Personally, I do not expect that review (that’s what it was — a review of published scientific literature, not a study itself) will hold up as a new milestone in scientific discovery. View this Washington Post article on the difficulties of even agreeing what “organic” is. But, as you said, that wasn’t the point of your post…

More to your point — another case with which to explore the Moral Motivator theory is the Toyota Prius. Sales in the first 6 months of 2009 are down 39% from the same period in 2008 (http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html). This drop is even a little more than the car market overall (excluding mid-size and large SUVs). To me, that means that Prius sales were largely driven by the high gas prices in the first half of last year (Greed, maybe a little Fear) — as gas prices dropped, so did Prius sales. If the Moral Motivator theory was the driving factor, you would expect Prius sales to continue strong (it’s not like concerns about the environment or our dependence on foreign oil have abated).

I would expect Prius sales to increase in the latter half of this year because (1) gas prices are creeping back up, and (2) the newly-available 2010 Prius does 50 MPG (crushing the Honda Insight), which reinforces the Greed play (and perhaps a little Vanity).

Frankly, I did not expect the data to bear out this conclusion. I originally expected the Moral Motivator Theory (and cool gadget appeal) to work for the Prius here, especially the type of marketing Toyota does for this car. I was surprised when I saw the data show such a significant drop in Prius sales. But to Rob’s point, Moral Motivator and gadget-happy consumers (come on, you can get the Prius with solar panels to power the AC!) make up only a small slice of the market.

Personally, I do not expect that review (that’s what it was — a review of published scientific literature, not a study itself) will hold up as a new milestone in scientific discovery. View this Washington Post article on the difficulties of even agreeing what “organic” is. But, as you said, that wasn’t the point of your post…

More to your point — another case with which to explore the Moral Motivator theory is the Toyota Prius. Sales in the first 6 months of 2009 are down 39% from the same period in 2008 (http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html). This drop is even a little more than the car market overall (excluding mid-size and large SUVs). To me, that means that Prius sales were largely driven by the high gas prices in the first half of last year (Greed, maybe a little Fear) — as gas prices dropped, so did Prius sales. If the Moral Motivator theory was the driving factor, you would expect Prius sales to continue strong (it’s not like concerns about the environment or our dependence on foreign oil have abated).

I would expect Prius sales to increase in the latter half of this year because (1) gas prices are creeping back up, and (2) the newly-available 2010 Prius does 50 MPG (crushing the Honda Insight), which reinforces the Greed play (and perhaps a little Vanity).

Frankly, I did not expect the data to bear out this conclusion. I originally expected the Moral Motivator Theory (and cool gadget appeal) to work for the Prius here, especially the type of marketing Toyota does for this car. I was surprised when I saw the data show such a significant drop in Prius sales. But to Rob’s point, Moral Motivator and gadget-happy consumers (come on, you can get the Prius with solar panels to power the AC!) make up only a small slice of the market.

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So I guess you’re fairly set on the organic food issue, heh. I think you probably want to argue more with the boys and girls who put out the study than with me. If you’ll note, I talked about how the report might be flawed, unreliable, etc.

But I really wanted to explore the concept of Motivators — and the organic food thing was just an interesting case, that’s all. I’m not sure that I have that strong an opinion one way or the other on organic food, locavores, runoffs, or chemicals. Hell, I put enough chemicals in my body (caffeine, taurine, nicotine, lotsa-ines) as is.

So what do you think? Sales of organic foods up/down/steady?

-rsh

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So I guess you’re fairly set on the organic food issue, heh. I think you probably want to argue more with the boys and girls who put out the study than with me. If you’ll note, I talked about how the report might be flawed, unreliable, etc.

But I really wanted to explore the concept of Motivators — and the organic food thing was just an interesting case, that’s all. I’m not sure that I have that strong an opinion one way or the other on organic food, locavores, runoffs, or chemicals. Hell, I put enough chemicals in my body (caffeine, taurine, nicotine, lotsa-ines) as is.

So what do you think? Sales of organic foods up/down/steady?

-rsh

look- we’re disconnected to our food. whether something is organic, a coopted marketing term, or not isn’t the issue. the issue is that places willing to commit to local farmers, who treat the land and animals on it with greater care for sustainable living and humane treatment are places I’m willing to support. i’m not alone.

also, this study doesn’t account for certain aspects of life. for instance, we know that all the additives and hormones in food is contributing to girls experiencing puberty sooner in life.

we know that there is a pollution issue, and that runoff from pesticides contributes to the contamination of groundwater. we know that as the FDA is faced with more and more drugs and foods to consider, less attention must be paid to each and that routinely, we discover that we didn’t study drugs LONG enough to know the true effects.

In the end, it comes down to this: do you honestly, truly believe that putting chemicals into your body and into the ground DOESN’T have some effect on us?

look- we’re disconnected to our food. whether something is organic, a coopted marketing term, or not isn’t the issue. the issue is that places willing to commit to local farmers, who treat the land and animals on it with greater care for sustainable living and humane treatment are places I’m willing to support. i’m not alone.

also, this study doesn’t account for certain aspects of life. for instance, we know that all the additives and hormones in food is contributing to girls experiencing puberty sooner in life.

we know that there is a pollution issue, and that runoff from pesticides contributes to the contamination of groundwater. we know that as the FDA is faced with more and more drugs and foods to consider, less attention must be paid to each and that routinely, we discover that we didn’t study drugs LONG enough to know the true effects.

In the end, it comes down to this: do you honestly, truly believe that putting chemicals into your body and into the ground DOESN’T have some effect on us?