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Buy Nothing Day 1998:
Report from Auckland, New Zealand

From: [email protected]

27 Nov, last Friday was our Buy Nothing Day in Auckland, New Zealand. We had a core group of 5 but drew in extras from Friends of the Earth and SAFE (Save animals from Experimentation). The day was a little wild, with winds blowing our material around - another form of distribution perhaps! At lunch time we acquired a life sized paper mache pig from SAFE and took it round the main shopping areas accompanied by 3 drummers and a stilt walker, stopping in several areas to draw attention and leaflet. Our faceless spectre of consumerism walked up and down the main street drawing reactions from complete bafflement and shock, to beaming smiles. We used this disconnection from shopper reality to then hand out Christmas Gift Exemption Vouchers and more leaflets. A nice way to break through the usual distrust of street pamphleteers. We'd been given a small number of eco-friendly soaps (thanks Eco Store) which we wrapped in a ribbon saying "A Buy Nothing Day Random Act of Kindness" and randomly gave them out. We intended to also give out money but ran out of time and people. Response was pretty good, with very little negative comment, and we must have given out at least 2000 leaflets and other material over the week, over 1/2 of this on the day.

No media came on the day, but we managed to get 2 talkback radio interviews (Radio Pacific), one of at least 5 minutes; a long one on student radio (Bfm); one on a youth radio (Channel Z); and mentions on a couple of stations. We also had screened the Adbusters BND video (soundtrack modified for our hemisphere) on Triangle TV about 30 times. Mention in the nz.general internet newsgroup drew a small and unintelligent response, but our web site had over 400 hits in the last 2 weeks, and an online zine (www.nzine.co.nz) carried our press release as an article.

Our 'day' really began at the start of the week when we went around various parts of town chalking slogans on footpaths (we attempted roads too but didn't realise how quickly it disappeared - next time paint perhaps) Slogans ranged from 'Have a happy Buy Nothing Day' to "Reassess Christmas Consumerism'. And we didn't make a single spelling mistake - a really bad look if you do. :-) Mid-week we postered in high foot traffic areas, and throughout the week spread leaflets out on cars and unsuspecting school kida at bus stops (very good response from them). We also distributed out Schools Kit to abot 60 secondary schools - no feedback yet, but posters were sited in places we never went to.

Through this, we've been given the opportunity to be involved with 2 big festivals - one a music festival which will have an Eco-politics area, and the other an ecofest.

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