Our industry is undergoing a truly generational change. Do we really want to fight pick a fight with our consumers as well? asks David Birnbaum.
Read the words of the great American cultural icon PT Barnum: “No-one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the average American.”
Words to live by if you are in the US Congress, the Administration or a demagogue at the extreme right.
Yet there is another side – the side with the big money – who knows differently. They understand that the US is different. They look back and they see that in the US real change starts at the bottom: Think prohibition, the end of the Vietnam war, the successful trillion-dollar lawsuits against big tobacco.
Think sexual harassment. A bunch of ordinary women individually decided that they had enough of the innuendoes, the groping, the attacks and the rape. One after another came forward. Big money will not stop them nor will big government. They have begun a process to destroy every man who has ever reached out against women. No-one is safe: not media giants, nor those in Congress, nor the President of the United States. If you are European or Asian, Liberal or conservative ask yourself this: Could this happen in your country?
Think natural food. For generations, much of the US population has subsisted on junk food. The result is endemic obesity and poor health. Government will do nothing to overcome the problem. Big food has for years paid for faux-scientific papers written by paid experts from leading universities “proving” sugar is good for you. We have reached a point when many finally have come to the conclusion that the best they can do is protect themselves and their family while the rest of the population commits suicide. Enter Jeff Bezos, who recognised that a small but growing portion of the US population want healthy natural food. Mr Bezos also believed that the demand for healthy natural food is elastic – the lower the price the greater the demand. Mr Bezos literally put his money where his mouth is and bought Whole Foods, the largest retailer of natural food in the United States, and dropped prices by 35%. Mr Bezos could be wrong. Would you bet against him or conclude this this is one more case of smart money making a smart investment?
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By GlobalDataSo, what does this have to do with our sleeves-and-shoulderpad world? Think Bangladesh. Think big investors in US garment companies. On the one-side you have the Bangladesh garment export industry, which is convinced its import customers do not really care about compliance and sustainability, at the very moment when those same customers are packing their bags and leaving. On the other-side you have the major investors in the garment brands and retailers, who are beginning to think that they do not want to be caught when the storm brakes and they discover that clothing on offer by their favourite label is produced by 10-year old children working 12-hours days and that the same clothing is a major contributor to global warming. Think back to sexual harassment, where events that occurred decades are dredged up to the surface to instantaneously transmogrify you in one fell swoop from one-of-the-good-guys to scum-of-the-earth.
Our industry is undergoing a truly generational change. Many of last year’s great leaders are in trouble. Every day our leading economic prognosticators are adding to the ever-growing list of the sick, the dying and the dead.
We face enough problems just trying to stay afloat in the Jeff Bezos e-commerce world. Do we really want to fight pick a fight with our consumers as well?
