Friday, June 20, 2008

Carrotmob - Wow!




Click here to see video



Click here to see video


Click here to see video

In a nutshell, carrot mob is an idea that Brent Schulkin came up with and it is brilliant. Whether or not it can be replicated is to be seen, but here's how it works:

Brian went to small ma-pop stores and asked the question: How much of your earnings would you be willing to use toward making your store more eco-friendly, if we sent all of our friends to shop at your store on that day? Each store bid on how much they would set aside for an eco-friendly upgrade. The bids started at 10% but the winner pledged that 22% of their earnings would be used for the eco-friendly upgrade and they won.

So on a date set, the "mob" came to shop at this store. The carrot is like a gold star for doing something good. So this store got the carrot and the carrot mob came out to support this store. Typically the store brought in $3,000 on a good day. The day of the carrotmob, the store earned over $9,000 in three hours. The 22% that they pledged was used to change out some of the lighting they had in the store and lower their energy consumption. Lots of the food items were donated to the local food bank and there was a free concert afterwards.

So carrotmob worked! The environmental community won something and the business owner was rewarded for their decision to use some of the proceeds for helping to make their business a little greener.

Wow! What a fantastic idea. Kudos to Brent.

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