The Girl Scouts Update Their Brand

Let's face it, the Girl Scouts have a dorky image. I can say it. After all, I was one for a number of years, so I found the new revamping of the organization to keep up with the times a very interesting proposal. For most girls back in my day, being in Girl Scouts pretty much consisted of making popsicle stick ornaments and learning to sew. Maybe, if you were lucky, you did some camping and learned how to build a fire or something, but most of it for younger scouts was arts and crafts projects in the school cafeteria. And we wonder why girls drop out. Sure, older scouts would learn to tie knots, orienteer and camp, but how many girls these days really have an interest in those activities?

I think the Girl Scouts overall are a great organization, so I was excited to hear that they hired their first ever brand-manager to bring about some new changes. According the Washington Post, the organization is embracing social media and the internet and extending their teachings from sewing and knot tying to financial literacy and video conferences with troops abroad. Plus a new trend of college student troop leaders instead of troop members moms. They're even going so far as to scrap the badges (good call!) and handbooks in favor of a looser form of direction for individual troops and girls.

Hopefully these new changes will give the Girl Scouts the refresher they need for the 21st century. We will see.