Hipster chickens coming home to roost

(Image via) 

“It’s the stupid foodies. We’re just sick to death of it…. People don’t know what they’re doing." Chicken Run Rescue owner Mary Britton Clouse.

Some things are so predictable they are indistinguishable from a natural law. Night follows day, Leafs don't win the Cup, summertime construction on the streets of Montreal. And so it is with the rise in unwanted chickens being dropped off at animal shelters across North America.

It all began early in the previous decade, when forty years of cool-hunting was quickly supplanted by authenticity seeking, and food replaced fashion and music as the primary basis for urban one-upmanship. Organic turned to local became artisanal morphed into a full-blown back-to-the-19th-century self-sufficiency movement. Take a big helping of modern foodieism, fold in locavore-driven moralising, add a double dash of hipster status-seeking, and you got the urban chicken-farming movement. 

And now that the fad is getting a bit tired (the cool kids have moved on to shooting), the chickens are being abandoned by their owners. Chickens, it turns out, are a lot of work. They're also not cheap to own and operate. They are pretty mean animals. They stink and they are gross. And they can live for ten years or so, long long after they've stopped laying eggs. 

A lot of formerly eager chicken owners, having finally done the math, are dropping them off at the local humane society or animal rescue centre. (Why not just eat them, you ask? Good question.)

Anyway, it isn't like this wasn't completely predictable. In fact, the executive director of the Ottawa Humane Society made all of the obvious points three years ago the the fad first came to the nation's capital, in an interview with CBC Radio. It's a fad, he said. It's expensive. It's hard, and it's gross. He predicted that the chickens would be coming his way soon enough, and said "frankly, we don't need the work". 

You could argue, as my colleague David Reevely did at the time, that this is somewhat akin to the fire department objecting to new housing subdivisions: it is more of an argument for changing the funding model of the Humane Society than it is an argument for banning urban chickens. After all, he argued, we should expect the vast majority of urban chicken owners to be just as responsible as the vast majority of cat and dog owners. Why punish the many for the sins of the few?

Except the problem, as I see it, is that urban chickens are nothing like cat and dog ownership. Cats and dogs are domestic pets, while chickens are domesticated livestock. There is a large secondary market for abandoned cats and dogs, while the secondary market for urban chickens is likely to be non-existent (unless the market is the local food bank). But most importantly, unlike the urban chicken craze, cat and dog ownership is not a transient fad that will be supplanted by something even more authentic within a few years. 

Nor does it help matters to concede, as Barbara Cartwright, the CEO of the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies does, that "people who attempt to raise backyard chickens are driven by good intentions — to be more environmentally conscious, humane and to eat healthier." The road to Perverse Outcomeville is paved with these intentions, and it does no good to praise good intentions while ignoring the actual consequences. 

So let's just state it plainly: Urban chicken farming is no more environmentally conscious, no healthier, no cheaper, and no more economically worthwhile than regular chicken farming. And now that urban chickens are being abandoned by their owners like hamsters by five year-olds with ADD, the one selling point of the movement -- that it is more humane than factory farming -- is gone. 

Once we get clear on this truth: that it is consequences that matter, not intentions, we can turn our attention to the more broader problem of people wanting to bring animal husbandry back into our cities. There were sound reasons why we pushed this part of our economy out of the downtowns -- reasons based in public health, animal welfare, and simple economics -- and before we take our city centres back to the 19th century, we should at least make sure our decisions are based on something other than hipster fads wedded to dopey nostalgia. 

Why the terrorists hate us this week: Barkitecture

About once a week, the New York Times publishes a piece that makes me want to punch everyone involved in the face. This week's comes courtesy of the Homes section, which has a big feature on luxury doghouses that cost upwards of $25 000:

Traditionally, doghouses were where dogs actually lived, separate from the family. But now that dogs are increasingly considered members of the family, their homes are becoming more like second homes — and in some cases, they’re entirely ornamental. Sure, there are still plenty of doghouses built for dogs to live in. But there are also an impressive number built the way Christian Louboutin makes shoes: you can walk in them (sort of), but clearly that’s not the point.

Read the whole thing. Try not to kill anyone. 

Moral pressure at the cash register: No one likes it.

I asked my Twitter followers how they feel about the growing trend where retail outlets ask you if you care to make a donation to a charity of their choice, just as you are slapping down an unreasonable amount of money for booze, junk food, trinkets, gewgaws, or other unnecessary items. 

Either I have a churlish set of Twitter followers, or it's a widely despised phenomenon. Here are some responses. 

@MSoloduk @jandrewpotter Giving a donation when you're wallet is already out is kinda like getting sucked in by an internet pop up.

@wholecloth @jandrewpotter I always say no.

@CarrylW @jandrewpotter I think (I KNOW) it works. I would like to know how big the "guilt factor" is - why do not more people say no?

@AakankshaT @jandrewpotter annoying but wonder if it is effective.

@johnarobertson @jandrewpotter I think it's fine if they want to put a box out, but when they ask you while you are paying I feel pressured

@RandChange @jandrewpotter If they offer charitable donation receipts, then I have no problem.

‏@MissHelveticaB @jandrewpotter point of sale promotions are highly effective. I'd rather donate a couple bucks to charity than fall for an impulse item.

@jessieradies @jandrewpotter Hate it

@KatieBrist @jandrewpotter awkward as hell for the cashiers

@lynnkool @jandrewpotter Annoying. Do they get the tax break for the donation?

@JButlerMcPhee @jandrewpotter Depends on how reputable the charity is and how hard the sell . . . but I'm not opposed to it in principle.

@LexyCameron @jandrewpotter I don't agree. They put you on the spot. Their choice may not be my choice.

@the_beheld @jandrewpotter Hate being asked, hate that a cashier is forced to ask me. Feels like supporting their corporate "goodwill," not cause itself

@JoelWWood @jandrewpotter interesting use of social pressure, e.g., dont want to look like a Scrooge to cashier & people in line.

@joyce_byrne @jandrewpotter I hate it. And I'm cynical so I know that the strategy is "people can't refuse so it's a golden idea for fundraising".

@j2nelson @jandrewpotter Hate that. But often get sucked in. The guilt!

@RadicalOmnivore *%$#! RT @jandrewpotter: What do we think about retail outlets that ask you to donate to a charity of their choice at the cash register?

@Ken_Davis @jandrewpotter Good luck saying no to a CHEO donation when your kids are with you.

@pjames @jandrewpotter If it raises money for a good cause why not. If you disagree with the charity, just say no. Generally not a pressure sale.

@AndyChalk @jandrewpotter We feel bad for those employees, who have been told that their numbers are being tracked and minimums are expected.

"Then kablooie, they changed": How Coke lost its authenticity

Pop quiz: When did Coca-Cola stop being authentic? 

Never, you might answer. After all, as the company's own promotional material puts it,  Authentic Americana -- with all of the "happiness and uplift" that implies -- has been the core of the Coca-Cola brand ever since the first Coke was served at Jacob's pharmacy in Atlanta 126 years ago.

If you're a bit savvier, you might suppose that the day Coke stopped being authentic was the day it announced the introduction of New Coke. As it turns out, that was 17 years ago yestersday, and the CBC has posted the news story Ann Medina did a the time. 

View the CBC story here. 

It's hard to imagine now what a big deal the story was at the time, partly because it is hard to think of a contemporary parallel. Soft drinks, groceries, and other consumer-goods markets tend toward healthy competitive duopolies, while the inevitable network effects in the the tech and software industry tend to lead to successor monopolies. And it is hard to think of a contemporary product that has the myth and mystique of Coke's secret formula. (Any ideas? Send me an email).

Anyway, few new product launches have gone as badly. As this article from Fortune shows, a month after the launch of New Coke, Coca-Cola executives were still confident they had made the right decision. 

Yet Pepsi knew that something fundamental had happened: it gave its employees the day off to celebrate what it saw as Coke's gaffe. As Pepsico's Roger Enrico put it: "These two products, Pepsi and Coke, have been going at it eyeball-to-eyeball. And in my view the other just blinked." Reinforcing success, Pepsi quickly came out with a devastating ad showing a young woman wondering why Coke had abandoned her. The ad was famously written in about thirty seconds and shot in one take, and starred the actress Kim Richards (who would go on to star in Meatballs II). 

When I was in Denmark last month, I spent a day at the University of Southern Denmark at Odense in a workshop on authenticity and marketing. Over the course of the day, Soren Askegaard, a professor of marketing at the school, asked the question I posed at the very top. Most of us answered that Coke lost its authenticity when it brought in New Coke. 

But as Soren pointed out, it wasn't the changing of the formula that undermined the authenticity of Coke's brand. After all, the product's formula, however secretive, had undergone plenty of changes over the years. No, the really bad move from a branding point of view was when they introduced a new product, a variant of the original, called "Coca-Cola Classic," on July 10, 1985.

Why is this signficant? Because that is the moment when Coca-Cola became a copy of itself. It was no longer Coca-Cola, it was "Coca-Cola" or -- just as bad -- "Coke Classic". Just as no true VIP ever goes into the "VIP Room" at a bar, nothing that calls itself  "genuine", "famous" or "classic" is genuine, famous, or classic. 

On July 10 1985, Coke ceased to be a living brand, evolving organically with the changing tastes and attitudes of America. With Coke Classic the brand was put in a museum, where it remains a simulacrum of the powerful brand it once was. 

For those who are interested, here is a video of a conversation I had with Soren Askegaard the morning of our seminar:

Jay-Z, Adbusters, and the selling of rebellion

Mogul (Jay-Z Occupies Occupy Wall Street), by Daniel Edwards

When it comes to profiting off anti-capitalist sentiment, it is hard to see what distinguishes the Blackspot sneaker from Jay-Z’s “Occupy All Streets” T-shirt. For that matter, it is hard to see what distinguishes either of these from other successful businesses that arose out of a desire to “do capitalism differently,” from The Gap and Starbucks to the Body Shop and Whole Foods...

That's from my latest column for the Ottawa Citizen...