Back to School Brandwashing: Freecycling for Picky Preteens

What’s an eco-friendly family to do up against mega-million dollar marketing when brand-identity rears its head?

Once upon a time I could hit the local Outrageous Outgrowns, Zwaggle and haggle online for eco-friendly finds, or find green parenting ways to make a difference by showing how to host a kids’ clothing swap among my pals.

But when kids get a bit older and media peer pressure kicks in, tweens and teens are ripe for consumption junction mall rat mentality, sometimes even calling gently used items ‘gross,’ or being turned off by wearing their own friends’ castoffs in a swap-n-shop format…

So how do you effectively combat commercialism and turn brand influence on itself?

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I turned to forums, meetups, Googled back to school green style,  searched out swap tips from sites like EnviroMom for ideas, and ended up using our own Shaping Youth counter-marketing tactics using the “ThreePs”: Precedent, persuasiveness and peer perpetuation.

Fun sites like Clothing Swap.org have put the glam in green and made an entire business model out of reusing and refreshing wardrobes, donating extras to fabulous causes.

So why not leverage this positive precedent to do the same for the tween green scene? Bye-bye baby goods swaps, hello house party platforms!

Developmentally, preteens dodge social stigma like a paintball game, so unless you’ve got a crunchy green loyalist, using ‘ThreeP’ counter-marketing tactics can turn brandwashing into sport, embedding eco-awareness into the mix in a much more subtle form. Example?

Theme your event to promo a niche ‘target market,’ toss in some green fashionista flicks like Whole Earth Generation’s ‘Turning Green’ Teen Eco Fashion Event, or Teens for Safe Cosmetics demos, invite five friends each OUTside of their immediate cliques and tribes (diff. schools, book club, sports teams, whatever) “by invitation only/you’ve been selected to participate” and voila! An über-hip peer party of ‘au courant’ styles, sizes, and age-size-gender to keep it less garage sale, more ‘boutique’ in feel. You can even add a grassroots eco-philanthropy approach, where kids pick where the unclaimed items will go…

My daughter, for example, latched onto the “Billabong” brand for her wakeboarding persona, as it evidently ‘differentiates her from the girly girls’ so she began turning up her nose at all but the outlet finds or green teen sibling swaps with neighbors who had ‘cool’ clothes or beach themes…

Solution? Turn her Australian brand fixation into eco-awareness for reef rescue…Salute the soulful tenacity of Bethany Hamilton (the teen who lost her arm to shark in Hawaii)…swap freebie finds with an ‘endless summer’ tribute to all things ‘ocean’ in a luau-themed swap-n-shop hunt for Roxy, PacSun, QuickSilver, Fox, and unclaimed clothing going to a clean-n-green ocean or marine wildlife cause. Engage. Inspire. Embed informal learning in fun new ways.

Incentivize kids with a twist on the ‘bring in an outfit, get a ticket to swap’ motif, by adding bonuses for ‘eco-friendly’ fibers or locally produced goods…Let the kids ‘self-price’ and learn entrepreneurial bargaining skills…Or just make it a free-for-all funfest to encourage ‘cool-hunting’ via eco-tactics to recycle brand allure in a positive way.

Who knows? Could be the next indie craze…

Visual Credits: www.ClothingSwap.org

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