Innovation of the Day: Siam Piwat
Money is power: Thai mall unlocks the impact of idle spaces
Siam Piwat, a shopping mall operator in Thailand, began showcasing products made by underprivileged or disabled craftspeople this month. The Made by Beautiful People initiative provides rent-free retail space for these creators in two of its malls, the IconSiam and Siam Paragon. Siam Piwat collaborated with seven organizations and nonprofits across Thailand (including the Autistic Thai Foundation and the Anusarnsunthon School for the Deaf), and the operator lent its marketing expertise to the featured sellers.
This initiative from IconSiam and Siam Paragon — two of Thailand’s absolutely massive malls — carries two global takeaways:
💡New Hires. If you’ve been keeping up with Innovation of the Day, you’ll remember some thoughtful innovations we’ve featured that are geared towards the typically-disadvantaged: from smart shopping carts andassistive sound systems for the visually impaired to adaptive clothing lines for the mobility-challenged. All of the above certainly do alleviate daily, logistical challenges. But one way your brand can make a more significant impact on the lives of traditionally marginalized consumers? Hire them or help them generate income. Sympathetic commercials are one thing, but the need for income is real: in the US, for example, the employment rate for disabled workers is only 20%. Are you keeping up with your customer’s expectation that you meaningfully empower the less-advantaged?
💡Unlock your toolbox. What Siam Piwat is doing here — offering free retail space and marketing assistance — is a relatively easy-to-execute move. Rather than creating a whole new product or service from scratch, the mall operator is simply making what they already have accessible to these artisans and nonprofits. We know you’re likely swamped and it’s hard to get senior buy-in and resources for an inclusive program that must be built from scratch. Instead, could you take stock of your current resources, tools and expertise and offer them to new parties? Make your idle assets impactful.
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