What makes us tick

With tourism down in the Portland-metro area because of the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with ongoing protests in the city core, sales stalled for Orox Leather Co., a family-owned business that prides itself in its craft leather goods and Mexican heritage. Adding to this already challenging time for small, local businesses, the Orox team was robbed not once, but twice over the course of two months, losing tens of thousands of dollars of leather bags, wallets and other products.

2020 was, needless to say, a year full of changes. We saw consumers shifting their needs, wants, perceptions and behaviors, and we along with our clients had to learn to evolve quickly. But what do you do when your consumer feels they can’t do anything?

With this blog post, we are announcing and publishing our second Certified B Corporation™ and Oregon Benefit Company Annual Report. It provides a window into our world including the tribulations and the triumphs during the last year or so of our journey to improve the social and environmental fabric of our communities.

2020 was a difficult year, and as marketers, we found brands not immune to these challenges. How do you break through the noise to reach an anxious, angry and skeptical audience?

The year is 2020 and as I sat in my tiny work-from-home office, I smiled as I read the theme MAGNET (Marketing & Advertising Global Network) had chosen for their inaugural virtual Summit.

As a white person I can never really know what it’s like to be Black in America. After a seemingly endless streak of wrongful deaths from state-sanctioned violence. After listening to all the rhetoric about the American dream only to find closed doors and rigged systems at every turn. And after navigating daily doses of micro-aggressions and the weight that comes with them.