Sydney Ren's Blog

In response to classmate Kate Gao’s September blogpost about greenwashing terms, Coca-Cola literally greenwashes an entire neighbourhood in Lithuania through their Roll Out Happiness stunt, part of their Where Will Happiness Strike Next? campaign. Watch as a whimsical Coca-Cola truck temporarily installs some green turf along with a vending machine that dispenses free Coke when people took off their shoes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ih0Drtuufc

While perhaps this stunt was not meant to greenwash, it effectively associates the Coca Cola brand with a few things: happiness, the outdoors, and ultimately, the colour green. The campaign targets the behavioural aspect of consumer attitude in order to influence consumer buying behaviour.

Personally, I associate the colour green with the following terms: natural, healthy, outdoors, calm, growth, and uplifting. In contrast, when I think about Coca Cola, these terms come to mind: red, sugar, refreshing, energy, and happiness. By default, green and Coca Cola’s signature red are opposites of each other on the colour wheel. However, Coca Cola’s green initiatives and campaigns try to merge the different positive associations of both colours under its own brand. These campaigns aim to maintain the core values of the brand while jumping onto the larger bandwagons of healthy eating and sustainability.

A recent ad for Coca-Cola made by Johnny Kelly, the creator behind Chipotle’s popular Back to the Start campaign, equates happiness, movement, and Coca-Cola – these are ultimately the brand associations Coca-Cola wants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkzFLkUA97A

This post is a response to Dylan’s post about the potential security concerns of UrtheCast.

UrtheCast, created by Sauder alumni Wade Larson and his brother, will be the first streaming HD video camera installed on the International Space Station (ISS); it is also a platform that allows users to playback the video. Larson has termed UrtheCast to be “like Google Earth, but better”. There is also a function that allows users to also see in realtime social media interactions from sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Dylan argues that this social media layer is an invasion of privacy, which I disagree with. The posts that UrtheCast shows are ones that social meda users have placed on a “public” setting. By having public settings, users already acknowledged that their posts can be seen by anyone with an internet connection. If one’s Twitter is private to followers or Facebook has higher security settings, that person’s posts will not show on the site in realtime.

I agree with Dylan that this social media layer will be off-putting to the general public. People with higher security settings will still feel unsafe about their information floating around the internet, and may dislike UrtheCast because of it. I sincerely hope they don’t, though, because UrtheCast is amazing and I can’t wait to see it take off.

The one-for-one business model, touted as a successful means of engaging consumers in real change, is simple and direct: for every product purchased, a beneficial product or service is delivered to someone else in need. One of the most popular brands with this mission is TOMS Shoes. The shoes given to children prevent soil-transmitted diseases and give the children a chance to receive education. Ark Collective’s Get to Give offers backpacks for children in the States; Baby Teresa donates baby rompers.

I agree with this well-researched post by A Personal Diaspora that the traditional one-for-one model is just a band aid to serious underlying problems, and that it undermines local markets. Here are three companies that take the traditional one-for-one model and improve upon it:

• Two Degrees provides locally-produced meals for children through non-profit partners like IMA World Health and Akshaya Patra.

• FIGS’s Thread for Threads initiative partners with local tailors in Kenya, Tanzania, and Nepal to make school uniforms, providing jobs and education.

• Warby Parker provides funding to VisionSpring, a non-profit partner that trains local entrepreneurs to conduct eye exams, design and sell affordable glasses to their own communities.

Referring to this article in The Globe and Mail, this post is a response to Vanessa’s post about the potential success and safety of Facebook’s new gift service.

This new online gift service is Facebook’s attempt at entering the e-commerce market and answering the skeptics that do not believe in the hype of Facebook advertising. It’s clear that Facebook, with it’s one-billion-and-growing users and large user information database, has the ability to turn a profit for companies looking to sell their products using this service. I disagree that Facebook could compete with sites like Amazon, Ebay, and even Etsy, who are seasoned e-commerce competitors that have a positive reputation for being reliable and safe.

The success of this new project is inevitably dependant on the safety of user’s private information on addresses, credit cards and the like. In the past, Facebook had several problems with security. There was a time when users’ mobile phone numbers were displayed publicly on their profiles after connecting to the site/application via their phone. Recently, Facebook also changed users’ displayed emails to ones with Facebook domains. These incidents make consumers wary of Facebook’s security, which may affect the future success of its service. Unless Facebook keeps user information private and utilizes a consumer-trusted method of payment like PayPal, the success of its gift service will be limited.