Inspiration for the day

Why this video?

• It explains in a simplistic way some of the problems with production that Aura wants to emphasise, and detail-in.
•  It's hard to lose interest in this video.
• It doesn't dumb down information.

Though what the SOS campaign went on to do later, I'm still unsure of.

A Visit to the Farmer's Market: Report

As I was in Bombay for the weekend, Aura set me up on a quick task: to check out what could be a vital future marketing pitch for their future in the City of Too Much Noise.

 

The Farmer's market is a weekly fair on Sundays for sale of organic goods and produce.

The crowd and mood look something like this:

Sunday picnic with expats and people with a trace of hippie in them.

We found some really wonderful products on sale.

Organic vegetables

Organic vegetables and their dedicated customers

The stall on the right was perhaps my favourite: organic MAKE-UP.
With my newly formed understanding of the complexity of producing
organic stuff, I hope to collaborate with their work someday.

smart dustbins

chilling children

even organic cotton candy!

My sister's/ ruse-for-taking-so-many-photos is looking quite amused because I'm trying to click a photo of the birthday party behind her

The mood was really quite relaxed.

Should Aura hold a stall here?

1. The Mumbai Nature Park people are really interested in finding ways to engage all the people who come to the farmers' market into a kind of movement that helps the small organic industry and suffering business start-ups through awareness activities.
2. It will probably bring us faithful customers
3. The idea that people relaxing on a Sunday might consider Aura and take the time out to understand it, gets better the more you think about it.

Uncertain certification

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I am writing this post in response to a recent "fairtrade" inspection at Aura, on Friday, the 26^th of October.

I am somewhat deflated to say that I now understand and appreciate the complexity of whole trouble of certification.

First, the basics.

What is fairtrade?

Fairtrade is a certification for manufacturers. This certification verifies that the large-scale produce of a company is made based on a fair cost price, with fair salaries to workers, no child labour. These and other such parameters deemed important by Western countries over poor or developing countries, so that would some clue, I think, about the depth of understanding the investigators have in the first place.

Why do we need the fairtrade stamp?

It’s a useful stamp or qualification, maybe. About as useful as a degree, depends on how you look at degrees.

Why did we get an inspection done, then?

A company that we manufacture for works only with fairtrade certified manufacturers and they alleged an inspection in order to ascertain that the products they receive are fairtrade ones.

Why is it a bad idea?

Well, for one, we have to pay a high-end fee in euros just to get the certification saying that there is, in fact, nothing wrong with our company. 

And then we have to pay some more money annually  in order that we may retain this certification. So instead of charging fees off of people who keep a company going in unethical conditions, it's the good ones they charge.

This means that for those companies working within parameters appealing for the fairtrade certification, there is no incentive to go ahead and get the certification done unless they have a lot of magic money which they didn't earn in profit, because they were so caught up in fair-trade and making things better for their employees.

Moreover, the investigation as we observed it, was kind of lackadaisal. A few people dressed like tourists (note to say that they were actually Indian) came around and said "ah well, my friend wanted me to buy her one of those bathrobes, where can I get it?" asking absolutely no queations relevant to wages, cleanliness or dyeing processes.

Final reflection.

It's simple. The idea is to basically limit the need for external certification of our honesty by basically communicating effectively with the end user.

That will be the aim of the film and all our advertising/ marketing endeavours.

Weekly report for 21st October – 28th October

 

We decided that I am going to focus all my energies on making a fine series of short animated films that explain not only Aura, but the importance of avoiding chemical dyes, the harms they accost the earth, and the nitty-gritty of the synthetic processes that might liberate customers to make better choices for themselves.

Three movies (or three parts of the same movie) were decided upon.

1.     The first would involve explaining to the customers the general and most common way of producing clothes. (Currently, this is the movie I'm working on. The speech-text for this is under way)


2.     The second movie would involve explaining how all the factory processes of Aura differ from normal factory processes.


3.     The third and final movie would explain the connection between our products and our most faithful customers; why they’ve stuck around and what it means to wear naturally dyed clothes.

Conditions:



1. Make something about as cute and as informative as this, for the simple reason that cute has the power to rope in as many customers as possible, while informative is something that people will always be grateful to have. 
Probably a more hard-hitting video than this example is fine, too, since the kind of content we're going for is far darker and needs to be compelling.

2.  Get no scientific facts wrong (ie do enough scientific background research to be able to make it cute enough for people)
3. Be short, quick, cite sources and create a cult followiing-like possibility for Aura.



Events of this week:

1.     Meeting with the Fairtrade inspectors
2.     Photographing of all of the factory processes
3.     Reading and making acquaintance with the current “sustainability” market in textiles through the Sustainability Manual, especially Aura’s competitors and copycats.
4.     Investigation begun about each of the 10 processes of dyeing: yarn-collecting, weaving, washing, scouring, bleaching, pretreatment, dyeing, rewashing and finishing.
5.     An almost-final text on the first movie written and in the process of co-editing with team.

The Aura Showroom + progress with my projects

Aura, as of last week, features VERY EXCITINGLY on google maps like this.

 The shot is form the showroom, located in Vastrapur, Ahmedabad.

This is their card on recycled paper.

This is the view from my intern's corner in the inner office of the shop.

That's me, standing inside the boutique with some of its lovely inhabitants.

A secret passageway in the boutique, full of lovely exciting things like paper flowers and scraps of cloth.
Inset: Neha, the receptionist of the boutique.

One more shot of the lovely paper flowers.

The clothes saying hello to the street outside.

The street saying hello backkk.

Note the elephant.

Reflections on my week at Aura:

As time goes by and my little tasks at the office increase (editing the text on the brochure, working on the mood board, sketching a 3d perspective view of the upcoming office), my designated tasks at Aura Herbal Wear become clearer to me.

I'm asked to think of innovate ways to market the produce of Aura - a company that has been running for 10 years and still is not receiving the relevant love and credit from audiences it deserves.

One of my most major tasks would be to design Aura a set of animated movies that could double up as ads and serve as a means of viral advertisement.

How to make young people engage with Aura?

How to make the transparency of Aura processes (cradle to cradle, 100% sustainable peripheral processes, such as the recycling of water), the absolute uniqueness of the product it offers, something indispensable to more people, and more clients?

How to make Aura something of a cult following?

When I was thinking of these questions, one of the greatest and surprising examples that came to my mind was the Kony 2012 campaign. It was, of course, in my opinion, a complete fraud, but its marketing tactic was unbelievably bang-on. What, then, if deconstructed, would we possibly figure out some especially useful tactics that could also be used in order to promote something good?
#thoughtsontacticalmedia

While explaining the Kony 2012 disaster (ie how the campaign actually increased the number of children Kony's army captured by nearly ten times as much) to my employers, Arun said something strange. He said "Oh so they sold a kit? I have a kit too!"

And so we arrived at another of my 'tasks': the Aura herbal wear viral advertising method would be a kit that enables the users to use herbal paints for themselves. So that takes care of the viral object. And it becomes my job to make the cost price of the tie and dye kit as little as possible, as well as to promote it through the little videos I make.

Coming up: A time-based task breakdown of all my tasks for Aura up ahead


(From now on, I am going to write a weekly reflection every Saturday + a list of tasks for the benefit of my employees and for documentation's sake.)

Day 1 in office

My first morning at work began with a ride to work with my very bosses in their own car.
Isn't that an awful way to treat an intern?

In the car we discussed most of the work I could do.

The car ride

 We brainstormed a number of ideas:

1. Aura needs a short film or advert, something that can be circulated and something that will explain the natural dying processes that take place within factory walls. This can also serve as a pitch to younger audiences.
Now, I'm not quite the film maker or camera woman, and I believe that nothing short of an extremely well-directed short film can communicate the message of Aura. So I proposed to make a series of short animations overlaid on some footage to explain different aspects of Aura that also "young"ly communicate the message.

2. Aura needs some form of viral/ tactile advertisement. One of the ideas Sonal and Arun had was to keep a camel-drawn lorry (they are not an uncommon sight on Ahmedabad roads) that dyes bits of cloth and passes them about to the public at the small signals.

3. 50-odd t-shirt prints

4. 50-odd innovative scarf ideas

5.  One event/ workshop/ store idea for the Mumbai weekend Farmer's Market (?) during Christmas time.

Boss #1

Boss#2

other members of the factory

trade secrets here

Boss #3

Aura Herbal Wear is a company that makes naturally dyed garments and cloth.
To understand what "naturally" means, one has to realise that it is not only eco-friendly, not only organic, but also that the entire process of dying, from the cotton used (which of course is organic), but also the picking herbs to dye colours (yes! they use herbs to dye the colours!) to the factory processes by which it is dyed, to the way in which the copious amounts of waste water is recycled ( the extent that it is probably better filtered than ground water itself). So as you can see, the process is entirely natural, eco-friendly, and beneficial to all in vicinity.