Shopping Diplomacy

For those who love to travel and shop, now you can travel, shop, and provide free promotion for the fabulous and unique tzchotchkes you acquire while abroad. Today, from Daily Candy -- "a handpicked selection of all that's fun, fashionable, food related, and culturally stimulating in the city you’re fixated on (and all over the Web)" with a mainly female audience -- an email came to my inbox entitled, Think Global, Shop Local.

How could a PD nerd resist a gander, and then a blog post?

The email called to me:

"Your horoscope says you’re a consummate wanderer. And your Myers-Briggs personality type indicates you’ve got a talent for networking. Put both skills to use with the The Traveler’s Collection, a new site that sells artisan goods from all over the world and allows you to nominate vendors you’ve discovered while traveling for inclusion in its online shop."

You don't have to tell me twice. So for those travelers, public diplomats and shoppers, check it out and start a new field of PD, shopping diplomacy.

Shopping diplomacy: not quite nation branding, not quite cultural diplomacy, but the visitors takeaway and promotion of a place they visited. It's a foreigners perception of what represents a country they have traveled to and want to personally promote. It might not be what the people or the country view as their culture or brand and it might not even be from that country (sometimes you can't tell what's local and what's not). But it's promoting an image, a brand and a culture through the only truly global culture--consumerism. So be a part of the global culture, go shopping!