It seems innocent enough: go head to head against your competitors by mimicking their campaigns, saying similar things and trying to evoke the same kind of sentiment from the unsuspecting consumer. But no, it’s not so innocent, and it’s happening right now, in small towns and cities across the country, even my own Boulder, Colorado. This sneaky assault is happening right under the very nose of each and every purchaser, shopper and diner nationwide. It’s called “local-washing”, and it basically means corporations dress and talk the language of “we’re doing it local”, but in essence, it’s just a ploy. You can read more about it here in an article by Stacy Mitchell in Indy.com, where she discusses how national corporations are co-opting the idea of “local” in an attempt to have consumers believe they are local in everything they do. Right. Sure they are. Tell that to the small businesses across America who have shuttered their windows when the Big Box chain rolled into town or the tiny downtown business districts that report record vacancies because their tenants couldn’t hang on during the worst recession of our generation.

The truth is when you spend your money in these establishments, some of that purchase will support workers there, but the profits go into the corporate coffers somewhere else, usually far away from your own community.