In a tight economy, the volume of Public Relations is amped up to the max. As you may be able to imagine, especially on this beat, one hears a lot about how various companies are saving the world (*swelling, stirring music, stir, swell, stir...swell...*). It's rare to actually see this in action rather than hearing about it. I'd like to offer a little anecdote.
This afternoon, I walked to Bayshore's Trader Joe's. I picked up a few staple items--they have a whole-grain S. Rosen's (a brand of Chicago's Alpha Baking) bread that's really good, and cheap...OK, the "cheap" is pretty much understood. Even more remarkably, they've lately introduced Joe, a coffee that retails at $3.49 for nearly a pound--thirteen or fourteen ounces, something like that?--and is really good. Today's purchase of this new coffee offering was my second. When it first came out a month or so ago, I bought a can to see just how bad it would be. I brew manual pourover at home, and I think the fact that the grounds bloomed (indicating freshly roasted coffee) was the first tipoff that this wasn't going to be quite what I expected. To be honest, I like it better than many $7-9 a pound coffees and some $10 or higher coffees. Moreover, I'm not quite sure how they make the numbers work on this, considering the fact that there must be little or no cheap filler in the blend (that, and/or the roaster has a Karl Rove-like genius for making something out of...not much).
A lot of companies pay a PR person or department good money to let the world know how it's being saved by said company. Obviously, that's business. However, I think giving people the stuff they want and need cheap--without a lot of fanfare--is saving the world too. When it's done with the sense of humor and fun that Trader Joe's exhibits, that's even more admirable. (And need I mention the lack of plastic bags?) Honestly, I almost feel like I better stop thinking about all this, lest I lose my stomach for some of the other regular stops on the beat. I'm not sure I would be cut out to be a writer for the Religion page, despite my religiosity. It's the taking oneself too seriously that I find a bit wearisome. I know extremely well that when you put a message out there, you can't really control how it's going to be interpreted, but still--if you're paying marketing and PR folks, why not pay 'em to lighten things up a bit?
As far as I can tell, Trader Joe's doesn't pay a lot of people to tell us all how they're saving the world. So I'm going to do it for free. When I walked away from the store, I saw that a Feeding America truck was backed up to the loading dock. Arrayed next to the vehicle were bags upon bags of food about to be loaded up. I didn't read about this in a press release, and indeed, searching the Feeding America site for "Trader Joe's" yields no hits. I've long though that the best news is that gathered with one's own senses while on one's feet walking, and this was no exception.
In an earlier post, I noted that I thought that the real cost of the cash for clunkers program went well beyond the $4500 rebate per car. Edmunds.com just came out with an analysis that shows that the cost of the program, once purchases that would have occurred during that period without the rebate are taken into account, at $24,000 per car!
Posted by: True Religion Jeans Outlet | August 14, 2011 at 10:38 PM