Q: What does the name "Carrotmob" mean?
There's an old saying that there are two ways to make a donkey walk forward: Either offer a delicious carrot out in front of it, or hit its behind with a stick. Think of businesses as "donkeys" which people are trying to move. Traditional consumer advocacy uses a lot of "sticks," such as protests, petitions, boycotts, and so on. We want to use the "carrot" instead. We believe that we can get businesses to make big positive changes by offering them lots of money in return. It's a positive, win-win model. So that's what the "carrot" means. The mob refers to the large group of consumers who come together to achieve shared goals.
Q: Is the "M" in Carrotmob capitalized?
No. Never. And yes, the Oxford American Dictionary and New York Times have both spelled it with a big M, but you wouldn't jump off a bridge just because the NYT jumped off a bridge, now would you?
Q: I want to organize a campaign! What should I do?
We'll have organizing tools for you very soon... in the meantime you can email info@carrotmob.org.
Q: I'm a business. How do I get Carrotmobbed?
If you work with a large company and are interested in learning more about how a Carrotmob campaign might work, contact us at partners@carrotmob.org.
If you are a small business owner, we don't plan small-scale campaigns ourselves... they are only planned by local organizers. You cannot organize a campaign to benefit yourself, but we look forward to creating tools for you to let your community know that you'd be interested in participating if someone else were to create a campaign. Stay tuned!
Q: I'm an advocacy organization. Can I organize a Carrotmob campaign?
Yes! We expect the biggest, most successful Carrotmob campaigns to be created by other organizations using our platform. We are focused on building the Carrotmob network, and we want this network to function as a "commons" which should be available for organizations to tap into in order to better advance their missions.
We're excited to help. Contact us at partners@carrotmob.org.
Q: Why would a business participate in a Carrotmob campaign?
Most people see Carrotmob campaigns as an advocacy tool...a way to more effectively vote with your money, advance your values, and so on. But businesses think about Carrotmob from a business strategy perspective. Each business has its own priorities, but here are some common reasons why businesses may get excited about Carrotmob:
Carrotmob can create a great deal of value for businesses. But keep in mind, businesses can't take advantage of what Carrotmob offers unless they earn it by taking a significant action! Win-win!
Q: How many Carrotmob campaigns have there been?
There have been over 175 campaigns in over 20 countries. The majority of the campaigns which have happened so far have focused on issues of sustainability and energy (ie: stores doing energy-efficiency retrofits). So far the #1 country in the world for Carrotmobs is Germany, followed by the US, and then Finland. Australia has done the most on a per capita basis, with Canada in the number 2 spot. Asia, Africa and South America have each had Carrotmob campaigns, but Antarctica is our weakest continent, with zero Carrotmob campaigns. Hey Antarctica! You do realize that being a continent comes with certain responsibilities, right? I mean, sorry for melting you, but it's probably in your best interest to pull yourself together and start Carrotmobbing!
Q: How does Carrotmob make money?
So far, we've never made a dime. We've survived off of donations and hustle for a long time. Of course, in order to grow this movement effectively we need to implement revenue models. There are several potential revenue models which would all allow us to grow and expand our work. The primary model we are going to pursue will work like this: With our team and our technology we will help facilitate campaigns, and then we will charge businesses a small fee based on how much money the mob collectively spends. This fee will vary based on the circumstances of the campaign, but in general we think it's the most sensible revenue model for us to pursue. Hopefully we will be able to implement several additional revenue models over time, which will allow us to hire a bigger team, make our website better, orchestrate bigger and bigger campaigns, and spread the Carrotmob model to communities around the world. Of course, we'll keep sharing more details about our plans as soon as we've ironed out more details.
Anyone can organize campaigns in their community. Carrotmob HQ does not generally organize small-scale community campaigns. Most campaigns are organized by ordinary people, community leaders, schools, advocacy organizations, and so on. However, when it comes to large-scale campaigns with larger companies, Carrotmob HQ will always be actively involved, vetting and approving the campaigns. Anyone who wants to create a campaign focused on large companies should contact Carrotmob HQ for assistance.
Q: What about enforcement? How can you be sure that businesses will uphold their end of the bargain?
We used to spend a lot of time worrying about this, imagining that it would be a big problem with our model. What we've learned is that it's actually almost never a problem. The reason it hasn't been a problem is that the businesses who win Carrotmob campaigns are very interested in improving their reputations. They want to look good, so they have a strong incentive to follow through. However, in the future we plan to design campaigns to have even more certainty that the business will take the promised action. We are still researching what will be the best approach, but we have a couple options we're exploring. One approach is to simply sign contracts with businesses to create a legal obligation. Another approach is to collect payments from consumers directly (and give out redeemable vouchers), and in that position as a "middleman" we could hold a portion of the business' money in escrow until they completed the promised action.
Q: I understand how you reward good businesses, but what do you do with bad businesses?
We believe that there's no such thing as a "good business" or a "bad business." Every business has a wide diversity of practices that can each be judged individually. As far as Carrotmob is concerned, every business starts out with a blank slate. You can probably think of a dozen companies that you think are horrible. But even if you're right, Carrotmob won't pre-judge anybody, or automatically disqualify them from winning a campaign. Carrotmob will always be a safe place for brands. Everyone gets a chance to improve if they are willing to come to the table and take a good, meaningful action.
Furthermore, we have no problem with businesses that choose not to participate in our campaigns. We are here to help businesses do good by making it economically advantageous to do so. If businesses don't participate in our campaigns, we recognize that we have not yet offered enough value to them in return. There's just no good reason for us to ever criticize a business, so we won't. As long as businesses are honest with us, we're happy.
Well, some people may think that any work related to addressing social and environmental problems is inherently "political" in some way. But no, we don't think of ourselves as political. We don't do campaigns related to politics or elections, and we don't align ourselves with political candidates or parties. Why not?
Well, politics is a nasty horse race... the negativity of politics clashes with our positive carrot sensibilities. Politics is like several herds of horses running in different directions, and each herd hates all the other herds. Carrotmob is a unicorn. We're not like the other horses. We don't belong in anyone else's herd. Regardless of their herd, most horses tend to support what we're doing. Unicorns are rare, magical, and beloved by everyone. We're staying out of politics because we want to keep it that way.
Q: What if there's a Carrotmob campaign with a goal that I disagree with?
If you disagree with a campaign, you shouldn't participate in that campaign. We're about voting with your money, but it's your money, so you get to decide what you want to vote for. The campaigns with the widest base of support will be the most successful, and less popular campaigns will be less successful. We're a grand buffet, not a prix fixe menu.
Also, if you've found a campaign you don't like, please keep in mind that just because a campaign exists in your community it doesn't mean that the Carrotmob organization has actively vetted and approved that campaign. If you find something about a campaign objectionable, send us an email to let us know.
Q: What are you doing with my information?
So glad you asked. We have written up two documents about this... our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. If you have any feedback or suggestions on these documents you can email info@carrotmob.org.
Most people prefer using Facebook to join because it's the quickest and easiest way to create an account. It also makes it easier to share with your friends on Facebook (if that's something you want to do). We don't require you to connect your Carrotmob account with Facebook, but it's encouraged. We chose to request permissions when you join that will help make your experience as streamlined as possible, and the Carrotmob movement as successful as possible. Here are the permissions we currently ask for, and the reasons why:
Basic Information: We ask for your name and picture to quickly and easily create your profile. We ask for your friends so that we can show you things your friends are doing on the site.
Email: We need a way to contact you!
Post to Facebook as me: This one is something we debated a lot. The reason is that it seems creepy at first. And some game companies do use this in creepy ways, like posting stuff that you don't expect to be posted. But we all absolutely hate practices like that, and we're not going to do anything to surprise you. Here's what's cool about this permission. There are things you might do on the site, such as saying you will attend a Carrotmob campaign. After you say you are attending, we'll give you an option to post a note to Facebook. You might participate in 100 Carrotmob campaigns, and each time you want to share, you would have to keep clicking to give special permission each time. But when you give us this permission, the next time you share something we'll give you the option to share automatically in the future every time you attend a campaign. You don't have to share anything ever, but if you like sharing, this saves you a lot of time.
Access my data at any time: Let's say you have a new Facebook friend, and they join Carrotmob. They might want to see that you have a Carrotmob account, but if you go off on vacation for 6 months and never log in to Carrotmob, we won't know that you are now friends with this new person! So this lets our servers check from time-to-time to see if you have any new Facebook friends who are using Carrotmob.
Manage my events: This seems like a weird one, but here's what's cool about it: There will be some campaigns in which organizers will create Facebook events in addition to the normal Carrotmob campaign RSVP system. It's awkward to RSVP twice to a campaign, so this feature will let you RSVP either on Facebook or on our other site, and we can automatically RSVP you in the other place. And if you organize a campaign this will let us create a pre-customized Facebook event for you.
Access my profile information: You're great and everything, but no, we don't actually care that you love "America's Next Top Model." As you know, we will have the biggest possible worldchanging impact if we are able to change large companies. So we have to grow our network and convince these big businesses that winning a Carrotmob campaign will be valuable to them. They will ask us questions about who our mobbers are, so having some stats will be critical to convincing them that they want our business. For example, we can go to an outdoor apparel company and tell them "We have 25,000 Carrotmobbers who like 'hiking' on Facebook!" and they will flip out. Or we could go to a restaurant and brag that we have 50,000 sushi lovers who are also interested in sustainability. We don't really care, but businesses will eat this stuff right up. This permission amplifies the power and influence of everyone in the mob.
So that's why we've chosen what we chose. Some are required (Facebook doesn't let you opt out of them individually), but if you're sensitive to this, there are a couple which are actually optional: Event Creation, Event RSVPs, Accessing data at any time, and Post to Facebook as Me. If you want to deny us those, the way to do it is to first give us permission and finish signing up. Then, log in to Facebook. Go to your Privacy Settings. Click on "Apps and Websites". Next to "Apps you use" click "Edit Settings". Find the Carrotmob app and click "Edit". It will list everything we have permission to do, and the optional items will have a "Remove" link next to them. That's it! Also, even though you'll never get anything automatically posted to anyone's wall, Facebook itself occasionally surfaces "discovery stories" by default, but that's just how Facebook works. More on that here. Thanks for trusting us!
Q: How should I contact Carrotmob?
First, read this FAQ page. Then, if you have ideas, complaints, praise, suggestions and other questions that may be interesting to other people, please use our Get Satisfaction page. If you represent a large business or an advocacy organization, email partners@carrotmob.org. Any other inquiries can be emailed to info@carrotmob.org. You can also say hi on Facebook and Twitter, but we can't promise a response to every comment we get. Thank you!
The fastest and easiest way to join Carrotmob is by connecting with your Facebook account. You will also be able see what your friends are doing on Carrotmob and quickly share some of your activities with your network. To learn more about how this works, read this. If you are curious about the permissions we're requesting of your Facebook account, read this. Clicking this button will NOT post anything to your Facebook wall.