experiences like the arts, travel, or dining out with friends.

Economy’s the sh*ts and businesses are in trouble. If anyone is still willing to put money into the economy, it’s the simplifier.

I think so. Yes I do! That’s the spirit!

So cracnatic will be about the following things, in no particular order:

• responsible consumption
• trying to live a sustainable life 
• environmental marketing (not green marketing)… think behavioural change through social media

Hope you enjoy the new cracnatic!

Unlike other tourism blogs or social communities where seasoned travellers offer up advice, The Local Scoop doesn’t just tap in to what travellers are saying. Residents from each destination contribute to the forum, in effect enabling visitors to experience the city “like a local”. Travellers staying at an Omni Hotel are invited to join The Local Scoop, and can create a customized package during their stay.
In service industries, it’s been noted that one way to sell more profitably is to manage customers better – specifically, get them to do your work. Well, here is an ingenious way of not only getting customers to do some leg work, but also getting an entirely separate set of stakeholders to do a LOT of work. The incentive for residents to contribute to The Local Scoop is to show some hometown pride and drive the local economies and tourism industry.

Sounds like a win-win to me. Indeed, while other hotels and the travel industry in general were tanking over the summer, Omni Hotels experienced increased sales.

If your brand isn’t already established as something tried, tested, and true, is it really going to make a difference to start promoting this kind of message now? And by the time your campaign is ready to launch, will the message still be relevant in context to the future market environment?

What’s a strong brand that says trust? For the past hundred or so years, BCAA has been a trusted brand in road assistance, insurance, and travel. Perhaps you don’t think of BCAA as being fun or sexy, but you do feel like you’re in trusted hands.

Barry Schwartz is a professor of social theory and action, teaching courses ranging from basic psychology to economic rationality and decision-making.

His 2004 book, “The Paradox of Choice: Why Less is More” (Harper Collins) pulls together several years of musing and research over why we, in democratic societies, are fervent advocates of choice and freedom, yet are not any happier with our decisions when we are given many options to choose from. All the choice in the world, and we do not seem any better off than those living in places with fewer perceived freedoms.

As consumers, as we have been given more and more choice, our level of happiness has not increased accordingly. In fact, according to Schwartz, our society is becoming more depressed.

Let’s think about this for a minute. We want choice; we talk about the freedom to choose. To us, choice equals freedom. The more choice, the better, right? A society with absolutely no choice or freedom would reduce us to some kind of paternalistic Big Brother reality… and no one wants that. How about a little choice? Much better. What about infinite possibilities? How about a grocery store isle with 200 types of salad dressing or 50 types of toothpaste? What about online, where our offline choices are suddenly amplified by several orders of magnitude? Where would we start?

Based on his research, Schwartz discusses three specific outcomes of the paradox of choice:

• Paralysis. When faced with too many options, we prefer to not choose anything at all. We take a pass.
• Bad decisions. If we can overcome paralysis, with all the options to choose from, decisions tend to be made on points that don’t really matter to us. The decision is just so difficult that sometimes the job of deciding gets rushed.
• Regret. Because there were so many choices, and because we probably chose badly (see point #2), we’ll regret our decision and linger on the ‘what ifs’.

Schwartz is careful to point out that decision-makers lie on a spectrum between ‘maximizers’ (those who always try to make the best possible choice, no matter how agonizing that is) and ‘satisficers’ (those who go for ‘good enough’ and are happy to settle upon it). The satisficers search until they’ve found something that generally meets their needs, and then stop the search. After satisficers have made their decision, they don’t spend any more energy thinking about it. On the other hand, maximizers agonize over every aspect of a decision; they are the ones who will suffer most from the paradox of choice.
Schwartz provides some excellent examples from his everyday shopping experiences, and also sums up his research and recommendations very nicely in this TED talk:

Now, the phenomena of decision-making paralysis and regret are certainly not new in the field of social psychology. But applied to the everyday marketplace that consumers are faced with, Schwartz makes a compelling argument that we marketers need to pay serious attention to.
What’s going on out there?
In our competitive market environment, even commodity goods are pushed to differentiate themselves in order to capture wallet share. The outcome is a vast array of choices that may ultimately cost industry profitability. Put those choices online, make them search-engine optimized, and we have a recipe for paralysis, bad decisions, and regret. Simply put, the paradox of choice.
The Internet makes choices rampant and easily accessible; everything is just a click away. Everyone knows how to perform a basic search. Comparison shopping sites such as Shopzilla and PriceGrabber now proliferate the web, amplifying the paradox (and by the way, these sites would probably be noted by Schwartz as the maximizers’ worst enemy). These comparison sites boil products down to lowest common denominators, stripping away the brand equity and other intangible attributes that marketers have poured sweat into.
Now, is it any wonder that consumers are making more and more bad decisions and coming to regret them?
Marketing Implications
Marketers and product managers have always been aware of the problem of “too much”. We’re told to trim our product lines because too many choices breed complexity (Cocheo, 2006). Especially with products that don’t require shelf space (think financial and investment vehicles, service packages, and the like), the potential to get a little crazy on tweaks and add-ons is understandable. We might have the tendency to think that the more options we offer, the greater ability for us to “target” our hard-to-reach segments. We get stuck in the “if we build it, they will come” mentality.
And while we understand, cognitively at least, that too many choices lead to complexity and paralysis, what we can use help in is how to prevent our customers from getting down on themselves: the regret over possible bad decisions.
How do we help our customers feel confident in their decision to choose us? How do we show them that they made the right decision? Although much of the answer may lie in the actual quality or performance of the product or service we just sold, the marketer does have a role to play.
First, through proper targeting and communication channels, we can emerge as the obvious choice to our targeted groups. Or at least cut out a lot of marketplace noise. Narrowing down the options to one or two strong contenders will enhance the odds of our customers walking away happy. This is necessary both offline and online, and while the tools for each might differ, the underlying principle remains the same. So, this helps customers overcome the paralysis from overwhelming choice.
Second, after-sales service and support can go a long way in turning a mediocre experience to something rewarding and satisfying. Consider a purchase decision made solely on price. With no other differentiators, the product or service that provides superior after-sales support will likely gain the commitment of the customer. The follow-up email, or unexpected chance to provide feedback, can help a customer feel that they’ve made the right decision. No more wondering about the experience a competitor could have offered, no regrets.
By helping consumers make better choices, we can eliminate the paradox, and quite possibly make everyone a little happier.
Reference:

Cocheo, Steve. “Does your product line need a trim?” from ABA Banking Journal, July 2006.

1. Blogging is time consuming. It is energy consuming. Good bloggers have their facts straight, and I find that I will trust some bloggers’ words but not others. Checking facts makes bloggers credible, but by golly can it be time intensive.

2. Good bloggers have something to say, and don’t just regurgitate the news. I can regurgitate the news. My stuffed monkey can regurgitate the news. Tell me something I don’t know. Tell me your opinion on something. I might agree or better yet, I’ll disagree and look into it.