Jeff Ignacio

In Fast Company’s June article on American Apparel titled sex vs ethics Rob Walker, the writer, talks about American Apparel’s public facing transition from an ethics touting (a la sweatshop free clothing) to their newfound image of sexual overtones (see ad samples below). The article doesn’t claim that AA has lost its sense of ethics or has forgotten its roots in best labor practices, it simply points out that using ethics as a selling point can only go so far: a niche. AA is growing, and part of that growth is thanks to their new broad base of customers. American Apparel sells clothing without a logo. Their clothes are not about projecting iconic or symbolic coolness onto you. The clothes are meant to complement the vanity already inside you. Ethics sells, but it isn’t going to expand the bottom line like he diameter of a star going supernova on you. In fact, the article quotes:

“…according to the Journal of Industrial Ecology only 10% to 12% ‘actually go out of their way to purchase environmentally sound products’ ”

That’s nuts. If you were to walk down the street and stop 10 people and pop the question, ‘do you care about ethics or the environment?’, ‘is sweatshop free or environment important to you?’, ‘would you buy sweatshop free or green oriented products?’, I can BET that the majority of those you polled would say YES with a capital Y-E-S. Yet… our actions and behavior say something different.

That got me thinking about several product/service movements including but not limited to green, ethics, and good old made in the USA. I am planning on going to b-school and I was thinking about exploring the opportunities within green product lines. But is that enough of a sell? Can we do what sex did for the smoking industry in their heyday? I mean is it enough to stand on a soapbox and say ‘hey buy this because it’s biodegradable or zero emission or sweatshop free or made in the US?’ Sadly I don’t think it’s enough. It’s one selling factor.

Consumers are complex algorithms. Too many functions besides just green-zero emitting-ethical-Yankee fervor. There’s PRICE, CONVENIENCE, UTILITY, QUALITY, and the bazillion other quirks that trigger the ‘purchasing yes’ button.

I think what we’ll see going forward is that companies will creatively market their products with other marketing overtones as their primary message (much like American Apparel is doing now) and using the ‘green-zero emitting-ethical-Yankee’ concept as a secondary (much like you’ll see American Apparel saying ’sweatshop’ free in size 4 super-undersized font on their ads. Something is better than nothing right?

Other Movements or Companies I support
Product Red - AIDS focused product and awareness campaign
Method Home - environmentally sound cleaning products
Organic Foods - I’ll admit I’m a hypocrite when it comes here… I’ll still eat a fast food burger. Sorry.

French Ad

Meet Sophie Ad

This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 7:12 pm and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.