Shopping IS Activism

You Have Power

Every purchase you make is influencing the world of products and brands. In the world of brand communications, when a plan is written to get a lot of people to buy a product in a short span of time, it is very often called an “Activation Plan”. “Activation” is a thing for products. And if there really is a universal law that says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, then your part in this process, is and can be, consciously, that “opposite reaction”. That is, your choice to select one product, or the other one, or no product at all, when applied through your own personal framework of values, is at its deepest core, true “activism”. That’s a whole heap of power.

Amplify Your Shopping Activism

So how do you amplify that power? First, you amplify your power of activism by having your own framework of personal values, and then by buying only, or primarily, according to those values. Now your activism has a pattern to it, and patterns have even more power in the marketplace than individual acts. They are “actions amplified”.

Second, you need to open up lines of communication between yourself and the products and brands that you interact with. Every line of communication you establish is an amplification of your basic power of activism. So for example, don’t just follow brands on social media, make it a point to talk to them. Tell them why you are choosing to buy their products, what you think they could do better, and about the value they bring to you. Fewer than one purchaser in a thousand, and in some markets, one in a hundred thousand or million, bothers to actually reach out and speak to the companies whose brands they’re using. Doing so on social media is a far more amplified method of reaching them than an email, so use social media if you can. Very importantly, if you stop buying a particular product or brand, then contact the company and let them know why. The more they see their market diminish, the more likely they are to improve their act.

Thirdly, talk to other people about what you’re doing. Tell your friends and your network why you stopped buying one soap powder and moved to the next. Maybe they didn’t know about certain ingredients and would be interested. Or maybe they’d like to know that you’ve identified a Conscious Brand that you feel you can trust with your health and the health of the environment. Share the information you have.

Lastly, start gathering more information. Start learning about one product category at a time, educating yourself on that one and adjusting your choices, before you move onto the next. Before you know it, you’ll have a fair idea of which brands in a given category are likely to be Conscious Brands, and which ones are not. You’ll start to recognise the pitfalls and labelling tricks.

Changing Your Shopping Habits Causes a Shift in the World Around You

In some shopping categories you may find you need to need to alter something major about your personal shopping habits. You may have to go to a different store, or even a different shopping centre to get the one thing you want. If that’s the case, then do it for just that one thing. Before long, that new trail will lead you to new discoveries in other categories. Eventually the entire picture of your shopping habits may change. The money you spend will be activating a completely different area of the economic pie. And the economy and the people and products in it will begin to shift, ever so subtly, to accommodate you. Just you. Because you have woken up to your personal power as a shopping activist.

Start your journey to being as informed as possible in our Health & Wellbeing section.