Niche businesses that aim to help the poor attract competitors
I spoke with Cotten Timberlake at Bloomberg for this story:
“Compassionate Consumerism Draws Copycats”
Below is a brief extract from the article. Please visit Bloomberg to read the full story here.
“For retailers like Skechers, whose revenue fell 20 percent last year, the charity angle is a way to persuade wary consumers to spend in a tough economy. Shoppers in their late twenties and early thirties, the so-called millennials, are particularly susceptible to such pitches, because they don’t have the means to make big donations and they admire brands that embody their save-the-planet ethos, according to Mara Einstein, a Queens College professor whose book Compassion, Inc. was published in April. Still, the efforts increasingly seem like a naked marketing ploy to spur sales and could backfire, she says. “It’s almost become marketing wallpaper,” she says. “Everybody is getting on the bandwagon.””