image by Fovea Centralis

Last Sunday in Brooklyn was windy and sunny, a lovely winter day for running holiday errands. We held our Carrotmob event at Tarzian Hardware, arriving a little before noon with high hopes for a busy day.

Our Carrotmob ended up being more of a Carrotstream—our efforts seemed to bring some shoppers to the store, but we didn’t have the huge line-around-the-block turnout we were hoping for. It was also difficult to gauge who was there because of Carrotmob vs. who would have been there anyway. But, either way, lots of positive things came out of the day:

• Tarzian now has about $2600 to spend on making improvements to their store and providing more services to the neighborhood (such as recycling for batteries and compact fluorescent light bulbs).
• Tarzian also will be forever known as the first Carrotmob store in New York City, a reputational benefit that will only grow as Carrotmobbing becomes more well-known.
• Overall spending at the store was up about 20% from a typical December Sunday.
• We got the chance to speak with lots of people about the Carrotmob concept and got lots of great feedback and interest from folks in the neighborhood as well as community organizations focused on sustainability.
• ConEdison was able to sign people up for their wind power program.
• Tarzian got an energy audit done by NYSERTA and will have the opportunity to receive matching grants and tax credits for the improvements they make.
• We got the chance to address some people’s concerns with and criticisms of Carrotmob and clarify our intention and goals.
• We had a great time with each other and with the folks who live and shop in Park Slope—Victoria made cookies to share, The Sadges played music to entertain us, and many great conversations were had.
• We learned A TON about planning Carrotmob events and are in a much better position for the next one.

This last point strikes me as perhaps the most important one. What did we learn?

• Marketing is everything. We did get the message out in a big way, especially online, but in the future we must focus more effort in the real world, in the neighborhood where the event is happening.
• Gotta catch people’s eyes with fun and engaging marketing materials. Ours were clear but pretty boring-looking—we lacked a talented graphic artist on our team and it showed.
• A busy weekend in December seemed like a good idea as we were planning, but in retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best choice—this time of year is so hectic already. Next time it might make more sense to choose a time when not much else is going on.
• We need to have a better way of gauging the mob’s impact. Whether that means asking Carrotmobbers to put their receipts in a box, or taking pictures of everyone who comes out of the store with what they bought, it would be great to be able to point to clearer numbers of shoppers and dollars spent as coming out of the mob as opposed to just being everyday shopping.
• Though it seems like the financial side of the equation is the biggest benefit to the store, the reality is that the financial benefit is temporary, while the publicity gained from the event goes on much longer. Tarzian and its owner, John (who was fantastic to work with) will be featured on CurrentTV in January, and will always have the distinction of being the first Carrotmob store in New York. This reputational benefit will only grow as Carrotmobbing becomes more well-known.

So what’s next for Carrotmob NYC? Having held our first event and learned from it, we’re looking forward to applying our new knowledge by throwing another one, possibly in the spring, in coordination with Sustainable Business NYC and other community groups. I’m also working with Brent, the creator of Carrotmob, to develop a user’s guide in hopes of helping other groups in other cities learn from our experiences.
Overall, I’m really glad to be part of this effort. This was the first community event I’ve been involved with organizing since, oh, high school, and I learned a ton from the experience. I believe in the idea of Carrotmobbing—coming together as a community to support businesses in doing the right thing—and I also know that with this event under our belts, the next ones will only get better and better.