NATCO: Driving Consumerism

Literally So.

The updated Apple TV—through which you can play all sorts of music, movies, shows and games—has an interesting addition that wasn’t in the old version.

Say we find a movie and scroll down the screen for more information. In the section called “Reviews and Ratings”—alongside a sentence or two from the major critics and the Tomatometer thing—there’s something called “Common Sense.”

Common Sense is a non-profit group providing information to help parents educate their kids and choose age-appropriate media to watch.

And there it is. Alongside the filled-in circles (on a 1 – 5 scale) for Violence, Sex, Language, and Drinking, Drugs & Smoking is the curious category: “Consumerism.”

For the movies anyway, Common Sense is getting at the product placement and the lure of companies to have us buy stuff. It’s all under the umbrella of consumerism and that relentless marketing campaign by companies to lure us into buying their products.

So, here we are. We’ve reached a point where Consumerism is red-flagged in the same way that Sex and Violence are red-flagged. We’re okay with that. It’s a reality check on the Do I really need yet another widget? notions that can overtake us sometimes.

We want to refocus that just a bit (well, a lot) and confirm there’s a large border between what we think we want and what we need. We say this because in recent months Team NATCO has had all-too-many reminders about what people need.

Recent extreme weather events in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and North Carolina have kept us incredibly busy with fast-tracking our logistics orders. And so we’re coordinating shipments to and from these disaster areas for a number of industries, including Heavy Construction, Manufacturing, Distribution, and Building Materials.

While we’re grateful for all the work, it’s for the worst of reasons: people have lost their homes, and businesses have had their operations compromised or destroyed.

We’re good with Consumerism alerts. That said, when people and communities are in need of the basics and the essentials in order to piece back together their lives and their jobs, well, there’s a big difference.