Involving And Integrating Indigenous Communities Around Canada

Since the creation of capitalism businesses have been interested in doing one thing: making money. Since remaining profitable is the number one goal, many Canadian businesses that sell or are in any way related to Native Americans don’t directly involve them into their business model because they don’t believe it’ll increase their profits, but in reality it can. The truth is that involving and integrating indigenous communities around Canada can help Canadian businesses attract customers that are looking for authenticity, improve the quality of life of these community by providing jobs and increase the revenue of those businesses as well as Canada’s employment rate. This doesn’t work for every company in Canada but can certainly help the businesses that are selling related products and are looking for new ways to grow and expand.

Whether it’s a product from central Africa, china or Canada, people today are willing to spend more money on items that are made authentically instead of a factory made product. Consumers crave authenticity and more often than not, companies that are selling cultural products that are inauthentic aren’t doing as well as the could be. There are numerous studies that show that consumers are more likely to spend more money on companies that are authentic and care about what they are doing. A company called Stackla conducted a study on 2000 consumers in Australia about consumer behaviour on authenticity and found that over 86% of people believe that authenticity matter and that less than 57% of the brands they know aren’t authentic at all. This study shows that there is an untapped market of consumers who are looking for and are willing to spend more on authentic items. This means that Canadian businesses that create and manufacture indigenous clothing and items should instead focus on teaming up with indigenous communities in order to create the same products for a more expensive price. For example, a company called Birch Bark Coffee wanted to create a First Nations coffee company where the entire business is run and lead by indigenous people and through this idea he was able to get the support of thousands of consumers that support what he is doing. Birch Bark Coffee also gives back to the community by making sure they all have clean water, this message and mission statement helps the company’s image and increases the number of people that support it.

Cause-related marketing is a term that essentially mean that businesses who stand behind a good cause are the ones who get the most loyal consumer base. Whether it is helping the environment, donating to different charities or helping the homeless people, doing something without expecting anything in return can help a company’s reputation and help get more support. Even though a lot of businesses only do these things to get more revenue in the long run, it doesn’t mean that it is meaningless, it still helps these communities and causes. After all, we live in a capitalistic world where we are driven by money. Therefore, businesses who sell products or services related to the indigenous community and directly involve these communities to manufacture and provide these products and services can improve the quality of life they are living in. The population of Canada already knows that indigenous people has harsh living conditions with high rates of unemployment, drug abuse and more but giving these people jobs can help eliminate these problems. This is a cause that the company can stand behind and can generate a lot of support from consumers who are looking for that. According to a new study by ad agency Havas, a survey of over 300,000 consumers found that people are more likely to spend more on meaningful brands that support the same cause that the customers support as well. This is a way for the brands to connect to the consumer and create brand loyalty and in return generate more revenue while helping out communities.

Since the creation of capitalism, businesses and corporation are driven by money. How much more money can they make next year? What steps can they take to increase profit? Sometimes to answer these questions, companies have to decrease their own spending in order to increase profits. This means reducing labor costs by moving manufacturing to china where it is cheaper to hire people to do the same job, having cheaper materials to make the product, producing more products to scale, etc. These measures aren’t bad, it’s what they have to do in order to make more money, but what some companies don’t realize is that there is a whole other market of people that want authentic items made by real indigenous people, not replicas of the products. There are people willing to pay more for it to be real. This means that companies are able to increase their profits while satisfying the demand of consumers. Companies can charge way more the authentic products relative to the labor costs and make the same profit margins as they would be selling replicas. Some companies can satisfy both consumer needs who on one side want a cheap replica and the other the authentic local products. A lot of consumers are looking to support their local community and make sure they buy products that are made in Canada, they want factories and jobs to be created locally for their own economy instead of supporting companies that manufacture internationally. Creating a business model where indigenous get to create products authentically can be very beneficial for the growth of a company that wants more profits as well as stand behind a good cause.

All in all, there is substantial evidence and a lot of research that should encourage businesses that sell indigenous related products to team up with them and create something that everyone can support and stand behind. Doing so will not only increase profits but also tremendously help the indigenous community’s quality of life by providing jobs and supporting their economy. This movement will also give what the consumers always wanted, authenticity instead of fake replicas. Will businesses be able to make the effort to team up with indigenous people? or will we always have to resort to having replicas?