LATEST JEOPARDY CHALLENGE: WHAT IS UNBIG?

Guest Blogger: Sharon Quijano, Communications Consultant/Freelance

Even if the newly-rolled out ad campaign for Daimler’s Smart car does not translate into phenomenal sales, it has certainly been hammering away at our ‘supersize-it’ mentality. New distributor for the Smart brand, Mercedes-Benz, is backpacking on the notion that every great idea eventually bombs—a fact being played out as the western world’s fatalistic love affair with consumerism. It’s this dance of death that has left the United States of America and a growing list of developed and developing nations glancing backwards at a trail of financial hardships and political mayhem.

So, are governments (and the rest of us) ready to sing our ‘big life’ swan song? Do most of us even know what it means to “unbig” ourselves? I hardly think so. What is perhaps more true is that we are hanging on to the old ways like a hoarder who—so in the grip of the disease will hyperventilate at the thought of parting with a roomful of useless beanie babies.

And timely though this campaign might be, what people everywhere may need, to go along with a desire to downsize, is a mind open to the possibilities of recouping some facet of life in a simpler time. “Open Your Mind,” is the tagline on the official website of the Smart car, www.smartusa.com, but here, the message is all about the brand: its fuel-efficiency, sensible price-point, customizability. So, this is our quandary: we are being asked to swap one fad for the next, to trade one corrugated lifestyle for another—equally damaged—just somewhat smaller.

Now, will we be like folks who remember the ‘green’ bags they’ve left in the car, at the precise moment they step up to the cashier’s counter, or will we take the challenge to commit to something good and true, and not forget what it is?