The tumultuous year that was 2021 showed an accelerated move towards the theme of this blog: Conscious Consumerism. 2021 may not have been the worst year in human history, but the media made it so everyone knew exactly when something bad happened again. With each new event brands took a stand and showed there support one way or another. The most prevalent was brands supporting BLM and showing civil right activism throughout the year as more rights were seemingly violated. So many brands began showing support for different causes it poses the question: is it real support or just a marketing facade to capitalize on concious consumerism?
Big brands are very smart. They have a good sense of market timing, general population sentiment, and needs of the people. They also have the budget to create massive marketing campaigns to get in front of the people. So brands have inevitably realized that people want them to stand for something, so they are. But now it is up to the consumer to be smarter. They will have to understand if a brand really means it or if they are doing it for engagement and jumping on the band wagon. The best companies are the ones that started with a cause and have championed their causes.
Take the company Guayaki for example.(I worked as an ambassador for them so I learned a lot about them. They are also from the town right next to my home.) They started out wanting to create their drinks in a sustainable way without causing harm to the environment. Normally to a Yerba mate tea, companies purchase large pieces of land in South America and then cut down all the trees to grow their crop. Guayaki found a way to instead grow the crop under the canopy of trees and grow other crops that were healthy for the ecosystem. They did all of this not because it’s what the consumer wanted, but because it was right. They started doing this before the consumer knew they wanted business done like this.
The point of this is you have to decipher for yourself if the brand actually cares or if it’s just trying to win you over as a customer.
So that puts me back at my place with my company. I started it because I want to make a change. I want there to be someway to raise awareness and money. So you can find my website at www.teeshirts4causes.com and find out more about what I am trying to do.














