BOGO And B1G1
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by: David Anttony
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Word Count: 2166
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 Time: 11:09 AM
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Definitions of some English words can change quite rapidly these days. In the recent past the meaning of words was often very fixed. Today the meaning can change in the blink of an eye. With faster and newer ways to exchange ideas such as Twitter and with wider and more culturally, socially and educationally dissimilar groups connecting together - words are put back on the anvil of evolution and changed into something new and more reflective of current life.
There's a significant global movement happening where consumers are asking business to take care of the things they care about such as the less fortunate in society and the environment. The request is mainly tacit and despite it being an ironic request it by far indicates still that we are in a time of vast change. Consumers these days want their cake and eat it. They not only want cheap products, they also want the environment to be preserved and they want workers to be well looked after.
There does not seem to be an answer to this conundrum and yet one does exist. It exists in the recoining or reforging of a single word. This word is a simple one - GET. Today, new movements of people who want to get but give at the same time are reforging it. It is being transformed into the word GIVE.
Every day automated email notices arrive in my inbox from Google Alerts for two keywords - BOGO and B1G1. I see all the new places these words are turning up on the Internet. Little by little these two words are gaining a their new meaning as more and more people take up the Buy One Give One cause.
The B1G1 and BOGO acronyms both stand for Buy One GET One free. You buy one and you get given an extra one for free.
If you look on Wikipedia you will find these definitions for BOGO (there isn't a definition yet for B1G1) -
* An acronym in the retail industry that stands for Buy One Get One. For example, you could say "Buy 1 DVD, Get 1 FREE!
* An acronym in slang British that stands for Britons Of Greek Origin or Greek Britons.
* Bogo, Cebu, a city in central Philippines.
* An alternate name for the Bilen ethnic group of Ethiopia or their language, Blin.
* Norway, a village in Norway.
* The mascot of the ITESM CEM.
* Bogosort, an ineffective sorting algorithm
* Bogosort, an ineffective sorting algorithm
BOGO lights
There is an organisation in the USA called SunLight Solar founded by a gentleman called Mark Bent. He has created a special torch that not only is an amazing and robust solar-powered light; his company also gives a free torch to a family in need in developing nations for each one purchased. If you look on their website you will learn about their "BOGOlight".
"The BoGo - our Buy one/Give one - program has successfully provided lights to many, many thousands of people in the developing world, changing lives because of your purchase and participation." - BOGOlight.com
Mark Bent has managed to flip the meaning of the BOGO acronym upside down. For Mark along with thousands of his customers, BOGO now means Buy One GIVE One. A light is given whenever one is sold. Now each sale supports people in remote parts of the world who don't have the benefit of electricity. They can now tap into solar power support themselves.
There are many other well known and less well know businesses now doing Buy One Give One giving or transactional giving as it is becoming known. Some of the famous ones are One-Laptop-Per-Child (OLPC) and TOM'S Shoes. Some of the less well-known ones (in the USA at least) are based in New Zealand, Australia and the UK - Earthstar Publishing, Maple Muesli, Blinds Couture, Figure 8 Body Chains, Sunsplash Homes, Honestly Women magazine and Thavibu Gallery based in Thailand are just a handful of special businesses that are heading the Buy One Give One movement.
Many Buy One Give One businesses are uniting under the common banner of Buy1GIVE1 run by a social enterprise based in Singapore. Buy1GIVE1 is the home of transaction-based giving. Any business based anywhere in the world can now start doing Buy One Give One giving with ease. It is becoming like a 'CSR plug-in' allowing a business to instantly start giving from each and every product or service sale, starting from just one cent. And it is no longer about giving an equivalent product to someone else; instead it is about contributing to a project that resonates with a company's activities. So for example a restaurant can feed a child, a TV manufacturer can give a cataract blind person the gift of sight (Get Vision-Give Vision), a magazine publisher can plant a tree for every subscription and a builder can build a low-cost family home for those in need (Buy1BUILD1) - the list is endless.
There is something very special happening these days as more and more people are switching to giving and what are known as 'citizen brands' as a part of their everyday experience. In the 2008 Goodpurpose study of global consumer attitudes it reveals that almost 68% of consumers would choose to remain loyal to a brand during an economic downturn if it supports a good cause. And 71% say that when they think about the economic downturn, they have either given the same or more time and money to good causes. This study also highlighted some other key points as well such as:
* 54% would promote a brand and its products if there was a good cause behind it.
* 54% would sing the praises of a brand to promote their products if there was a good cause behind it.
* Globally consumers are voicing a distinct desire for marketers to associate their brands to social causes. Forty-two percent say that if two products or services are of a similar quality and price, commitment to a cause trumps factors like innovation, design and brand loyalty when selecting one brand over another.
Getting becoming Giving
The new concept of Buy One GIVE One is starting to replace Buy One GET One as the global giving movement led by Buy1GIVE1 ripples out. Right now if you search for the terms B1G1 and BOGO you will find that websites that do Buy1-Give1 giving are on the first page of Google results. Certainly with the large consumer demand shown for products from companies like TOMS Shoes, BOGO lights and OLPC - One Laptop Per Child, this tide is set to continue and spread.
I did a recent Google search to find the top 25 keywords associated with the keywords BOGO and B1G1. The results were interesting indeed seeing none of them contained the word Give. You can see the results below. It will be interested to repeat this experiment in 12 months time to see what changes. Consumers are now starting to drive significant change and despite them wanting to receive free gifts (as in traditional BOGO/B1G1), they equally want to help others and the environment. This feeling is validated by 2008's Goodpurpose global study.
Here are the search results:
Free, networking, boots, groups, music, dallas, togo themes, wallpapers, buy, applications, skins, values, coupon, African, gift, photography, blogging, discount, sharing, shopping, pics, join, prose
Transactional or transaction-based giving
Unlike normal charitable giving Buy One Give One giving is transactional. What is meant by that is: every time you buy something you give something. In the case of SunNight Solar they give a physical light for every light sold. In most cases, businesses that become part of this special form of transaction-based giving, give in a different way. At Buy1GIVE1, giving can start from just USD 1c contribution per sale. At this amount no business in the world can say they cannot give and 100% contributed goes to the cause.
The amount of money that is contributed isn't the focus with Buy1GIVE1 transaction based giving. The focus instead is on the story and sharing the simple joy of giving. After all, if you think that 1c isn't a lot to give and would not make much of a difference think again.
Coffee consumption has spread globally and Brazil is by far the largest coffee producer in the world producing on average 28% of all coffee grown. In 2006 Brazil grew enough coffee to brew 216,400,000,000 (216 billion 400 million) espresso coffees! If we were to make this calculation across global production amounts then we get an amazing number for the daily global consumption of around 2,117,416,830 (2 billion 117 million) cups of coffee - wow! The figures are not easy to find but if we guessed that around 40% of the world's coffee is purchased in coffee shops then we would find that 846 million 966,732 cups are sold commercially each day globally - almost 900 million. This would equate to about'5 million cups in the US alone seeing they purchase around 21% of the world's coffee.
Now imagine that for every cup of coffee sold a child was given clean drinking water from its own well. It costs just 1cent per person per day to do this. Any coffee shop could afford to contribute this amount from the sale of a cup of coffee. Instead of clean water a coffee shop could contribute for the education of coffee farmers' children, costing from 23cents per child per day. The options and stories are unlimited as well as the potential difference that Buy One Give One transactional giving can make to the lives of many.
Transaction-based giving is the story of a thousand-mile journey starting with a single step. Digging a well costs a few thousand dollars, however when you break the cost down it only takes the sale of a single cup of coffee to give clean water to a single person for a day1. This is the incredible and simple power of transactional giving. It is like the compound interest of giving - a little turns into a huge amount very quickly.
Of course any company can do transaction-based giving with any of its products or services and do it on their own as some are like TESCO in the UK giving school uniforms to kids in Africa in partnership with Save the Children. And yet if companies choose to join together under a commonly recognised banner/brand they can have a powerful effect. The ripple that a single company creates is added to that of another and the ripple grows into a tidal wave of giving. This is the power of giving and doing things together.
Everyone wins with Buy-One-Give-One transaction-based giving. The consumer wins - at no extra cost to themselves they've made a difference to the lives of others through their purchasing choices. The business also wins in so many tangible and intangible ways. And of course the charity partner wins because they are now able to receive small amounts from numerous sources aggregated and paid in a lump sum on a regular basis allowing them to focus on what they do rather than raising funds.
A new start
If you go and check Wikipedia.com today for the word BOGO you should find that a new definition has been added. It's time for a tide-change - a change from focusing on GETTING to working with GIVING. I added this small addition to Wikipedia's BOGO definition: "... an acronym in the marketing industry that stands for Buy One GIVE One."
Just imagine our world where every time you shopped and bought something you gave something - automatically and seamlessly. This is the simple joyful magic of transaction based giving.
This is the world I want to be part of.
And remember - you don't 'get' giving till you get giving.
References:
http://www.buy1-give1free.com/index.php/Partnering/Worthy-cause-charity-projects.html
http://www.goodpurposecommunity.com/
http://www.scfnw.org.uk/site/article183.html
http://www.coffeepoet.com/2007/09/
http://www.scfnw.org.uk/site/article183.html
http://www.dep.org.uk/globalexpress/13/page1.htm
http://www.dep.org.uk/globalexpress/13/page1.htm
Footnotes: 1 The daily cost for clean well water per person is calculated by taking the average cost to dig a well then dividing that amount by its average expected life without major maintenance then divided it by the number of people in the community benefiting from the well on a daily basis.
About the Author
Find out more about how Buy1GIVE1 (BOGO) can transform your business using Cause Marketing.
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