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Positioning co-operatives as the important solution they represent
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Charles Gould, ICA's Director-General, invited the cooperative movement to engage in distributing a simple message regarding the UN IYC.
In his recent message to the cooperative movement, ICA’s new Director-General, Charles Gould, affirmed that “The world is facing serious challenges to which we have a solution. We have a story to tell”. In what he signaled as a “especially promising time for co-operatives”, he invited the cooperative movement around the world to engage in distributing a simple and straightforward message regarding the UN International Year of Co-operatives.
Although the official launch of the Year will be in November 2011, Gould announced that at the ICA Board Meeting -held in Beijing in September- an important decision was made determining the priority for the IYC. The Board decided to focus efforts on achieving one significant outcome: to raise public awareness on co-operatives. To reach that goal “we envision a campaign with a very simple message”, ICA’s Director General said.
The message has not yet been selected, but will be communicated by ICA in the coming weeks. The goal of the message will be to arouse curiosity “to get the public to want to learn more about co-operatives”. Despite the fact that this initial message will not be able to explain co-operative values and principles, the campaign will let people know how to find out more about co-operatives. “The tone of the message will be designed to suggest that this is a values-based business model that is solving the problems the world is confronting today” Gould stated.
ICA’s Director General underlined that the approach to this campaign will be to engage ICA members around the world in distributing this one, simple message. “We are asking you to incorporate the message into your existing communications channels: on your product packaging, on point-of-purchase displays, on posters, in your communications materials.”
The United Nations Year provides cooperatives with a platform to share its message. “2012 will be the beginning, not the culmination, of a positioning of the ‘co-operative brand’ in the public perception,” Gould emphasized.
