There’s been a renewed interest in ecopop lately and I am both humbled and grateful. Thank you. A couple of recent product launches, speaking engagements, and interviews, including the one that appears on IdeaMensch.com today, has lead me to reflect on just how far ecopop has come since I shut down my brand communications agency, 86 the onions. (Bye 86 the onions, Hello ecopop! on Adland.tv)
Even before I 86ed my childhood dream of starting my own agency there were hints of ecopop already bubbling up. There was the agency-initiated homeless outreach campaign, ProjectHello.com, and the industry speaking engagement that followed. (Rea Promotes ‘Random Acts of Kindness’ by Adweek Staff on Adweek.com) There was the time we sent an intern on his bike 1,400 miles for a cup of coffee. (A Long Ride For A Cup of Coffee by Tim Nudd on Adweek.com) And there was even the time when we promoted reuse through a series of viral web films featuring an 89-year old DJ grandma. (Mountain Dew: elixir for the ages By Catharine P. Taylor on Adweek.com)
When I finally decided to turn my brand of ecopop communication into a full-time business, it was described as a free idea exchange website. (Profile: Chad Rea By Eleftheria Parpis on Adweek.com and Chad Rea: Ideas Too Good to Waste by Michael Karnjanaprakorn on the99percent.com) I would post my business, product, and marketing ideas online, ones that I’d been getting paid by Fortune 100 companies to fork over in the past, and invite others in the online community to build on those ideas. Anyone was free to take them and make the world a better place. The goal was to not only get creative problem-solver types to share world-changing ideas that would otherwise go to waste sitting on their hard drives, and inspire other individuals and companies to change the way we make and buy things for the better. People wrote about the idea behind ecopop.com. People took ideas from ecopop.com. But nobody shared their ideas on ecopop.com. Apparently, I was the only person willing to give away ideas for the greater good. In my mind, the beta test had failed so, about a year later, I pulled the plug on an expression of ecopop that was arguably more about getting other people’s ideas produced instead of our own.
Since then, I’ve turned ecopop.com into more of an online brochure or blog, something I’ve always advised my clients against, and a bland marketing approach that is very uncharacteristic of me, but it serves a purpose. For now, anyway. I still post some of the better ideas we won’t ever get around to producing, and both agencies and brands still commission us for work from time to time, but most of our focus is spent creating our own ventures from the ground up. We started with 10. Two years later, we’re down to four that are still in production. One of those ventures, electricity showroom, is in the process of simply becoming the storefront for all of our product collaborations on ecopop.com. Next year, there will be more social-minded ventures and inevitably more unexpected changes. However, ecopop’s mission is still the same as when I started this journey. It’s the expression or the output of that mission that is ever-evolving. And while ecopop might not currently grace the pages of the advertising trades like 86 the onions used to on a regular basis, we’re starting to be discovered in entirely new circles of cultural influence and, to me, that couldn’t be more exciting. A heartfelt thank you for your continued support over the years and helping spread the word about whatever ideas we think of next.
Looking forward,
Chad Rea, chief catalyst/curator
(Photo courtesy of Darius Kuzmickas, AIGA Portland)