Definitions of some English words can change quite rapidly these days. In the recent past the meaning of words was often very fixed. Today the meaning can change in the blink of an eye. With faster and newer ways to exchange ideas such as Twitter and with wider and more culturally, socially and educationally dissimilar groups connecting together - words are put back on the anvil of evolution and changed into something new and more reflective of current life.
There is a growing global movement where consumers are asking businesses to take care of the things that they care about. The request is mainly tacit and despite it being an ironic request it non-the-less signals that we are in a time of change. Consumers these days want their 'goodies' but they don't want the environment to be destroyed in the creation of their 'goodies'. They want cheap products but they do not want workers to suffer to create those cheap products.
Until recently there was no real answer to this complex puzzle but today one actually exists. It exists in the reforging of a simple single word - GET. Today there is a new movement of consumers wanting to get and at the same time give. They are reforging the word GET into the word GIVE.
Every day automated email notices arrive from Google Alerts for two keywords - B1G1 and BOGO. I see all the new places these words are being used on the Internet. I can now see that the new meaning of these words is coming alive 'poco a poco' -little by little.
The B1G1 and BOGO acronyms both stand for Buy One GET One free. You buy one and you get given an extra one for free.
Look up BOGO on Wikipedia.com (there isn't a definition yet for B1G1) and you will discover these definitions for BOGO :
* An acronym in the retail industry that stands for Buy One Get One. For example, you could say "Buy 1 DVD, Get 1 FREE!
* An acronym in slang British that stands for Britons Of Greek Origin or Greek Britons.
* Bogo, Cebu, a city in central Philippines.
* An alternate name for the Bilen ethnic group of Ethiopia or their language, Blin.
* An alternate name for the Bilen ethnic group of Ethiopia or their language, Blin.
* The mascot of the ITESM CEM.
* Bogosort, an ineffective sorting algorithm
* Bogosort, an ineffective sorting algorithm
BOGO light
There's an entrepreneurial business in the USA called SunLight Solar which was founded by Mark Bent. They've created a special torch that's not only an amazing and sturdy solar-powered light, his company also gives a free torch to those in need in developing countries every time one is sold. If you lookup their website you will learn more about their "BOGO light".
"The BoGo - our Buy one/Give one - program has successfully provided lights to many, many thousands of people in the developing world, changing lives because of your purchase and participation." - BOGOlight.com
Mark Bent has flipped the BOGO acronym upside down when he started to use the word as part of his product name. For him now and the thousands who buy his lights, BOGO today means Buy One GIVE One. Each person gets to give a light every time they buy one for themselves. So now with each sale people who do not have the benefit of electricity can tap the power of the sun to support them in their lives.
There are many other well known and less well know businesses now doing Buy One Give One giving or transaction based giving as it is becoming known. Some of the famous ones are One Laptop Per Child and TOMS Shoes. Some of the less well-known ones (in the USA at least) are based in Australia, New Zealand and the UK - Maple Muesli, Blinds Couture, Earthstar Publishing, Figure 8 Body Chains, Honestly Women magazine, Sunsplash Homes and Thavibu Gallery based in Thailand are just a few special businesses that are leading the Buy One Give One movement in their parts of the world.
There are many Buy One Give One businesses now uniting under the common brand banner of Buy1GIVE1 managed by a Singapore based social enterprise which is becoming the home of transaction-based giving. Any business in the world can now integrate Buy One Give One giving with ease. It's like a 'CSR plug-in' allowing a business to instantaneously start giving from each and every sale, starting from just 1 cent. It's also no longer about giving an equivalent product to someone else. Instead it is about contributing to a project that resonates with a company's activity. For example a restaurant can feed a child, a television retailer can give a cataract blind person the gift of sight (Get Vision-Give Vision), a magazine publisher can plant a tree every time they sell a subscription and a property developer can build a low-cost family home for those in need (Buy1BUILD1) - the list is simply endless.
The stats now add up saying consumers do care. The 2008 Goodpurpose global study of consumer attitudes revealed that nearly a huge 68% of consumers would remain dedicated to a brand during an economic slump if it supported a charity cause. This study also highlighted some other key points as well such as :
* 52% of consumers globally are more likely to recommend a brand to others when it supports a good charity cause over one that doesn't.
* 54% would sing the praise's of a brand to promote their products if there was a good cause behind it.
* Globally consumers are voicing a distinct desire for marketers to associate their brands to social causes. Forty-two percent say that if two products or services are of a similar quality and price, commitment to a cause trumps factors like innovation, design and brand loyalty when selecting one brand over another.
Transforming Getting into Giving
In the minds of consumers, Buy One GIVE One is sure to replace Buy One GET One as the global giving movement led by Buy1GIVE1 ripples out. Certainly with the large consumer demand shown for products from companies like BOGOlights, TOMS Shoes and One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), this tide will continue to spread.
I did a recent Google search to find the 25 top key words associated with the keyword BOGO. The results were very interesting in that none of them currently contained the word Give. I have displayed the results below. It will be interested to repeat this test in twelve months time and see what changes. Consumers are starting to drive major change and despite still wanting to receive free gifts (as in traditional B1G1/BOGO), they equally want to help others and the environment. This sentiment is validated by the 2008 Goodpurpose global study.
Here's the results :
Free, networking, boots, groups, music, dallas, togo themes, wallpapers, buy, applications, skins, values, coupon, African, gift, photography, blogging, discount, sharing, shopping, pics, join, prose
Transactional or transaction-based giving
Unlike normal charitable giving Buy One Give One giving is transactional. What is meant by that is : every time you buy something you give something. In the case of SunNight Solar they give a physical light for every light sold. In most cases, businesses that become part of this special form of transaction-based giving, give in a different way. At Buy1GIVE1, giving can start from just USD 1c contribution per sale. At this amount no business in the world can say they cannot give and 100% contributed goes to the cause.
The actual amount given from each and every sale is not the point of focus with Buy1GIVE1 transaction based giving. It is not about saying 10% is contributed or 5c from each sale - instead the focus is on the story and sharing the simple joy of giving. In the end, if you think that 1c is not a lot to contribute and is not likely to make much of a difference think again and consider the following.
From its origins in Ethiopia, where the main coffee production is still from wild coffee tree forests, coffee consumption has spread throughout the world. Today Brazil is still by far the largest producer producing an average output of 28% of the world's total coffee. Brazil produced enough coffee in 2006 to make 216 billion four hundred million - 216 400 000 000 - espresso coffees. If we calculate that across global production then we get a daily global consumption of around 2,117,416,830 cups of coffee. The figures are hard to find but lets guess that 40% of the world's coffee is sold in coffee shops then we would get that 846,966,732 cups are sold commercially each day globally. This would equate to about 185,485,714 cups in the USA alone seeing they purchase around 21.9% of the world's coffee beans.
Now imagine that for every cup of coffee sold a child was given clean drinking water from its own well. It costs just 1cent per person per day to do this. Any coffee shop could afford to contribute this amount from the sale of a cup of coffee. Instead of clean water a coffee shop could contribute for the education of coffee farmers children, costing from 23cents per child per day. The options and stories are unlimited as well as the potential difference that Buy One Give One transactional giving can make to the lives of many.
Transaction based giving is the story of a thousand mile journey starting with the first step. To dig a well costs a few thousand dollars hence many communities in developing nations cannot afford to dig wells. But when you see that it only takes the sale of a single cup of coffee to give clean well water to a single person for a day1, then you can see the magic of transactional based giving. Buy1GIVE1 giving is like the compound interest of giving - a little turns into a lot very quickly.
Of course any company anywhere in the world can apply transaction-based giving to any of their products or services and do it on their own as some are like TESCO in the UK giving school uniforms to kids in Africa from every uniform purchased in the UK. And yet if companies choose to come together under a commonly recognised banner they have a greater effect. The ripple that one company creates adds to that of another and soon the tidal wave of change flows out into the world benefitting all the companies in the movement. This is the power of giving and doing things together.
The final power of Buy One Give One transaction based giving is that everyone wins - the consumer wins - at no extra cost to themselves they have made a difference through their purchasing choices - the business wins in so many ways - and the worthy cause or charity wins because they can now receive small amounts from many sources all aggregated and paid as a lump sum from a single source if done through the Buy1GIVE1 service.
A new start - a new world - new thinking
If you go right now and check Wikipedia.com for the word BOGO you should find that a new definition has been added. And soon B1G1 will be added. It is time for a sea-change - a change from the focus on GETTING to focusing on GIVING. I personally added a small addition to Wikipedia's BOGO definition that says this: "... an acronym in the marketing industry that stands for Buy One GIVE One."
Simply imagine our world where every time you go and buy something you give something automatically and seamlessly - giving a gift forward to someone in greater need than you. This is the simple joyful magic of transactional giving.
This is the world I want to be part of.
Just remember - you don't 'get' giving till you get giving.
References :
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee
http://www.goodpurposecommunity.com/
http://www.goodpurposecommunity.com/
http://www.coffeepoet.com/2007/09/
http://www.buy1-give1free.com/index.php/Partnering/Worthy-cause-charity-projects.html
http://www.dep.org.uk/globalexpress/13/page1.htm
http://www.tesco.com/greenerliving/what_we_are_doing/ethical_clothing.page
Footnotes: 1 Calculated by taking the average cost to dig a well, dividing it by its average expected life without major maintenance, divided by the number of people in the community benefiting from the well on a daily basis.
There is a growing global movement where consumers are asking businesses to take care of the things that they care about. The request is mainly tacit and despite it being an ironic request it non-the-less signals that we are in a time of change. Consumers these days want their 'goodies' but they don't want the environment to be destroyed in the creation of their 'goodies'. They want cheap products but they do not want workers to suffer to create those cheap products.
Until recently there was no real answer to this complex puzzle but today one actually exists. It exists in the reforging of a simple single word - GET. Today there is a new movement of consumers wanting to get and at the same time give. They are reforging the word GET into the word GIVE.
Every day automated email notices arrive from Google Alerts for two keywords - B1G1 and BOGO. I see all the new places these words are being used on the Internet. I can now see that the new meaning of these words is coming alive 'poco a poco' -little by little.
The B1G1 and BOGO acronyms both stand for Buy One GET One free. You buy one and you get given an extra one for free.
Look up BOGO on Wikipedia.com (there isn't a definition yet for B1G1) and you will discover these definitions for BOGO :
* An acronym in the retail industry that stands for Buy One Get One. For example, you could say "Buy 1 DVD, Get 1 FREE!
* An acronym in slang British that stands for Britons Of Greek Origin or Greek Britons.
* Bogo, Cebu, a city in central Philippines.
* An alternate name for the Bilen ethnic group of Ethiopia or their language, Blin.
* An alternate name for the Bilen ethnic group of Ethiopia or their language, Blin.
* The mascot of the ITESM CEM.
* Bogosort, an ineffective sorting algorithm
* Bogosort, an ineffective sorting algorithm
BOGO light
There's an entrepreneurial business in the USA called SunLight Solar which was founded by Mark Bent. They've created a special torch that's not only an amazing and sturdy solar-powered light, his company also gives a free torch to those in need in developing countries every time one is sold. If you lookup their website you will learn more about their "BOGO light".
"The BoGo - our Buy one/Give one - program has successfully provided lights to many, many thousands of people in the developing world, changing lives because of your purchase and participation." - BOGOlight.com
Mark Bent has flipped the BOGO acronym upside down when he started to use the word as part of his product name. For him now and the thousands who buy his lights, BOGO today means Buy One GIVE One. Each person gets to give a light every time they buy one for themselves. So now with each sale people who do not have the benefit of electricity can tap the power of the sun to support them in their lives.
There are many other well known and less well know businesses now doing Buy One Give One giving or transaction based giving as it is becoming known. Some of the famous ones are One Laptop Per Child and TOMS Shoes. Some of the less well-known ones (in the USA at least) are based in Australia, New Zealand and the UK - Maple Muesli, Blinds Couture, Earthstar Publishing, Figure 8 Body Chains, Honestly Women magazine, Sunsplash Homes and Thavibu Gallery based in Thailand are just a few special businesses that are leading the Buy One Give One movement in their parts of the world.
There are many Buy One Give One businesses now uniting under the common brand banner of Buy1GIVE1 managed by a Singapore based social enterprise which is becoming the home of transaction-based giving. Any business in the world can now integrate Buy One Give One giving with ease. It's like a 'CSR plug-in' allowing a business to instantaneously start giving from each and every sale, starting from just 1 cent. It's also no longer about giving an equivalent product to someone else. Instead it is about contributing to a project that resonates with a company's activity. For example a restaurant can feed a child, a television retailer can give a cataract blind person the gift of sight (Get Vision-Give Vision), a magazine publisher can plant a tree every time they sell a subscription and a property developer can build a low-cost family home for those in need (Buy1BUILD1) - the list is simply endless.
The stats now add up saying consumers do care. The 2008 Goodpurpose global study of consumer attitudes revealed that nearly a huge 68% of consumers would remain dedicated to a brand during an economic slump if it supported a charity cause. This study also highlighted some other key points as well such as :
* 52% of consumers globally are more likely to recommend a brand to others when it supports a good charity cause over one that doesn't.
* 54% would sing the praise's of a brand to promote their products if there was a good cause behind it.
* Globally consumers are voicing a distinct desire for marketers to associate their brands to social causes. Forty-two percent say that if two products or services are of a similar quality and price, commitment to a cause trumps factors like innovation, design and brand loyalty when selecting one brand over another.
Transforming Getting into Giving
In the minds of consumers, Buy One GIVE One is sure to replace Buy One GET One as the global giving movement led by Buy1GIVE1 ripples out. Certainly with the large consumer demand shown for products from companies like BOGOlights, TOMS Shoes and One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), this tide will continue to spread.
I did a recent Google search to find the 25 top key words associated with the keyword BOGO. The results were very interesting in that none of them currently contained the word Give. I have displayed the results below. It will be interested to repeat this test in twelve months time and see what changes. Consumers are starting to drive major change and despite still wanting to receive free gifts (as in traditional B1G1/BOGO), they equally want to help others and the environment. This sentiment is validated by the 2008 Goodpurpose global study.
Here's the results :
Free, networking, boots, groups, music, dallas, togo themes, wallpapers, buy, applications, skins, values, coupon, African, gift, photography, blogging, discount, sharing, shopping, pics, join, prose
Transactional or transaction-based giving
Unlike normal charitable giving Buy One Give One giving is transactional. What is meant by that is : every time you buy something you give something. In the case of SunNight Solar they give a physical light for every light sold. In most cases, businesses that become part of this special form of transaction-based giving, give in a different way. At Buy1GIVE1, giving can start from just USD 1c contribution per sale. At this amount no business in the world can say they cannot give and 100% contributed goes to the cause.
The actual amount given from each and every sale is not the point of focus with Buy1GIVE1 transaction based giving. It is not about saying 10% is contributed or 5c from each sale - instead the focus is on the story and sharing the simple joy of giving. In the end, if you think that 1c is not a lot to contribute and is not likely to make much of a difference think again and consider the following.
From its origins in Ethiopia, where the main coffee production is still from wild coffee tree forests, coffee consumption has spread throughout the world. Today Brazil is still by far the largest producer producing an average output of 28% of the world's total coffee. Brazil produced enough coffee in 2006 to make 216 billion four hundred million - 216 400 000 000 - espresso coffees. If we calculate that across global production then we get a daily global consumption of around 2,117,416,830 cups of coffee. The figures are hard to find but lets guess that 40% of the world's coffee is sold in coffee shops then we would get that 846,966,732 cups are sold commercially each day globally. This would equate to about 185,485,714 cups in the USA alone seeing they purchase around 21.9% of the world's coffee beans.
Now imagine that for every cup of coffee sold a child was given clean drinking water from its own well. It costs just 1cent per person per day to do this. Any coffee shop could afford to contribute this amount from the sale of a cup of coffee. Instead of clean water a coffee shop could contribute for the education of coffee farmers children, costing from 23cents per child per day. The options and stories are unlimited as well as the potential difference that Buy One Give One transactional giving can make to the lives of many.
Transaction based giving is the story of a thousand mile journey starting with the first step. To dig a well costs a few thousand dollars hence many communities in developing nations cannot afford to dig wells. But when you see that it only takes the sale of a single cup of coffee to give clean well water to a single person for a day1, then you can see the magic of transactional based giving. Buy1GIVE1 giving is like the compound interest of giving - a little turns into a lot very quickly.
Of course any company anywhere in the world can apply transaction-based giving to any of their products or services and do it on their own as some are like TESCO in the UK giving school uniforms to kids in Africa from every uniform purchased in the UK. And yet if companies choose to come together under a commonly recognised banner they have a greater effect. The ripple that one company creates adds to that of another and soon the tidal wave of change flows out into the world benefitting all the companies in the movement. This is the power of giving and doing things together.
The final power of Buy One Give One transaction based giving is that everyone wins - the consumer wins - at no extra cost to themselves they have made a difference through their purchasing choices - the business wins in so many ways - and the worthy cause or charity wins because they can now receive small amounts from many sources all aggregated and paid as a lump sum from a single source if done through the Buy1GIVE1 service.
A new start - a new world - new thinking
If you go right now and check Wikipedia.com for the word BOGO you should find that a new definition has been added. And soon B1G1 will be added. It is time for a sea-change - a change from the focus on GETTING to focusing on GIVING. I personally added a small addition to Wikipedia's BOGO definition that says this: "... an acronym in the marketing industry that stands for Buy One GIVE One."
Simply imagine our world where every time you go and buy something you give something automatically and seamlessly - giving a gift forward to someone in greater need than you. This is the simple joyful magic of transactional giving.
This is the world I want to be part of.
Just remember - you don't 'get' giving till you get giving.
References :
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee
http://www.goodpurposecommunity.com/
http://www.goodpurposecommunity.com/
http://www.coffeepoet.com/2007/09/
http://www.buy1-give1free.com/index.php/Partnering/Worthy-cause-charity-projects.html
http://www.dep.org.uk/globalexpress/13/page1.htm
http://www.tesco.com/greenerliving/what_we_are_doing/ethical_clothing.page
Footnotes: 1 Calculated by taking the average cost to dig a well, dividing it by its average expected life without major maintenance, divided by the number of people in the community benefiting from the well on a daily basis.
About the Author:
Transform your businesses' CSR programme today by doing Buy One Give One (B1G1) transaction-based giving led by Buy1GIVE1. Visit BOGO for updates. Add this to your site with links active and intact.
No comments:
Post a Comment