Why "Local" Campaigns Are Loco

The corporate co-opting of the "buy local" movement is most often food-oriented. A few weeks ago, I noted PepsiCo's (PEP) campaign to convince consumers that its Lay's potato chips come from local potatoes in some markets. Which is technically true but ultimately irrelevant.

But lots of other industries are jumping on the local bandwagon, too, as Stacy Mitchell (no relation) hilariously and thoroughly outlines in the East Bay Express, the alt-weekly of Berkeley and Oakland, Calif.

Barnes & Noble (BKS) has taken to insisting that "All bookselling is local" on its video blog. Given the way that books are marketed and distributed, especially by B&N, that's an outright lie.

In Fresno, Calif., recently, the people behind a "buy local" campaign "assembled in front of the Fashion Fair Mall for a kick-off press conference," Mitchell writes. "Flanked by storefronts bearing brand names like Anthropologie and The Cheesecake Factory, officials from the Economic Development Corporation of Fresno County explained that choosing to "buy local" helps the region's economy."

Ads for the campaign say: "Just so you know, buying local means any store in your community: mom-and-pop stores, national chains, big-box stores—you name it."

Which makes me wonder whether Fresno has a big problem with residents driving down to Bakersfield to pick up paper towels from that city's Wal-Mart (WMT).

But as Mitchell notes, food is the main focus of the faux-local trend. My favorite example is Hellmann's mayonnaise, owned by the food giant Unilever (UN). The company has mounted a campaign called "Eat Real, Eat Local" in Canada. "The ad campaign seems aimed partly at enhancing the brand by simply associating Hellmann's with local food," Mitchell writes. "But it also makes the claim that Hellmann's is local, because most of its ingredients come from North America."

Maybe the Italian-made, British favorite Nutella should get on board and market the hazelnut spread in the United States as being local because it's manufactured on planet Earth.

Elsewhere, the Baltimore Sun's Laura Vozzella reports today on the increasing "local" trend among giant national grocery chains. Noting a Baltimore Safeway's (SFY) peddling of "local" apples from Virginia and New Jersey, she writes: "No wonder shoppers are confused. Large grocery chains, eager to get a bite of the locavore movement, are promoting produce from nearby farms—even when they have little in stock. It doesn't help that the federal government allows produce to be labeled 'local' if it comes from within a 400-mile radius, which for Baltimore is roughly an arc that runs from Boston to Charleston, W.Va., to Cape Hatteras, N.C."

Grocers, meanwhile, face a genuine dilemma. While demand for locally grown produce is rising, many consumers also continue to demand out-of-season produce. That doesn't give them an excuse to mount inane marketing campaigns based on lies, however.