The florists at BOLT Amsterdam in The Netherlands began offering a bundle of 200 tulips, and allowing customers to choose what to pay, to support the tulip industry amidst COVID-19. Customers can decide whether to buy the direct-from-the-farmer tulip bundle below, above, or at cost price. The initiative aims to prevent tulips from ending up in landfills and support tulip growers. BOLT is also encouraging buyers to send the bundles as care packages to friends and family, as well as those who may be especially isolated during this time. Since BOLT debuted its offering, over half a million tulips have been saved and the company has expanded its network of growers to meet the demand.
You may have noticed we’ve been beating the ‘support local businesses’ drum a lot as of late. And BOLT’s new offering certainly beats that drum here. However, there are other ideas that can sprout from the seeds of BOLT’s tulips. Let’s dive in:
🌷 CULTURE IN THE COVID ERA
Since the late 1500s, tulips have been a cultural pillar of The Netherlands. In the 1600s, in fact, a surge in popularity created ‘Tulipomania’ (tulip mania), an economic bubble that made tulips so expensive they were used as currency. Today, BOLT has brought (some of) that mania back with its wildly successful initiative. By doing so, BOLT is practicing cultural preservation. It’s working to protect a staple of Dutch culture from being wholly abandoned, by encouraging Dutch consumers to still buy and gift tulips - even when tulip-buying is certainly not consumers’ number-one priority at this time. Whether your brand is directly rooted in art or your locale’s culture or not, consider the following: How can you keep consumers engaged with essential parts of your culture, even when they’re stuck at home? Through virtual museum tours, perhaps, or live streamed drag performances? And in turn, how can you support the creators who exist within these spaces?
🌏 EXPECTATIONS STILL APPLY
Even though the whole world in a panic, with consumers seeming singularly focused on their health, previous expectations and concerns still apply. This epidemic doesn’t negate the fact that your customers will still care about issues they cared about before, like sustainability. Believe it or not, in the UK, more people are worried about the impacts of climate change than the impacts of coronavirus. Despite BOLT’s move being sparked by our current predicament, it also centers on the idea of reducing waste. If you plan to roll out any sort of COVID-focused innovation, can you ensure it also meets other expectations at the same time?
Received this link from someone else? Receive our newsletter directly into your mailbox!
