bambecosummerbook
In the world of fashion and home décor, the seasonal look book is a great tool to tell the product and design story to media, partners and other key influencers. However, developing a printed collateral piece on behalf of an environmentally conscious company, is a challenge and necessitates a careful and thoughtful approach. Bambeco (www.bambeco.com) is a retail upstart working to define the home and décor space for all things eco.
Bambeco is online only (for now…) and they do not print a catalog because they haven’t found a way to justify the higher sales and marketing to offset the environmental impact of using the resources to print, produce and mail catalogs. So instead, the company relies heavily on PR and social media outreach to tell its story. Luckily, they have a very customer focused culture, a great story, easy to navigate website, and amazing seasonal collections that appeal beyond the conscious consumer.
Earth Day 2010 marked bambeco’s one year anniversary. They had a great opportunity to celebrate their anniversary in NYC by partnering with LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) for a series of influencer and media events. While in the city, we also scheduled some key desk side meetings for founder and CEO, Susan Aplin. For all of these reasons and more, we convinced bambeco to create a limited run of a summer look book. We promised to be economical with the choice of content, produce the book on recycled paper and limit the amount of books we mailed to media.
The business choice to practice eco policies mirror those choices faced every day by families or individuals endeavoring to live their values. It’s overwhelming. As a wife and mother, I try to make conscious decisions that mitigate my family’s footprint. We eliminated plastic water bottles 3 years ago and use (almost exclusively) re-usable shopping bags. I think twice before making purchases. Do we need it, can we re-use what we have and so on. On the other hand, I drive a SUV that holds the big, 5 point harness car seats. This feels like the safest choice to transport my 3 little girls. I hope to drive a fuel friendly car when my kids outgrow the big car safety seats…
Back to bambeco and their decision to print a look book. The end result was a great branded piece that was incredibly well received. Even late into the season, we continue to garner enthusiastic and positive response to the book. If more people hear their message and fall in love with the green product choice, then we can sleep a little bit better and justify the “cost” of producing a printed book.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. Feels good. Enjoy!
Best, Kimberly
