Presentation by Julia Karl at the Inspiring Change Gathering in Cape Town, South Africa on 18 November 2011. www.climatesmartcapetown.co.za/events/inspiringchange
3. In a Carrotmob campaign,
businesses compete at
how socially responsible
they can be
and then
a network of consumers
spends money to support
the winner.
16. YOU
Join the mob, have fun and enjoy Maria‟s food, drinks and music
while the money that you spend on the night goes towards making
Maria‟s an even more environmentally and socially responsible
business.
MARIA‟S
Commits to implementing a host of environmental and social actions,
while at the same time benefiting from increased revenue,
recognition and enhanced reputation.
20. “The Carrotmob philosophy has
extended across America – and
the world”
“A global movement that is built
on the „carrot-or-the-stick‟
concept”
“Carrotmobs Are Cooler than
Boycotts”
Notas del editor
Before I explain Carrotmobs to you:Who already knows what a Carrotmob is? (-selbst Hand heben)Who has actually attended a Carrotmob already? Anyone?
I will explain to those of you who don’t know what Carrotmob is, what it is…You can think of a Carrotmob as a new way for people to change businesses. And if you think of the history of people trying to change businesses, you think of consumer activism, like boycotts, and protests, and petitions, and all of that is very attack orientated, conflict-orientated. A Carrotmob is a new way to change businesses, where instead of a stick it uses the carrot… that’s why we call it a carrotmob.
So this is in brief what a carrotmob is: in a carrotmob campaign, businesses compete at how socially responsible they can be and then a network of consumers spends money to support the winner.It’s a basic idea and it’s best explain with a quick example.
How it all started: the first Carrotmob: 3 years agoOn the left you see Brent Schulkin, the founder of the Carrotmob movement in San Francisco. He went to 23 liquor stores in his neighbourhood in San Francisco and in each store he went to the owner and said: my goal is to make one of you stores the environmentally friendly liquor store.
And if somehow he were able to bring hundreds of people to come to your store and spend a whole lot of money, what percentage of that revenue are you willing to set aside and reinvest in energy efficient upgrades in your store? Most of the stores were very confused and not interested at all – however there were several that were interested and there was a bidding war and the highest bid came in with 22%.
With consumer activism sometimes the organiser has a lot of trouble and fails to change the business, but here you have success, reliable success. The business owner makes a lot of money and the people coming can make an impact that’s more tangible and more direct than your average petition, but it is still easy to do and they are buying things that in many cases they would buy anyway.
Brent rallied up some people and on the Carrotmob day, hundreds of people showed up, there was a line around the block and everyone spend as much money as they could. They bought everything that you could possibly buy at a liquor store. The liquor store’s usual daily revenue was $18000 $9200 were spend in the few hours of the Carrotmob!! The business owner took the 22% of that money and did a full lightening retrofit in his shop!
Lot of fun – made a big splash – but the big thing about this idea is that it’s win-win-win activism! Nobody looses!!So that’s the secret sauce of the Carrotmob idea!And you can sum it up as the opposite of a boycott!After that the movement spread, the word got out that this is going on and it spread around the world.
175+ campaigns over the past 3+ years in 20+ countries.Some examples of where we have seen this movement now in the world:Australia,Berlin,Bangkok, banned plastic bagsMinneapolis, hardware storeMexcio City, ice cream storeSan Francisco, Coffee ShopSingaporeTorontoFrankfurtMunich,Cologne,Buenos aires,Washington dcBrusselsDenveretc
A network of campaign organizers, both individuals, non-profits, NGOs, local governments, etc.VancouverBerlinAntwerpPortlandManchesterAll organisers came on board because they thought it was a great idea, no one was recruited to spread the word.90% of the campaigns that happen are related to climate change and energy efficiency, the remaining we are starting to see people using the concept to do human rights campaigns or health care related campaigns. Se people start to experiment with the concept.
The first Carrotmob on the African Continent, will finally happen. And where else would be more suitable than in our lovely mothercity CAPE TOWN.This Carrotmob has been organised by the Climate Smart Cape Town team and we are inviting all of you here to join us after the first Inspiring Change Gathering day to come and participate in this fantastic event, so that when I ask my first two questions tomorrow morning again all of your hands go up, because you all now know what a Carrotmob is and you have all participated in one!
It was a tough competition between the two finalists of the bidding process. Two restaurants both wanted to host the Carrotmob and have submitted very ambitious bids.Both restaurants have submitted that they will reinvest 100% of the proceeds of the Carrotmob into a variety of environmentally and socially sustainable measures.But we had to make a decision…
So the first African Carrotmob is taking place at Maria’s Greek Cafe on Dunkley Square in Gardens TONIGHT. We will start right after this first ICG day and we will all go to Maria’s together and mob the restaurant until they don’t have a single Olive left to sell to us!!
Maria’s has committed to spending 100% of the proceeds of tonight into the implementation of the following measures: building a communal composting system for use by neighbouring restaurants and residents building an urban garden to grow herbs and other fresh produce for restaurant use investing in completing a manual to guide the hospitality industry to operate sustainably investing in education and training of staff, suppliers and customers investing in natural and/or organic products and services investing in solar panelsbuying green electricity certificates
How to mobilise people?(logo of Cape Times fehltnoch)Power of social media…
The future of Carrotmobs: think biggerUsing all the people that come to these community Carrotmobs aggregate them into a huge global network of tens of millions of people and then apply the same principle to the largest companies in the world.E.g. you can approach the big chocolate bar companies and say: Halloween is coming up and everyone just spends a bunch of money on candy for no reason – now we want fair trade cocoa –which of you companies is going to give us a full fair trade chocolate bar??And then you tell your whole network: go buy KitKat, go buy MarsBar, or whatever…The possibilities are endless…
YESCarrotmob as a new approachSo far ineffective, too radical and oriented against businesses, not engaging themThis is the way to go