DIY is on the rise

The TED talk we watched in class http://www.ted.com/talks/john_gerzema_the_post_crisis_consumer.html
got me thinking about good things that resulted from our current recession. One thing that interested me was the return of the DIY (do it yourself) movement. The current DIY movement really started in the 80s during our last really big recession and was mostly an underground anti-consumerism movement closely associated with the Punk Rock and underground music scenes.

Today the DIY movement has evolved to the point where it is almost a mainstream past-time with websites like Insturctables and publications like Make Magazine providing DIY insturctions to make everything from portable hard drives, to bike racks, to recycled shopping bags (and pretty much anything else that could be useful and cobbled together from a trip to Home Depot).

So what does this have to do with green branding? a lot. I think that this trend shows how people can use their creativity, ingenuity and the internet community to avoid making purchases of things that they dont really need. People are starting to realize that they dont neccesarily need a company to make everything for them, that they can make things themselves and save resources in the process. I feel that the rise of DIY is due in part to people wanting to save money but also due to people being more aware about resource depletion and how many resources go into pre-packaged products.

Green Brands can capitalize on recognizing the reasons this movement is becoming more popular. They should start paying more attention to how their products get from their warehouses to the stores and address whether their products are actually needed or if there are DIY alternatives to the things they are selling.

I just thought that creating campaigns for brands that address DIYers may be an innovative way to talk to people about stuff that matters to them. Waddaya think?