Avocados? Violent??
There must be more to the story.
You’re right– there is.
I did the above illustration for a Wall Street Journal article about food fashions. Here’s how it begins:
“You can’t be a vegan if you eat avocados,” said a teenage brother to his sister in a family that I know. “Avocados are violent.”
His point was that her supposedly ethical decision to replace butter on her toast with avocado was hypocritical: The avocado trend has made life dangerous for many Mexican avocado farmers, thanks to the rise of violent cartels that control the business.
My first thought: you can never be 100% pure in your choices. There’s always a wrinkle, and there’s always someone ready to
say: “Gotcha!”
The author goes on to mention almond milk and quinoa, both hot food trends in recent years. Turns out there was a catch with both.
Demand for almond milk meant a lot more almond trees got planted in California. Thirsty almond trees. Which contributed to the state’s drought.
World demand for quinoa pushed up the price six-fold. Result: the Bolivian farmers who grew it could no longer afford to eat it. They had to switch to cheaper, less nutritious carbs– like instant noodles.
Which made me think of the law of unintended consequences: actions always have unintended effects. Sometimes good, often bad.
Negative effects can put an end to fads: almond milk drinkers and quinoa eaters started feeling guilty and making new choices.
A brand can get lucky and turn a huge profit on a fad, but it’s a mistake to build a brand on a fad. Fads come and go.
Fads also come and go in social media marketing. The Shiny Object Syndrome. What Andrew Davis calls FOMOOASP: The Fear Of Missing Out On Another Social Platform.
I’d put podcasts in that category. The most successful ones seem to center on news, politics, comedy, entertainment. The usual suspects. I don’t see them as a particularly good choice for brands. And yet a lot of solopreneurs have started podcasts.
They wind up interviewing their friends, and promoting each other. I think their time would be better spent identifying and pursuing new clients. Just my opinion.
A more subtle danger with fads: they can distort your brand voice and confuse your target audience. Suddenly you’re trying to be something you’re not.
Case in point: when I first acquired Photoshop and was learning to be a digital illustrator, I got smitten with photo-illustration: using bits and pieces of photos to construct an illustration, and blending it together seamlessly.
I got pretty good at it. You can see some examples at the bottom
of the Portfolio Thumbnails on the right. Like this one for The Partner Channel Magazine.
