Patagonia and Strategies for Creating Meaningful Connections Discussion
ANSWER
In Chapter 8 of “The Big Leap – An Ethics of Insight,” the author explores the concept of authentic ethical behavior in business and contrasts it with traditional advertising approaches. The chapter discusses the advantages of a company behaving authentically and ethically in a way that stands out from competitors. It also highlights the example of Patagonia’s unique approach to marketing and ethical business practices.
Shortcomings of Traditional Advertising (North Face’s Approach):
- Superficiality: Traditional advertising often focuses on superficial messaging and visuals to capture attention, which may not deeply resonate with consumers who seek authenticity and ethical values.
- Lack of Substance: Such advertising may lack substance, leaving consumers skeptical of a brand’s commitment to ethical practices.
- Consumer Disconnect: There can be a disconnect between the advertising message and the company’s actual behavior, leading to distrust among consumers.
- Short-Term Focus: Traditional advertising tends to prioritize short-term gains rather than long-term, sustainable ethical practices.
Advantages of Authentic Ethical Behavior (Patagonia’s Approach):
- Trust and Credibility: Patagonia’s approach builds trust and credibility by aligning its actions with its ethical values, making consumers more likely to support the brand.
- Word-of-Mouth Marketing: When a company genuinely behaves ethically, consumers become advocates, spreading the word through social media and word-of-mouth.
- Loyalty: Authenticity and ethical behavior foster brand loyalty, as customers feel a deeper connection to the brand’s mission.
- Long-Term Sustainability: Ethical behavior supports long-term sustainability, benefiting both the company and the planet.
Another Example of Ethical Misbehavior in Business: A similar example of a business misbehaving in an authentic, ethical, and fresh way is Ben & Jerry’s. The company is known for taking a stand on social and environmental issues, often incorporating these values into its product offerings and marketing campaigns. For instance, they have campaigned for climate justice and racial equity. Their stance on these issues goes beyond traditional marketing and advertising, making them a unique and ethically-driven brand.
Creating Productive Desiring Machines for Your Solo Project: To create, enable, enter into, or amplify productive desiring machines with your social audiences for your solo project, consider the following strategies:
- Authentic Values Alignment: Ensure that your project’s mission and values align with the desires and values of your target audience. Be genuinely committed to ethical and social causes that matter to them.
- Transparency: Communicate your project’s actions and decisions transparently. Show how your behaviors and practices align with your values and contribute to the betterment of society.
- Engagement and Interaction: Actively engage with your audience on social media and other platforms. Encourage discussions, feedback, and participation in initiatives related to your project’s mission.
- Collaboration: Partner with organizations or individuals who share your values and can amplify your message. Collaborations can create a network of desiring machines that support each other’s causes.
- Storytelling: Share stories that illustrate the impact of your project’s ethical actions. Stories have the power to emotionally connect with your audience and inspire them to become part of your movement.
- Measurable Impact: Provide evidence of the positive impact your project is making. Use data and metrics to showcase how your actions are contributing to the greater good.
- Consistency: Consistently demonstrate ethical behavior and values alignment in all aspects of your project, from product development to customer interactions.
- Education and Advocacy: Educate your audience about the issues you’re addressing and advocate for change. Empower your audience to become advocates themselves.
By implementing these strategies, your solo project can create a community of engaged and passionate individuals who become part of your ethical mission, forming productive desiring machines that drive your project’s success.
QUESTION
Description
Chapter 8 from The Big Leap – An Ethics of Insight — ACT UP!
In this chapter we explore the potential for a company to behave in such an authentically ethical way – in EVERYTHING it does – that its actions as much as its words can be characterized as a type of misbehavior, when compared to the expected normative behavior of its competitors.
We offer the comparative cases of North Face’s ‘UNPLUG’ advertising campaign analyzed against Patagonia’s employee-driven ‘Vote the assholes out’ size-tag subversion.
Vs…
Critique the shortcomings of advertising like North Face’s compared to the startling advantages of a company simply behaving in such a way that eventually the people who need to know about us, our ethics and our products, find us and share us via social media.
Can you find another example of a business/brand misbehaving in a similarly authentic, ethical and startlingly fresh way as Patagonia?
Towards the close of chapter 8 ACT UP!, we discuss the radical business operational imperative of enabling desiring machines as a form of value-producing social marketing with, for and among the company’s audiences and stakeholders. Consider these two paragraphs …
The world and the humans in it are made up of a multitude of desire-production machines and these machines are constantly seeking to plug into other machines. We might imagine these desiring machines as a business culture, behaving in such a way as to not simply stand out and be noticed (see traditional marketing), but to become available for plugging into, and being plugged into, a multitude of other desiring machine. This becomes the generative outcome of a more radical marketing. Saving the planet from a fiery meltdown becomes a desiring machine, if you’re Patagonia. Deterritorializing investment banks is a desiring machine. Actively working towards a better capitalism is a desiring machine. Telling customers to stop buying your products and repurpose the ones they’ve already bought is a desiring machine.
All of these manifest flows of behavior by a business like Patagonia can be viewed as essentially transgressive. They demonstrably exceed the normative standards of corporate behavior. The people for whom they create products become joiners in these mutual acts of transgression by plugging their desiring machines into one or more of Patagonia’s. But the reason transgression present such a powerful fuel of business strategy is not because it makes a disruptive, attention-getting noise. It functions as an immanence, a secret handshake for those with whom desires are shared, enhanced, satisfied or amplified when their mutual machines connect. This becomes an ethics of acting up, framing and fueling an extraordinarily differentiated kind of business behavior. This ethics as business brief becomes the absolutely organic new marketing, if we’re right, for one brave transgressive brand at a time across each category still standing amidst the fast diminishing habitable markets of our worlds.
… and being inspired by these observations as insights into a new type of business-behavior-as-social-marketing, suggest one or more strategies for your solo project to create, enable, enter into, or amplify particularly productive desiring machines with your social audiences.
Fill in the order form and submit all your files, including instructions, rubrics, and other information given to you by your instructor.
Once you complete filling the forms, complete your payment. We will get the order and assign it to a writer.
When your order is completed, it’s assigned to an editor for approval. The editor approves the order.
Once approved, we will upload the order to your account for you to download. You can rate your writer or give your customer review.
