Shit. 

I have a lot of it. 

We are currently in the midst of our 6th move in Singapore, yes I know, 6 moves in 10 years is a bit excessive but we are gypsies at heart, I am Irish after all. But besides being Irish and a serial gypsy what the moving process has has shown me is the amount of shit we have.

Shit we don’t need. 

Shit we don’t use.

Shit, that at some point was so important, so urgent to have and so necessary that we spent good money on it. Shit that days after the purchase started to collect dust and inevitably be destined to the back of a lonely cupboard or even worse in a land fill waiting to degrade over the next 1000 years. 

Shit causing more shit.

It is this over consumerism and need to buy things that got me thinking about an idea that I wish I had done. Mainly because this idea was centered around the saddest day we humans have created.

Black Friday.

And a black day it is. This is the first day of the holidays in the States, a day where everyone should be celebrating with their families and enjoying life. Except it is now a public gathering resembling a WWF competition to see who can get the most stuff, pay the least for it and sometimes die trying in the fastest time possible.

And it gets worse, it is spreading across the globe faster than an outbreak of the walking dead on Friday nights.

It is very sad. And very scary.

The thing is, it was made by the retailers and every year it is driven by the retailers as this is their most profitable day of the year. 

They literally make billions out of the rampage of zombies buying anything and everything and they spend millions trying to out-market and out-advertise each other selling crap to people that people don’t necessarily need whilst bringing out the worst trait we as human beings have.

Greed.

There is hope though, as one retailer stood up and decided it was enough. They took a stand against the over-consumerism and stood for what they believed in and got straight back to the reason they were in business.

Getting people outdoors.

That retailer was REI, an american outdoor recreation service and retail organization with 143 locations across the USA. They believe in experiencing the outdoors and Black Friday had become something that was fighting against that belief.

They decided enough was enough and chose to do something that makes this one of the bravest ideas and the truest testaments to doing what you believe in as an organization regardless of the financial impact it may have to your business. 

They decided to close all of their stores on Black Friday.

Yup all 143 stores on the busiest day of the year. 

Closed.

Shut. 

Not open. 

Missing out on millions of dollars in sales. Now imagine presenting that idea to the client. 

Here is an idea that will not only lose millions of dollars in one day but may not work, Mr Client. What do you think?

Well they did just that. The guy behind it was a guy named Ben Steele, nope not related in anyway to me besides the great surname and of course the Irish decent. Ben and his team took the idea to the CEO Jerry Stritzke and immediately he saw this as not just a great idea, but a necessary idea that had to be done as it was at their core and what he and the company had to do because they believed in one thing.

Get people outside.

And on that day #OptOutside was born. 

They created the call to action using the hashtag and helped it gain social fame by creating things to help people get outside. From building a meme generator that helped spread the message to outdoor camping kits with Thanksgiving leftovers. They even went as far as to revamped their entire website to help people get outside through geo-locations showing new experience, new places and everything to get you outdoors.

Then they launched it with a simple film of the CEO in his office, but on a mountain and followed it up by simple print and outdoor executions.

It exploded.

In the first 24hrs they got over 2.7 Billion PR impressions. And ended with over 6.7 Billion media impressions and 1.2 Billion social impressions during the entire campaign. Yes, those are all BILLIONS not millions.

Impressive yes, but the best part was the movement kicked off and over 150 other retailers joined in and also closed their shops. State parks opened their doors and let people enjoy the outdoors for free resulting in an estimated 1.4 million people going outdoors.

Besides picking up 9 lions and 2 Grand Prix’s they created a movement to #OptOutside and people got back to what was truly important. 

Being alive.