“Don’t buy this jacket” is Patagonia’s unlikely new ad campaign.
Outdoor clothing purveyor Patagonia ran a full-page version of the ad below in today’s New York Times:
It’s part of the “deep green” Patagonia’s so-called “Common Threads Initiaitve” to reduce the “culture of consumption”.
While the comrades at Patagonia may look down upon the consumer spending [that they profit by], the rest of us call it an economy that has raised everyone’s standard of living — including for Patagonia’s owners.
But if Patagonia really wants to go out of business, let it. There will fortunately be many others eager to take its place.
Of course, there is a substantial likelihood that this is just a clever reverse-thinking marketing campaign — maybe Patagonia knows its green customers aren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree.
Patagonia is a company that has finessed the art of pandering to the pampered. Its recent attack on fracking is just more of the same.
Casey Sheahan, the CEO of Patogonia, the ritzy outdoor clothing company built on selling things such as trendy “rain gear for an urban setting” for just $699 just announced he’s in favor of a statewide fracking ban in Colorado. He’s making a fortune wearing the cloth of “environmental and social responsibility” to sell over-priced merchandise to the pampered, who are blithely unaware of the incongruity of a company branded on the appeal of the great outdoors marketing rain gear for city sidewalks.
Sheahan’s really good at appealing to the guilty consciences of those who imagine they have done undeservedly well but don’t want to sacrifice any of it. He seduces them with shallow talk about how much better the world would be with them in charge to impose their utopian vision on the rest of us, subtly suggesting, of course, the first step might be buying a $45 t-shirt that carries their Live Simply© Guitar image. After all, it’s made with organic cotton that’s “not genetically modified in any way” and “screen-printed using PVC- and phthalate-free inks.” Who knew demonstrating your social consciousness and living simply were just one expensive t-shirt away?
http://naturalgasnow.org/patagonia-sees-green-pockets-the-pampered/
Heh-heh. Very funny. “Don’t buy this jacket” huh? Really? That’s the best they could come up with? If they really cared about consumer spending they wouldn’t have a RETAIL business would they? But I bet their “green” customers won’t think it through that far.