The Dilemma of Promoting Products as Minimalists
We were wrong. Let’s talk about it.
As minimalists, our home doesn’t have much storage space, and relatively speaking, we don’t own many things too. The things we do own, we tend to use for a long time as we try to maximize the life span of our belongings.
Over the years of creating content, we’ve turned down many brands that reached out to us, requesting to send over their products for us to test out.
“Our vacuum cleaner is working fine. What are we going to do with another one? This bag may look aged, but it’s just patina. No point in having another one.”
As content creators covering the topic of minimalism and occasionally encouraging practical, incremental sustainability, our thinking was that we should not be readily accepting products, even if they’re from brands we would happily support. If we did, we would be promoting consumerism by adding things to our lives that were not necessary at the time.
Perhaps, we were wrong — and we want to talk about that today.
Tangible Objects v.s. Intangible Ideas
Most of our content fall into one of two categories.
Content about tangible objects: Home tours, desk setups, everyday carry, what’s in my bag, essential items in our lives, etc.
Content about the intangible, e.g. stories and ideas: Why we’re minimalists, why we sit on the floor, mindfulness and finding purpose in life, etc.
For us, content about tangible objects is significantly more straightforward to produce compared to the others. It takes less time, less planning and less consideration. Yet despite the relative ease of creating such content, they tend to reach a greater audience — which helps to fuel the growth of our channel.
Many people, ourselves included, love to admire and discover new products that are beautifully well designed. In a way, you could say consumerism appeals to most of our desires more than minimalism. That said, being mindful means having the capacity to admire and appreciate an object without succumbing to the desire to own it.
Being mindful means having the capacity to admire and appreciate an object of desire without succumbing to the desire to own it.
For a long time, we faced a dilemma: Even though we have exciting ideas revolving around awesome products from brands we admire, we thought we were “doing better” by not creating them.
This also meant we were giving up on the reach and growth these content would have otherwise brought to the channel (which we were perfectly fine with). Moving forward, we’ll be approaching things differently, and we want to explain why.
A Timely Example
This post was written at the same time as our everyday carry video from November 2023, so let’s take that as an example.
The previous EDC video we did was in November 2021, almost exactly two years between the two. When we made that old video, the items we featured weren’t strictly what we would recommend, but simply what we had at the time.
With time, tastes change. Our perception of “value” changes. What’s available on the market also changes, as products get discontinued and better options are introduced. Some of the items we featured in the old video have been pulled off the shelves by the brands selling them. Some were old purchases that were no longer to our tastes.
The video we made in 2021 was, frankly, outdated back when it was published, and even more outdated in 2023. Objectively speaking, that video wouldn’t be of much value to viewers today as some of the products mentioned are no longer available, or not what we would actually recommend at this moment.
By choosing to NOT accept products from brands, we’re unnecessarily limiting our options when it comes to creating content. On top of that, we’re essentially doing our viewers a disservice by not informing them to the best of our abilities.
Benefiting Everybody (Our Curation Process)
Move forward to present day. We decided to make an updated everyday carry video by taking a different approach.
Rather than think about “What are we using today?”, which would have looked very similar to 2021’s content, we instead went with “What would we choose to purchase today?”. This works much better in informing our audience, who look to content to help them make better decisions.
Here’s the process we used for the new video.
1. Are our existing belongings our best recommendation?
If an item we’re currently using is still a reasonably good purchase today in our opinion, then great! That’s what we’ll feature in our content.
If it isn’t, what are the better options? We’ll do the legwork of researching and discovering the best (or our favorite) that’s available out there, so we can proudly recommend them to our viewers.
2. Reach out to brands.
Once we’ve shortlisted the best products from brands we think deserve the attention, we’ll reach out to them to explain what we’re doing in hopes that they’ll be interested in being part of our content.
There are certain types of brands that appeal to us more than others. For example, in the new everyday carry video for 2023:
- Two brands are a member of 1% for the Planet
- One brand is climate-neutral certified
- One brand is founded and run by a husband and wife team. We relate to the journey of couples who are building businesses together. (And if Thoughtworthy is anything to go by, husband and wife teams create the best work, no? 😜)
- One brand is from Singapore. For those who may not be familiar, that would be our home country.
As small-medium creators, we naturally gravitate towards supporting small-medium businesses. Of course, the products’ quality and thoughtfulness in design come first. We don’t select brands just because of preferred traits, and we don’t casually accept products from any random company that reaches out to us.
In other words, our goal is to discover and bring exposure to businesses and brands that resonate most strongly with us.
3. Everybody benefits!
Through this process, we believe everybody benefits.
The brands and products are handpicked and reflect our true preferences. Other than being provided with the brands’ products to make creating the content possible, we’re not compensated in any other way. No brand gets to affect what we show or say in our content, and all opinions expressed will be our own.
This way:
- Viewers can be better informed, and they get to discover wonderful brands and products they may otherwise not have heard of.
- The right brands get the exposure they deserve.
- We get to create content we’re excited to create.
Lastly, when a video is sponsored or contains paid promotions, it will always be clearly stated and distinguished so as to leave no room for misinterpretation.
We’re pleased with how our 2023 everyday carry video turned out, and we’re happy with the roster of brands we were able to showcase. Moving forward, with this new process, we will not artificially limit our options when it comes to creating content about tangible objects.
What we failed to realize previously, is that content is simply information, and being more informed cannot be a bad thing. Our objective as creators is to stay in control and provide good information.
Content is information. Being more informed cannot be a bad thing.
It was never our place to limit or “censor” the flow of information to our audience, thinking it’s for the best. All we can do is create content with a clear conscience, and viewers are free to do whatever they want with that information.
There’s always going to be cynics who will make noise about how this only promotes consumerism, and they’re free to have an opinion. But guess where do we turn to to discover better brands or make better purchase decisions? Content, in some way, shape or form.
So now, it’s time for us to inform viewers to the best of our abilities, and we’ll take this as an opportunity to share about our favorite brands and bring attention to the good work they’re doing. In the process of creating such content with greater appeal to a wider audience, we hope it will ultimately introduce more people to our more thoughtful pieces about the intangibles.
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