Localwashing: How big box stores across the country are pretending to be the little guy

[Newsjock]

Source: Missoula Independent

... This new variation on corporate greenwashing—localwashing—is, like the buy-local movement itself, most advanced in the context of food. Hellmann's, the mayonnaise brand owned by the processed-food giant Unilever, is test-driving a new "Eat Real, Eat Local" initiative in Canada. The ad campaign seems aimed partly at enhancing the brand by simply associating Hellmann's with local food. But it also makes the claim that Hellmann's is local, because most of its ingredients come from North America.

... Across the country, shopping malls, chambers of commerce and economic development agencies also are appropriating the phrase "buy local" to urge consumers to patronize nearby malls and box stores. In March, leaders of a new Buy Local campaign in Fresno, Calif., assembled in front of the Fashion Fair Mall for a kickoff press conference. Flanked by storefronts bearing brand names like Anthropologie and The Cheesecake Factory, officials from the Economic Development Corporation of Fresno County explained that choosing to "buy local" helps the region's economy. For anyone confused by this display, the campaign and its media partners, including Comcast and the McClatchy-owned Fresno Bee, followed the press conference with more than $250,000 worth of radio, TV and print ads that spelled it out: "Just so you know, buying local means any store in your community: mom-and-pop stores, national chains, big box stores—you name it."

... In city after city, independent businesses are organizing and creating the beginnings of what could become a powerful counterweight to the big-business lobbies that have long dominated public policy. Local business alliances—like New Orleans' own Stay Local!, the Metro Independent Business Alliance in Minneapolis-St. Paul and Arizona Local First in Phoenix—have now formed in more than 130 cities, counting some 30,000 businesses as members. Through grassroots "buy local" and "local first" campaigns, these alliances are calling on people to choose independent businesses and local products more often and making the case that doing so is critical to rebuilding middle-class prosperity and providing an alternative to corporate uniformity.

... Corporate-oriented buy-local campaigns that define "local" as the nearest Lowe's or Gap outlet are now being rolled out in cities nationwide. Some represent desperate bids by shopping malls to survive the recession and fend off online competition. Others are the work of chambers of commerce trying to remain relevant. Still others are the half-baked plans of municipal officials casting about for some way to stop the steep drop in sales tax revenue. And many of these campaigns are modeled directly on grassroots initiatives.

Read more: http://missoulanews.bigskypress.com/missoula/localwashing/Content?oid=1159742

[TygrBright]

1. Amazing. No limits to the ludicrous irrelevance of the PR machine.