Shopping My Heart Out at The Exchange

NATIVE, a small Cape Town based marketing agency, has managed to save over 2450 lives over the past week. They teamed up with The Organ Donor association of South Africa and worked day in and day out for two months to bring us the world's first cashless fashion boutique/pop-up shop called The Exchange.

The idea is that you can visit the shop in Cavendish Square (downstairs, next to the Woolies entrance) and choose a gorgeous item of clothing from a selection of 25 fashion designers including Catherine Moore, Lunar, L&K and Silverspoon. Instead of delving into the last of your rent money you pay by simply signing up to be an organ donor thus paying by giving the gift of life.

Becoming an organ donor means that you can potentially save 7 lives. Your heart, liver and pancreas can save 3 lives and your kidneys and lungs can help up to 4 people. The Organ Donor Association is desperate to sign up 50 000 new organ donors in 2013 and currently there are over 3500 people on the transplant list. With over 500 items in store, The Exchange hopes to potentially save over 3500 lives with this ingenious initiative.

Ryan McManus, Executive Creative Director at NATIVE came up with the initial idea 5years ago and the NATIVE team managed to start and finish the project in just two months- quite an achievement if you ask me. Ryan explains "Fashion has typically been synonymous with consumerism. We are looking for a way in which we could change the currency of meaningless consumerism and shift it to the currency of life by purchasing fashion with organ donor registration." This concept really speaks to my anti-consumerist tendencies (and my bare wallet).

Pop-up shops have become very popular in Cape Town over the last year, following on international trends. Since it is a bit of an underground trend people who shop there feel included and part of an elite inside group. From the execution of the project I am assuming that the target market is made up of educated females around 16-30 years of age from the upper LSM's. They are young, healthy, very interested in following trends and enjoy engaging in social media. I think that using a pop-up shop to execute Ryan's vision is an excellent idea as it speaks to the target market in a way that they can relate to and in turn makes organ donation fashionable.

 It has been a long time since I have been able to afford a piece of clothing that wasn't from Mr Price and so I dragged my boyfriend down to Cavendish and made a bee line for The Exchange (just in case the dress of my dreams was being snatched up by someone smart enough to wake up early). The store itself was clean and classy with stencilled messages on the walls saying things like "Fashion so good you would give your organs" in a lively blood red. The decor was hospital themed and in the middle of the store a hospital bed held a selection of gorgeous accessories for our perusal. There is a space in the shop for you to get your picture taken after you have signed up which is sent straight to the Organ Donor Associations Facebook page to generate more interest. 

After drooling over a pair of too-small silver heels I found a gorgeous purple dress that I only had to swap my organs to own. Hell, I wasn't planning on doing anything with them after I die anyway!

The sign-up process is quick and painless, you just fill out a form on the shop assistants iPad, pop a couple of stickers in your ID then you are done. The old post-purchase feeling of "oh my god, what will I EAT for the rest of the month" was replaced with a warm feeling of public service.

The above image is an example of the emotive and visually stimulating adverts made for the store.  By using a model that is on the transplant list brings a sense of reality into the advert. The red background and white dress work really well with the hospital theme. The copy "Shoes: Obs Shoes, Kidney: Still unavailable" could be written to remind the reader that there are way more pressing and important issues than fashion but at The Exchange you can literally "Give Life. Get Fashion" merging both consumerism and a good cause.

This project is an example of incredible pro-Bono work. Everything was donated from the clothes to the shop space.The resources that they did purchase were used in smart ways for example the shopping bags were plain but a bold red sticker was made up saying "I shopped my heart out at The Exchange" with a short blurb highlighting the stores mission. I feel like this concept could be used around the world for all sorts of causes. This type of anti- consumerist advertising is refreshing and I hope to see more of it from both NATIVE and South Africa as a whole.

The Exchange should be open until the end of the month but it depends on if the stock lasts or not. Clothes are flying out the store quicker than cobra spit so if you want a piece of the action or just to make a difference you better get down there fast!

If you are unwilling or unable to visit the shop but you still want to be an organ donor you can sign up at www.savesevenlives.co.za