Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.
Kids sometimes don’t want to go to school.
Their reasons might vary from “Don’t want to” to “Don’t feel like it.”
Sometimes, though, it’s because they’re feeling ashamed or even being bullied.
And sometimes, the reason is both blindingly simple and painful.
The kids don’t have clean clothes.
It could be because their parents can’t afford a washer and a dryer. It could be because they can’t afford to fix their broken machines.
It could also be because, as one little girl admitted: “Our electricity got cut off.”
In stepped Whirlpool to offer schools washers and dryers, so that kids could bring their washing into school and have it done there.
Perhaps some parents and kids might find it embarrassing at first to admit that they need to have their clothes washed at school.
Then again, perhaps the more parents that use the machines, the less embarrassing it is.
It’s not as if recent economic times have closed the gap between rich and poor, is it?
Yes, for Whirlpool this is an ad. It’s also something that school teachers are saying improves school attendance.
The people who run the so-called Care Counts program say that in 90 percent of cases it improved attendance.
At-risk kids attended school for two more weeks a year.
Of course, some might feel it’s a sad indictment of our social and educational systems that such a situation might have arisen.
However, the program now seems to be expanding to more schools in more parts of the country.
So many times, brands try to piggyback on social issues solely in order to make themselves look good.
How often does an event occur that captures the public’s imagination or grief and every brand on earth insists on tweeting its own take on the subject?
In this case, it seems that Whirlpool actually bothered to consider what genuine good it could do for others.
Which seems startlingly sane and refreshing.