From E-cup to e-campaigner: Busts 4 Justice

I've always thought that if you care enough about something to whinge about it, you already care enough to try to change it. And while it might not sound like an overwhelmingly important issue to some, by the end of 2007 I’d spent enough time moaning about Marks & Spencer charging up to £4.50 more for a DD cup bra for me to want to take action. In typically British style my first foray in to consumer activism was the Strongly Worded Letter, but demands for an explanation of the charge and the arbitrary point at which it was applied were met only with generic customer service responses. My efforts had got me nowhere. Until, in 2008, I read about a Facebook group successfully lobbying Cadbury to bring back Wispa. It got me thinking: if Facebook-power could resurrect their favourite chocolate treat, could it also do something about the price of my bras? I sat down at my laptop and started to write. Busts 4 Justice was born.

Membership grew steadily, and I was confident a co-ordinated letter writing assault would be nuisance enough to elicit a proper response. I could never have predicted what happened next. After a brief mention of the group in the back of the Evening Standard our numbers exploded, and by the end of that week Busts 4 Justice had almost 8,000 members. Marks & Spencer were still ignoring us, but while they were busy with their fingers in their ears the group was evolving. What had started as a straightforward single-issue campaign group quickly became more – and more powerful with it. Suddenly, thousands of busty women had a platform to unite; to share their experiences and support each other across a range of related issues in a way they’d never had the opportunity to before. Together, we bombarded M&S with reports of poor fitting, poor service and poor availability. They had to admit we were more than a silly-season news story: we were their customers, and we deserved to be listened to.

M&S started to engage with the group and it felt like we were getting somewhere, but by the beginning of 2009 their interest in us had dwindled. After months of silence and unreturned messages, a misdirected e-mail accidentally informed me that they had no intention of changing the policy – indeed, that they never had. Frustrated, I bought an M&S share; determined to take the argument to the AGM and fight them in the (smoked-salmon-and-champagne-encrusted) trenches. I never made it there. My share cost just £3.40 – less than the extra cost of DD+ bras in their high-end range – but it was enough. Just three days and over 11,000 new members later Marks & Spencer announced a back-down. We’d won.

It felt amazing to stand in M&S the next day and see all bras costing the same for every woman, knowing that not only had we changed their pricing policy but encouraged them to retrain their 11,000 fitters too. One small initial action – one tiny little Facebook group – had snowballed in to something so much bigger and effected a real change. Even now, with the 'Bra Wars' behind us, Busts 4 Justice is still there and still evolving: remaining as a positive and supportive forum for women to share experiences and seek advice, a platform to campaign for better fitting standards and awareness, and a place to help raise money and awareness championing bra recycling.

Developments in social media have made it easier than ever for us all to speak up and try to shape the things that affect our everyday lives. By looking out and engaging with the wider world – be it over a consumer, political or community issue – we all have the opportunity to impact upon it; to make a difference. And if we can use these new tools to persuade some of our biggest companies to give us back our nostalgic sugary treats, or lower the price of their bigger cupped bras, then I can't help but wonder: what could we do with it next?