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Like what? YouTube and Facebook are obviously giant winners. They're platforms through which viral trends are passed. They used to say that the people who got rich in the gold rush were the people who sold the tools and the shovels. That was true of the first dotcom boom, and it's true...
...According to Susan Witt, Executive Director of the E.F. Schumacher Society, "buy local" campaigns serve another function: alerting a community about gaps in the local market. For instance, if consumers keep turning to on-line or big-box stores for a particular product-say, socks-this signals an opportunity for someone local to make and sell socks. This is the way product innovations get made, says Witt. "The local producer adds creative elements that make either the product or materials used more appropriate to the place." For example, an area where sheep are raised might make lambs wool socks...
...There's also the matter of local/regional resilience. Says Witt: "While now we're largely a service-providing nation, we're still just a generation away from being a nation of producers. The question is: what economic framework will help us reclaim those skills and that potential." Say, for example, the exchange rates change or the price of oil rises (and it has started to creep up, if not at last summer's pace) so that foreign-made goods are no longer cheap to import. We could find ourselves doubly stuck because domestic manufacturing is no longer...
Imagine you're a huge American company that has built its reputation on durability, reliability and being the biggest damn dog on the street. Then let's say you get into horrible, disastrous debt and have to go begging to the government, like a sad little stray. And then you still end up in Chapter 11. Your customers are peeved because they have to bail you out. Your frailty makes them wary of buying anything from you. And every wrong thing you've ever done (like, say, making the Pontiac Aztek,) nags at them like a stain...
...Whether or not the new ad sells cars, it is clearly having a cultural impact. It has already spawned at least one spoof ("Let's be completely honest," it opens. "Our lawyers say we have to ...") and much Internet chatter, with one wag wondering if GM was wise to adorn the spot with music from a song ("Interstate 5," by the Wedding Present) about a person who was used for a night and then abandoned. Here's hoping GM customers don't identify with the lyrics too closely...