Alexis Eyre

The marketing and advertising industry should be very nervous right now!

Landing the day before Black Friday and with Christmas still a month away (genius!), Netflix is about to lift the lid on the industry's sole pursuit to drive mass overconsumption with little to no regard for any other impacts it might be having on the environment and society in their newest documentary - Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy! It's uncovering the wide array of toolkits we use to ensure that everyone keeps consuming as much as we possibly can. It showcases how the industry creates an insatiable desire to make us want things we really don't need and it makes us believe that new and regular replacements are the only way to live a fulfilling life.

And all of this to the detriment of our planet. In the past six years alone we have consumed almost the equivalent amount of material (582 billion tonnes) as we did in the entire 20th century - 740 billion tonnes! You can now see many of the landfill sites, plastic islands in our oceans and clothing dumping grounds in the South American deserts from space they're so big! Our consumption is completely out of control. We are continuing to consume materials like we live on a planet with infinite resources.

We as an industry need to have some extremely difficult, honest but much-needed conversations about what our role is moving forward - from one that drives mass overconsumption to one that is in service to our society, planet and commerciality in equal measures.

And no this is not the time to start defending your corner and pointing the finger elsewhere, this is a call for change and rapid change!

Source for consumption facts (page 19 of the report) - https://lnkd.in/eRdQcA7b

#marketing #advertising #consumption

Shein? Where to begin?

If ever there was a faster-growing company that has latched onto the growth model in such an extraordinary fashion (excuse the pun!) then I think Shein, last valued at around $200bn (Time), would take the gold medal. If it had been the 1960s, I probably would have applauded them for their innovative, agile approach of introducing 2k to 10k new styles onto their platform every single day (Time) but we are living in the 21st century and the era of sustainability, and the two just don't go hand in hand. It's a real shame that they didn't build sustainability into their core offering from day one whilst using their innovative thinking as the picture could be a lot less stark.

Here is a snapshot of some of the information I have dug out recently:
- Shein (& Temu) send 600k packages to the USA every single day and Shein alone ships circa 5k tonnes of cargo daily to destinations around the world. Apple ships 1k tonne on their biggest day! (Reuters)
- Shein now accounts for 20% of the entire global fast-fashion industry (Reuters)
- Boeing is looking to treble its Chinese air cargo fleet by 2042 to keep up with eCommerce demand driven by brands like Shein (Reuters)
- Shein now accounts for 22% of the average French adolescent's carbon footprint (20minutes.fr)
- The manufacturers’ use of virgin polyester and consumption of oil churns out the same amount of CO2 as approximately 180 coal-fired power plants (6.3m tonnes of CO2/yr) (Time)
- It has been called out for not looking after its employees who are said to be working 75hr weeks with little time off, unsafe working conditions and a daily salary of $20 but docked to $14 if they make a mistake (Time)
- 60% of clothing bought is thrown away within the first year which predominantly ends up dumped in the Global South. Although the exact amount cannot be attributed to Shein, the number of garments being thrown away has exponentially grown recently alongside this fast-fashion behemoth's growth. Accra alone receives 14 million garments per week. 40% of these garments are thrown in landfill or burnt (Reuters2)

The scariest thing of all is that they have now branched out into selling mega cheap home appliances, electronics, and kitchen utensils as well which could amplify issues further.

Shein does say however that they are focussing on sustainability and initiated several projects so it will be interesting to see where they go but for now, the negative impacts are still through the roof!

Sources:
Reuters - https://lnkd.in/euN_KSpS
20 minutes - https://lnkd.in/emKypanw
Time - https://lnkd.in/eiwJb35B
Reuters 2 - https://lnkd.in/eMr3-Z-B