Thinking Out of the Box

In the last week I stood in to queues and was faced with situations that made me blink and wake up to the fact that there are some stores and food producers out there trying to walk the talk when it comes to sensible marketing.

The first was in a store that would give customers quite a few bonus points on their store card, if they could fit all the produce they bought in their own backpack or basket. The fact is, most Germans do bring along their own linen bags or baskets or whatever. Yet, sometimes customers are caught going shopping without their bags and so they usually have to pay a minimal fee for plastic bags. This is like a small demerit system. This shop I went to had a better policy. They said, "Why don't we praise those customers who do bring bags and don't consume want more plastic". Not only did I try extra hard to put all my food items in my already full backpack, I'll definitely go back because they want to praise me diligence instead of punish my oversight.

Secondly, there is a organic yogurt company that doesn't offer it's customers 110 different flavoured yogurts the whole year round. Instead, they offer about 10 different flavours depending on the season. In the late summer there are quite a few berry flavours. In early winter, there are spicy, chocolatety, Advent-y flavours. Each season brings new flavours. Some of their flavours reoccur each season. Others come and go. Where does it say that a company has to produce a huge amount of flavours all the time?