Garbage Catch 22 Opportunity for Starbucks et al

I have to give my husband credit for this idea. What can companies with a storefront presence do in the middle of a garbage strike when the coffee cups with their branding all over them start to pile up and litter the streets for all the locals and tourists to see? Encourage self-responsibility with a surcharge.

If every Starbucks and their competitors charged customers during a garbage strike an additional $0.25 for a take out cup, because the customer did not bring their own, then the money could be used to clean up the mess outside and creatively dispose of it.

Conversely, if a customer brings in their own cup, deduct $0.25 and do so loudly so all can hear. Or, the coffee company could choose to sell their own permanent mugs at cost.

What does this type of conversation sound like.

Barista: “Welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? “

Customer: “A double tall mocha frappachino with extra whip, please.”

Barista: “Would you like a cup with that drink or did you bring your own?”

Customer: “Cup, please. I’ll have to remember to bring mine next time.”

Barista: “Would you like it in our travel mug? We are offering them at cost during the garbage strike.”

Customer: “Oh, well in that case, the travel mug will be fine.”

Barista: That will be $3.75 plus 2.25 for the travel mug, the proceeds of which we will be using to help us clean up the cup litter out on the street during the garbage strike. Thanks very much for doing your part on this!”

Way to be the ripple Starbucks… or will one of the local coffeehouses pick up this idea first. We shall soon hear about it or see it. Which coffee company will use this Catch 22 to turn it into a brand building opportunity for themselves and have a clean front sidewalk and which logo will we see being attacked by the crows and rodents and kicked around by the tourists?

Strikes are going on in Alameda and Vancouver and Forbes Magazine is already writing about the impact on tourist business.

I will be keeping track of which companies get on the bandwagon. Tell me what you see out there. Send photos. Send your stories.

Whole Foods ripples into a Catch 22 – The Wizard is Revealed to be Human

There are great ways to ripple that seemed to be a good idea at the time, and then they can turn on you. Then you get to meet your old foe, the Catch 22 marketing effect which I last wrote about with respect to Toronto’s refusal to allow Toyota Prius to be accepted as a limousine.

When your ripple becomes negative it creates a catch 22 for you and a ripple opportunity for some other organization.

Whole Foods’ CEO, John Mackey has apparently been posting anonymously on Yahoo Finance message boards tooting the WFMI stock and bashing Wild Oats. You may know that WFMI is now trying to buy Wild Oats but has been stymied by the FTC. So who benefits from WFMI’s catch 22?

1. The FTC may have additional ammunition information to block the merger.

2. Wild Oats gets the sympathy vote.

3. Cultural creatives (the educated shopper is WFMI’s target market) might see Mackey’s Wizard of Oz caper as a reason to stop shopping there and choose other options. Wild Oats stores may benefit.

4. Mackey could choose to spin his Wizard caper in his favor and come clean … but that train may have left already. What else could he do to turn this catch 22 back into a positive ripple? Start saying nice things about Wild Oats? He was already doing that since announcing the merger. Start his own blog to share his voracious desire to share? That would be sad.

5. Mackey might just have to do some self-reflection and ask himself what he was trying to accomplish in lurking around the message boards. His company is ten times bigger than Wild Oats. He was already a darling of the stock market. Why did he need to hoot louder? Understanding why you want to ripple a certain way is the first step to undoing the damage. The wizard of OZ is not all powerful. But sometimes he thinks he is. Maybe this is the curtain that the FTC was trying to open.

6. Remember, when you start on the journey down that yellow brick road to going green then your business practices are going to be viewed in the same light as your products on offer – walk the talk. Just because the label says its natural, doesn’t mean it’s organic through and through. We are still learning how to be congruent as leaders and in business – sustainability refers to the entire organization, not just to the pretty press release announcing you now carry organics and send your unsold produce to the food bank… or does Whole Foods do that?

OK… Mr. Mackey is probably feeling the effects of this catch 22 right now. What would we recommend his next steps are? a) Own up tomorrow. Apologize.

b) Meet with his executive team and all his store directors. Apologize.

c) Issue one press release. Apologize.

c) Don’t defend or explain. Talk about what he will do from now on to assuage the itch to communicate.

d) Spend time in reflection wondering what need he was trying to satisfy that he is not paying attention to. Get a coach who knows how to work with sticky situations in leadership to help him face the blind spot.

e) Examine where else in the organization this blind spot of his might be manifesting other brewing catch 22s. There will be more. Turn them into ripples.

Eggs on the Range cause Change

For every new innovation that causes a positive ripple for the innovators, it leaves catch 22s for the status quo… until the statu quo learns how to turn it into a business opportunity ripple for themselves.

Take eggs. Everyone buys them. Some people care about free range, others care that they come in a recyclable container and then there are buyers who them cheap and plentiful. Labels are confusing. Different target markets, right? If you are a farmer, could you cater to them all? Not very well, it turns out.

The plight of chickens held in captivity to produce our eggs is becoming a big uncontrollable variable in many farmers business plans. Why should you care? PETA and the Humane Society are out to protect chickens, not only for their benefit but for our health benefit too. They want the recently caged Paris Hilton as the chicken spokesmodel. They have been successful in getting educational institutions and city governments to ban all but free range eggs.

If more institutions and governments follow this ripple it will then affect:

1. Packagers – Will styrofoam packaging finally be a foot note in our landfills? Will this increase business for recycled cardboard packaging or some other innovation?

2. Grocers (Safeway, Costco, Whole Foods) Will consumers vote with their wallets? Or will grocers take a stand too and only sell the cruelty-free eggs in recycled packaging? Wild Oats and Whole Foods have adopted new policies. But then what if they can’t get any true free range eggs? How deeply will they invest in their supply chains to help those farmers convert? Could be a ripple, or a Catch 22.

3. Food supply (Compass Group) Will they have to build new supply agreements with Free Range chicken Farmers who are already producing at maximum output?

4. Regulatory bodies (Egg Marketing Boards) Will they have to bow to grass roots interests and really live up to their mandate ‘to ensure a safe (for both human and chicken?), clean (for both human and chicken or is it the egg?) and consistent supply’? Or will they wait for consumers to demand that to be safe and clean for humans then you have to have safe and clean for chickens laying the eggs? Then the board would have to scramble to catch up. Catch 22.

5. Caged Chicken/Egg Farmers – Will they find sales declining which may force them to change their chicken accomodation practices? Hilton, anyone? What new service suppliers may now spring up to help this conversion from prison to freedom? Who will help match newly minted free-range egg farmers with newly green grocery chains? New business innovators already hatching plans, I hear.

6. Free Range Chicken/Egg Farmers – Will growing demand outstrip their ability to supply forcing the price of their eggs up even higher, making it difficult for lower income people to participate in the greening of the economy? Will farmers have to pay consulting groups to change their chicken management practices?

6. Chicken/egg systems and cage manufacturers (not needed anymore?) Will new chicken management systems be needed to monitor running chickens instead of caged chickens?

For every ripple there is a catch 22 for some business. How your business deals with it can make or break your future home on the range. Go on, get cracking!