Products that Help

Successful innovation can mean many things: the best new product, a new brand positioning, a strategically thoughtful brand guide.

Setting out to create a company based on generating "profit" for those in need will hopefully continue to be a strong trend in CPG innovation. There have always been companies that give "a portion of profits to charity" though that phrase has become somewhat ambiguous: Which charity? Should I buy this product for that reason? Is the company kicking money back to charity because they feel responsible for some sort of unsavory action?

Tom's Shoes pioneered a deeper dive in the "Buy to Give" space by building tangible and passionate giving (a second pair of shoes for a child) into their cost model for each pair produced for retail. Not only does this oft-publicized model give a consumer precise knowledge about the recipient of their charity, but the product they are buying is the same product they are giving. Yes, I could buy my flats from another brand, but why not buy the shoes from a company who will give the same pair to a kiddo who really needs them? Whether you love Tom's or not, the business model is attempting constantly fuel a cycle of doing good.

One new charitably-based player in the food and beverage space comes to us from Germany. LemonAid's ingredients are all Fairtrade certified and much of the profit from every bottle sold goes towards developing agricultural profitability for farmers producing the beverage's ingredients. Choose to drink a bottle of this tasty blend and you are sending money directly back into the cycle that produced it. While they may not be giving bottles away to thirsty kids, LemonAid desires to inject an economy with capital at both ends of the supply chain. This "teach a man to fish" philosophy should yield wins on several fronts: more sustainable farming processes, higher quality product, and hopefully a higher crop yield which companies can buy and further fuel the profitability of the industry.

This new product is not exactly reinventing the wheel but it does leave me thinking that while I could buy any kind of lemonade, I think I would rather know I was buying LemonAid.

For another great article on Tom's, please read this.