People Company Good Behavior Idea Carrot Store Buying

When a company does something wrong or something that customers don't like, people may boycott that company. "To boycott" is to refuse to buy from and to use products from that company as a way to punish or "protest" (show disapproval for) what the company is doing. For instance, when gas prices went up quickly and to an "unprecedented" (never before seen) level, people wanted to boycott buying gasoline. This was not a very effective use of boycotting, unfortunately, but other boycotting efforts have worked to show the public's disapproval or "outrage" (strong anger).

"Activists" (people who work to make social or political change) are always trying to find new ways to change business behaviors. With one recent "strategy" (plan), Instead of punishing companies that are doing things they don't like, these activists are rewarding those for good behavior. Instead of boycotts, they create carrotmobs.

The idea of a "carrotmob" is based on the well-known phrase, "the carrot and the stick." The idea is to give people both rewards and punishment "to bring about" (cause) good behavior. This is based on the idea that a horse, or another animal, will work harder or move faster if there is a carrot waiting as a reward; at the same time, there is also a stick ready to "strike" (hit) the animal as punishment if it doesn't do what you ask. The carrot is the "inducement," the reward, that will result in good behavior. A mob is a large crowd or group of people.

Creating a carrotmob, then, is to get a lot of people to buy from a business or company that a group approves of. One of the first carrotmobs took place in San Francisco, California. An activist contacted 23 "convenience stores" (small stores that sell soft drinks, candy, lottery tickets, newspapers, etc.) to see which one would spend the most money putting in "energy-efficient" (energy saving) lights in their store. The activists "got the word out" (informed a lot of people) about "the winner" and urged people to visit the store on a "given" (specific) day. That store got hundreds of customers in that one day, and in turn, the store spent 23% of those "profits" (earnings) on putting in energy-efficient lights.