Independent We Stand
Why would an international manufacturer of power equipment get behind a cause marketing movement to buy local? Maybe it’s because they only sell through independently owned, local dealers. Or maybe because it will actually help to get our economy back on track. When STIHL came to us in 2010 with this concept we jumped on it and created one of the largest buy local organizations in the country with Independent We Stand. It’s all driven by a single website, a hard-working mobile website, a smartphone app, social marketing, and a few full page ads in USA Today. At last count, over 120,000 people took the pledge to shop, eat and play a little more with the small business down the street. Now there over 1,000,000 local, independent businesses who have registered and the numbers continue to grow at an impressive rate – now that’s called rallying behind a good cause.