Help us with a banner!

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John Leary
Hardcore Co-op Volunteer
Posts: 559
Joined: Sun Aug 19, 2007 7:32 pm
Location: Metuchen
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Help us with a banner!

Post by John Leary »

We're getting a new banner to display over our table at festival events, and we're hoping you all can help us decide what to put on it! The idea here is to attract folks who don't already know about the Co-op — so we something interesting that makes people want to walk over. And to allow the text to be as big as possible (for visibility), we need something brief.

We started brainstorming and came up with a couple initial ideas:
  • Eat Good Food Today
  • Make Friends, Live Healthy, Eat Co-op
  • Got [something]? ("Got Milk?" parody)
But I'll bet this amazing community can come up with some better ones. Let's hear 'em all! Please post your suggestions as a reply to this thread.

Thanks,
John
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RoseLaurano
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Jul 02, 2010 12:42 am

Re: Help us with a banner!

Post by RoseLaurano »

Hey all!

I'm super excited about a banner possibility. I was thinking of a few things.

What about:

*Consume. Contribute. Co-op.
*Co-op: feel better about the world you're eating in.
*Eat Healthy. Make a Difference. George St. Co-op.
*Co-op. It's good for you.
*Your life. Your food. Your Co-op.
*A Taste for Co-op.
*Better Eating. Co-op.

Specifically for parental kind of events:
*Co-op tested, mother approved.

And that's all she wrote. What do y'all think? Ideas? Suggestions? Let's get the creativity flowing!

peace,
Rose L
Jacob Nettleton
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Sep 24, 2010 9:56 pm

Re: Help us with a banner!

Post by Jacob Nettleton »

Here's my belated reply for slogan ideas. Mine were more suited I think for small flyers aimed towards students, but I'll throw them out there anyway:

Mother Earth says "Eat Your Vegetables"

Love your Broccoli (can be any fruit or vegetable i guess)

Use your onion (insinuating that patronizing the co-op is a wise idea)

Feed Your Body
Feed Your Conscience
George Street Co-op

Earth. Love. Food.

Food. Love. Justice (a little intense)

Believe in what you eat. Eat what you believe in. (but proper grammer)
or something of that nature.

-Jacob
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Danielle Geist
Posts: 66
Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:38 pm
Location: Brooklyn

Re: Help us with a banner!

Post by Danielle Geist »

I like Rose's "Your life. Your food. Your Co-op." for several reasons but the main one is that it includes the idea of 'ownership' which is important to a co-op model.

Many stores are now working towards fostering this kind of brand/store loyalty by throwing 'my' in front of the store name. For many of these stores, compared to a co-op, this kind of advertising is just a lie.

Your life. = gives a sense that you are in control and everyone has their own thoughts, opinions and ethics that might bring them to a co-op

Your food. = One of the most important decision one can make for their body, health, ethics and the environment is choosing what they consume

Your Co-op. = a place where you can have an impact on a store, your store.
ellenr
Posts: 176
Joined: Fri Nov 03, 2006 8:30 pm

Re: Help us with a banner!

Post by ellenr »

second Danielle's comments.
The only question is - would others make the interpretation that Danielle did-
if so, then I think that would be profoundly beautiful.

ellen
Robert Spector
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Sep 27, 2006 10:20 am

Re: Help us with a banner!

Post by Robert Spector »

Hi Guys,

I like the energy going into these suggestions!

To attract new people without any prior experience with either GSC or the Coop concept more generally, I think we need to begin with a simple 'hook' that will have very broad appeal, and once someone comes over we can use all of the ideas posted so far and more as we think of them, to articulate the brand in more detail.

Also, as part of the general branding I think we need to have our pea-pod and the name George Street Coop also present for those who DO know us to find us and see that we still exist and are strong.

What I can say from my own experience living in NYC for several years and shopping in the Union Square farmers' market is that the place I frequented the most was a local farm stand that sold their own fresh in-season produce (mmm tomatos, etc.). And their banner, visible from afar and very strong as a magnet, separate from their hand-written signs and their little logo, was the word "ORGANIC" on its own banner, in bold dark green letters on a clean white background. Easy to notice, easy to find in a very crowded NYC market space on subsequent visits. And important too, because most of the other farmers, even when local, were not organic.

So if our goal is to communicate an essential quality of the Coop's values, that
single word boldly proclaimed, seems to capture a lot of the flavor, including the notions of "Holism" and "Integrity". And I'm a huge fan of the idea "Less is More", and the virtue of simplicity (easily aspired to, hard to achieve without effort).

You can think of a simple direct message on a banner like a beacon, a lighthouse shining in the storm, or an oasis in a desert, to draw the seeker.

Once we have piqued interest, all of our other qualities so well captured in the suggestions floating around this thread, can be incorporated to give more depth to the vision and diversity of the coop and our community. Along those lines we might mention how we aim to participate, grow, learn, improve, share, care, accept ourselves and others strengths and differences.

Robert
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