Tag: Involve consumers - Page 3 - followthethings.com

Posted on August 28, 2024March 6, 2026 by Ian Cook

The 2 Euro T-Shirt – A Social Experiment

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Fashion

ACTIVIST VENDING MACHINE

CHANGE CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

“The 2 Euro T-Shirt – A Social Experiment“
A repurposed vending machine & film made for Fashion Revolution Germany by BBDO & Unit9.
Uploaded to YouTube & embedded in full above.

To mark the second anniversary of the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Fashion Revolution activists in Germany placed a t-shirt vending machine in a public square in Berlin. Shoppers were invited to insert ‘only 2€’ to buy a t-shirt. Before it was dispensed, however, the machine showed them a short film about ‘Manisha’, one of millions of people working in the sweatshops where it could have been made. Shoppers were then presented two options: to get the t-shirt or to donate the 2€ they inserted to the Fashion Revolution movement. Would ‘people care when they know’? Especially at the ‘point of sale’. That was the experiment. The vending machine filmed shoppers as they decided. What were their reactions? What did they choose to do? The YouTube video went viral. What would you do? Buy or donate?

Page reference: Olivia Boertje, Jo Ryley, Alec James, Tori Carter, Becky Watts and Rachel Osborne (2025) The 2 Euro T-Shirt – A Social Experiment. followthethings.com/the-two-euro-t-shirt-experiment.shtml (last accessed <add date here>)

Estimated reading time: 81 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024March 6, 2026 by Ian Cook

Mardi Gras: Made In China

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Fashion | Gifts & Seasonal

SHOW CAPITALIST EVILS

JUXTAPOSE EXTREMES

HUMANISE WORKERS

HUMANISE THINGS

BRING MANAGERS INTO VIEW

INVOLVE CONSUMERS

CHOOSE AN AUDIENCE

SHOW IT BACK

“Mardi Gras: Made In China“
A documentary film directed by David Redmon for Carnivalesque Films.
First five minutes embedded above. Search online for streaming availability here.

During the Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, USA, a tradition has emerged in which women who bear flesh have strings of plastic beads thrown at them to wear. Filmmaker David Redmon films this revelry and travels to Fuzhou, China to meet the ‘easy to control’ women who make those beads. He films their high speed, low wage, work and returns to New Orleans to show this footage to drunken revellers. He’d done the same thing in Fuzhou, showing the factory workers how the beads they made were ‘consumed’. The film connects women in China making plastic beads for women in the USA to wear, but under very specific, throwaway circumstances. So what were their reactions to seeing these hidden relationships? How did they make sense of this? Or push it to one side? Or find it funny? What happens when labour exploitation meets carnival excess? Where did these beads go afterwards? Who cleaned them up as trash? Why were they sent to US military personnel in Iraq in care packages? And did those factory workers really tell the director that their jobs were fun and well paid? Who can you trust to translate what people tell you? All of these dramas generated heated debate. Not least about trade justice activism like this being a ‘buzzkill’. But what’s the way forward? The film doesn’t suggest one.

Page reference: Grace Chu, Stephanie Hong & Jasmine Lee (2014) Mardi Gras: Made In China. followthethings.com/mardi-gras-made-in-china.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 53 minutes.

Posted on August 19, 2024October 14, 2026 by Ian Cook

followthethings.com Shopping Bag

followthethings.com
My shopping bag | Follow it yourself

“followthethings.com Shopping Bag“
A limited edition run of 5,000 reusable plastic shopping bags designed by Daisy Livingston & Aidan Waller and distributed freely to support the launch of the followthethings.com website.
The last bag was given away in 2016. Still in circulation.

The followthethings.com launch team are keen to create some merchandise to promote their website. Intern Daisy had submitted a printed cotton bag she had had manufactured in China as coursework for Ian’s ‘Geographies of Material Culture’ module. It was the most original, imaginative coursework he had ever seen. That’s because it wasn’t just about the geographies of material culture, it embodied them, materialised them. Ian hired Daisy as an intern and asked her to design and order some reusable shopping bags for followthethings.com’s launch. Fellow intern Aiden helped out. These needed to be just like the ones that we used for our supermarket shopping at Sainsbury’s, Tesco, ASDA, Morrisons. They were pretty standard in their construction. But where were they made? From what materials? How could you find out? What could you find out about the pay and conditions of the people who made them? Quite a bit, it turned out, if you had your own made in the same places. What insights could this privileged business-to-business customer perspective provide? And what could happen after you put these mischievous shopping bags into circulation? Especially when the meaning of ‘shopping’ in the project – and on the bags – was double: i.e. both ‘to seek or examine goods, property, etc. offered for sale in or by’ and ‘to behave treacherously toward; inform on; betray’ or ‘to give away information about’ those goods, property, etc. (Anon nd). Once you read about our bag, you can apply its lessons to the ones that you have…

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2024) followthethings.com Shopping Bags. followthethings.com/followthethings-com-shopping bag.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 21 minutes.

Posted on August 19, 2024March 6, 2026 by Ian Cook

The Letter In The Saks 5th Avenue Bag

followthethings.com
Fashion | My shopping bag

“The Letter In The Saks 5th Avenue Bag“
A letter written by Tohnain Emmanuel Thiong in a Chinese prison factory, found in New York in a Saks 5th Avenue shopping bag by Stephanie Wilson and posted online.
Reproduced in full above.

Stephanie Wilson buys a pair of Hunter rain boots at a high end department store – Saks Fifth Avenue – in New York City. Rummaging through the ‘free with purchase’ bag, she is shocked to find a handwritten letter in English that begins ‘HELP! HELP! HELP!’ and a tiny passport photo. It’s from a Cameroonian man who made that bag it in a Chinese prison factory. With the help of an NGO and a journalist, she finds him. This ‘message in a bottle’ definitely wasn’t a hoax (or was it?). But how was he able to write it? How many did he write? What danger was he in by doing this? All of these questions could be answered. It helped that he’d written his Yahoo email address on the back. And that he was no longer in prison, or in China, when they emailed him. Could a short letter like this have a big impact on the sourcing of these bags? What were the chances that someone would find and act on one? Its discovery, the detective work that it sparked, and the issues that it raised, went viral. Which companies want their branded goods to be made in jail by falsely imprisoned, tortured and molested inmates? It’s not just the commodities that a store sells that shoppers should be worried about. It’s the bags, the tills, the escalators… everything that contributes to the shopping experience. Workers’ rights are everywhere. Including in office furniture allegedly made in US prisons. Fact-check!

Page reference: Will Kelleher & Ian Cook (2014) The Letter In The Saks 5th Avenue Bag. followthethings.com/the-letter-in-the-saks-5th-avenue-bag.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 37 minutes.