Me, myself, I...

The humble shopping trolley.

Too often seen as a nuisance.

Clogging up our canals and rivers. Our streets. Our car parks.

Getting in the way.

But the shopping trolley as we come to know and love it, transformed the way we shop

But its success was not guaranteed.

It made its first appearance in 1937 in America in a supermarket chain owned by supermarket mogul, Sylvan Goldman.

He set out to solve a simple problem-how to get his customers to buy more than they could carry in a hand basket?

‘When the housewife got her basket full’, he once said ‘it was too heavy for her to carry and she stopped shopping,…..I thought if there was some way we could give the customer two baskets to shop with and still have one hand free to shop, we could do considerably more business.'

His first attempt based on a folding chair with wheels, could carry two baskets and could be rolled through the aisles.

He patented the design as the ‘No Basket Carrying Plan’.

The design with the rear swinging door came later.

And this design was acquired by Goldman and still forms the basic design for today’s shopping trolley.

The royalties from these designs and patents made Goldman a very rich man.

But when the trolleys first made their appearance in Goldman’s stores, they were ignored. Women refused to give up their hand baskets.

Women saw them as baby prams. And were offended.

‘I have pushed my last pram’, they complained.

And they offended men who found them effeminate.

For them it was a sign of manly strength to be able to carry round a fully loaded hand basket.

It took a careful understanding of human psychology to change attitude and behaviour.

And Goldman’s persistence.

He appealed to the ego of his shoppers.

By hiring fake shoppers, male and female, to use the trolleys in his stores, looking handsome and happy while they did it.

It worked.

And the shopping trolley was a success.

Because we all seek a positive self-image for ourselves.

We all want to feel good about ourselves.

This is why male respondents donate more to charity when approached by attractive female fundraisers.

Because we want to project and maintain a positive self-image in the eyes of the opposite sex.

And if we think we will be happier and better looking using a shopping trolley, of course we will fall for it.

It helps us make us feel good about ourselves.

Ego is a powerful motivator of behaviour. And can help consumers buy.

No man or woman likes to look bad.

We all want to look good in the eyes of ourselves, our family, our friends.

We all want to do the right thing.

And that must work no matter what we are buying. From cars to baked beans to financial services.

Even when it comes to using a shopping trolley.

Mum's the word

In the UK we have recently had Mothers’ Day.

Or Mothering Sunday to give it its traditional name.

But Mothering Sunday has nothing to do with mothers.

That is quite a recent development.

And a commercial one.

But Mothering Sunday started off in the 16^th century as a religious festival on the fourth Sunday of Lent.

And was the day when people returned to their mother church.

They went ‘a-mothering’.

Later it became the day when domestic servants and others would be given a day off prior to Easter to visit their mother church with their own mothers and other family members.

It was often the only time when whole families could gather together.

Servants were not given free days on other occasions.

And conflicting working hours meant that opportunities were rare for families to get together.

It was such a special occasion that the austere rules of Lent were relaxed to allow families to celebrate with delicacies known as simnel cakes.

And in some areas Mothering Sunday was also known as Simnel Sunday.

But with the demise of domestic servants by the early part of the 20^th century the ancient traditions of Mothering Sunday had begun to fall into disuse.

Until Anna Jarvis, in America, began her campaign to make Mother’s Day a recognised holiday, to honour her own mother and ‘the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world’.

In 1914 the President created Mother’s Day as a national holiday to honour mothers.

And this new tradition, fuelled by the commercial instincts of gift and card manufacturers, rapidly took off.

Indeed the speed with which it attracted commercial interest and became misinterpreted so angered Anna Jarvis that she tried to rescind the Presidential Decree.

For her Mothers’ Day was about sentiment not profit.

Her idea had been adopted and adapted.

There is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come.

And it soon crossed the Atlantic.

To be merged with the older religious tradition of Mothering Sunday.

Mothering Sunday had evolved into Mothers’ Day.

It was now about mothers. No longer about paying a visit to the Mother Church.

It had moved from the religious to the secular.

From theology to commerce via sentiment.

It had adapted and evolved and acquired meaning like any brand does.

To stay relevant and distinctive and credible.

Like Nokia which started out as a pulp mill before moving onto make rubber products.

Like Nintendo, originally a playing card company.

Like Shell, which began life as an antiques and collectibles shop specialising in decorative shells imported from the Far East.

Like Mothering Sunday.

Still relevant, credible and distinctive today.