Carrotmob

The Carrotmob is a special form of smart mobs. About the communication paths that exploit flash and smart mobs, supporters are encouraged to shop at a particular store owner in a tightly circumscribed period. This shopkeeper has declared its readiness to invest a fixed proportion of its turnover, which he reached at the Carrotmobs in a climate-friendly renovation of his shop.

Term origin

The term is derived from the Carrotmob way to motivate a donkey by allowing him a carrot before the nose holds ( English phrase: carrot and stick, translated carrot and stick ). Traditional forms of consumer activity based rather on the principle of punishment (eg consumer boycotts ). The Carrotmob is a form of so-called Buycotts and thus trying to move business to positive way to the desired behavior. "We think the economy towards the carrot ," said Brad Burton, American co-founder of the world now active Carrotmobbewegung, "and she is making progress, changing. "

Previous Carrotmobs

A first Carrotmob was held in San Francisco in March 2008. The initiator, Brent Schulkin, visited 23 stores and told each owner that he founded a network of consumers and that they all get to spend a lot of money in a business of the district. Only where that was open. Because that depended on a question from: Who is ready, most do for the environment?

" It starts a kind of auction ," the taz in its report on the Carrotmob in San Francisco. " The shop owners have to explain how much they stuck by what the Carrotmob outputs of money with them, in a climate-friendly remodeling. One says: 10 percent of sales, while the other 17 The winner is a small grocery store, the K & D Market: owner David Lee offered 22 percent. Schoolchildren organized via the Internet, via Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, by e -mail and a Carrotmob video channel buyers for a Saturday morning. Hundreds come and buy wine, chips, cat litter. On a normal day Lee takes a $ 2,000 in just four hours Happening it was $ 9,400. "

In Germany there has been Carrotmobs among others in Hamburg, Cologne, Berlin, Munich, Dresden and Bielefeld.

Further developments of the concept

The Munich-based environmental organization Green City eV has further developed the concept Carrotmob 2010 at an environmental education project for schools. Under the name " Carrotmob at school" organizing children and young people and their teachers a Carrotmob and learning on the one hand playfully to know about climate change and on the other hand how to successfully organize their own event. Since then, " Carrotmob Schools" in several cities in German-speaking place, including Munich, Basel, Augsburg and Bad Münster Eifel.