Author: Drew Neisser

Ethical Green Marketing?

Posted on by Drew Neisser

One of the SIG groups I belong to posed an interesting question, “How do you ethically include green in your marketing?” Having wrestled with this question quite a bit on this blog, I offered the following response:

No company can afford not to consider how they could be more green. Employees want to work for companies that are green. Consumers want to buy from companies that are green. There is money to made from selling green products (i.e. GE windmills) and dollars to be saved by making your operations greener (i.e. Wal-Mart). That said, beware the “green” backlash. Before spending any marketing dollars selling your greenness, make sure your story is solid and your efforts transparent. GE’s ecomagination pledge is a brilliant example of how to do it right. If you choose to tout your greenness, expect watchdog organizations to police all of your activities and uncover less than green activities. This was the case with BP (as I wrote about back in August) who wanted to dump some toxins in the Great Lakes and ended up finding a greener option after watchdogs complained.

Bottom line–before you talk about being green make sure you are really doing everything to be green. Track your progress every step of the way and let your employees and the public know what you are doing. Benchmark your consumables (electricity, oil, paper, etc.) and overall carbon footprint if you can and then set goals for reducing, reusing and recycling. It’s not easy being green and don’t make it sound like it is. Wal-Mart is practically a pioneer in green marketing, yet their CEO Lee Scott, Jr. admitted publicly last week that they “weren’t really green.” This is quite an amazing statement from a company that dramatically reduced its energy consumption (just by changing the lighting in every store) and is driving its entire supply chain to reduce packaging and overall shipping costs. The point is that those that are trying to be green realize how truly difficult it is to cover every base. Under-promising and over-delivering green is a good starting place for any ethically-minded company.

Addendum 3/18 3:45pm

As companies increasingly try to out-green each another, Greenwashingindex.com aims to keep marketers honest. Here’s a brief intro from their website:

Welcome to the Greenwashing Index — home of the world’s first online interactive forum that allows consumers to evaluate real advertisements making environmental claims. “Going green” has become mainstream for businesses large and small — and that’s a good thing. What’s not so great is when businesses make environmental marketing claims that can be misleading. The intent of this Web site is to:

  1. Help consumers become more savvy about evaluating environmental marketing claims of advertisers;
  2. Hold businesses accountable to their environmental marketing claims; and
  3. Stimulate the market and demand for sustainable business practices that truly reduce the impact on the environment.

Diet Coke & Heart Health Foundation feels fake–is it?

Posted on by Drew Neisser

I gave my first webinar on Friday to about 200 PR professionals. It was a rather bizarre experience as I talked into the great cybervoid for forty five minutes without any human interaction. If it weren’t for the handful of attendees who proffered their thanks via subsequent emails, the silence would have been downright deafening. Anyway, I bring this up because during my speech entitled “What Recesision? Nine Ways to Cut Through Regardless of the Economy” I take a swing at Diet Coke’s recent “Heart Health Foundation” promotional partnership. Here’s what I said in the section called “Find a Partner”:

Stretch your dollars and enhance your brand by reaching out to non-profits organizations. Non-profits are already feeling the pinch of the slowing economy as their supporters cut back on donations. This happens in every downturn and is really painful for the non-profits who continue to perform an incredible range of socially beneficial services. Mobilize your employees and your customers behind the non-profit you truly believe in and you will be amazed at the good will and good business you will do as a result. The non-profits will be so grateful for your support that they will bend over backwards to ensure you achieve your business goals not just now but for many years to come. It may seem counterintuitive to increase your CSR (corporate social responsibility) now BUT that is exactly why it is worth considering. Your employees will undoubtedly respond with increased loyalty that should also translate into higher productivity.

Of course, as with each of my suggestions, there is a right way and a wrong way. The right way starts by making a sincere commitment like MAC cosmetics and their Viva Glam products which generate thousands of dollars in donations to the MAC Aid Fund. The connection between MAC and Aids is long-standing and sincere. If you plan to partner with a non-profit, think in terms of five and ten year horizons, not a quick hit and run. Consumers have wised up to pretenders and can see an insincere commitment a mile a way.

The wrong way starts with the cry “hey we need a charity” like the one Diet Coke seems to have made with their highly advertising (they bought on the Academy Awards) women’s heart health program. I’m still trying to figure that one out. Okay, let’s see, a lot of women drink Diet Coke and a subset of them may be concerned about their heart health. Hmm. So drink Diet Coke and we’ll donate to the Heart Health Foundation. The link between brand and the non-profit seems tenuous at best and the commitment feels paper thin.

So, here’s the truth–while the Diet Coke connection to Heart Health Foundation feels fake to me, I honestly have no clue if indeed it is. If any of you know better, let me know. Unlike the webinar, blogs are a great way to find/get the truth–you straightened me out about Aveda and can do it again here.

Good Money After Good

Posted on by Drew Neisser

The notion of neighbors helping neighbors financially seems as mythical as the townsfolk of Bedford Falls’ rallying behind George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) in “Its a Wonderful Life.” Yet, reality might be trumping fiction online as a number of micro-lending services match individual borrowers with individual lenders. This trend was chronicled in yesterday’s Wall St. Journal and by this blog back in August. The Journal article listed a number of firms including:

The article outlines how each of these websites are starting to pick up the slack left by ever stingier banks. On the far end of this good lending spectrum which the WSJ didn’t cover is an organization called Kiva which helps people help entrepreneurs in developing nations. Here’s a bit of info from Kiva’s website.

Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world. By choosing a loan on Kiva, you can “sponsor a business” and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the entrepreneur you’ve sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.

    While Shakespeare cautioned “neither a borrower or lender be,” the seeds of a bountiful future for many are being spread via a different kind of green goodness–cold hard cash. Spreading money to the right places can yield bountiful results.  And this, for both the giver and the receiver, is a very good thing.

    Is Carbon Labeling Good?

    Posted on by Drew Neisser

    The science of calculating the carbon footprint of any given retail product is tricky at best and downright guesswork at worse. That isn’t stopping UK retailing giant Tesco from trying to do just that for every product it sells. All 70,000 of them, from shoes to shampoo, parsley to plastic wrap. Business Week wrote about this in their story called Carbon Confusion leaving readers to decide whether or not this was a good idea.

    From a marketing standpoint, this is another great example of Tesco rewriting the rules for retailers. They have been innovators for a number of years and undoubtedly are scaring the pants of the folks in Bentonville especially as they look to expand in the US. Tesco decided to add carbon labeling because their customers asked for it. Simple as that. Most of the time if you give your customers what they want they’ll keep coming back.

    In this case, the added service of carbon labeling was not without its complications. Noodle maker Unilever noted that “our supply chain is constantly changing” making it difficult to calculate the carbon footprint of each spaghetti package. As Business Week reports:

    The idea was that the solitary numbers on the labels would make it easy for shoppers to compare products. In fact, each number represents a bewildering maze of “inputs,” such as how much fertilizer must be produced and spread to grow a bunch of parsley, how much gasoline is used to transport it from the farm, and the electricity required to make the plastic packages.

    Regardless of the exactness of the labels, I believe this effort is good business and ultimately good for the world.  It calls attention to simple issues like where products are made, how far they were shipped, how they are made and how they are packaged.  Heightened consciousness will force manufacturers to think about these things as much as cost per package since competitive advantage may now be gained on the green factor.  Though many manufacturers complained about Tesco’s efforts, others have used it to identify “hot spots” where energy is wasted, not a dumb idea when oil is exceeding a $100 a barrel.

    As for the risks of inaccuracy, I think consumers will take all this information with a grain of salt.  If their favorite brand is a few grams less efficient, my guess is their allegiance will remain.  However, if the differential between two otherwise equivalent brands is huge, then expect the less energy efficient brand to lose out.  Is this a bad thing?  Do we really need to drink water flown in from Fiji when a local source is just as good?

    Online Sunshine

    Posted on by Drew Neisser

    It’s rainy cats and dogs here in NYC, a perfect day for a little casual web surfing. Frankly, its something I don’t do enough of and have found it thoroughly entertaining and enlightening.

    My stops included about 20 different blogs including Noah’s sister’s (she’s blogging about blogs for her college thesis–oh those Briers!) and a Belgian site called BuzzingBee that posted a very funny Volkswagen ad that features a singing dog. Adverblog encouraged a visit to this “hearing test” from the Norwegian Red Cross, one of the cleverest appeals I’ve seen in a long time. They manage to get their message across in an entirely unexpected way–wonder if anyone will find it annoying–I can’t say more without ruining the experience for you.

    Speaking of Brier’s, Noah’s recent post on the new Modernista site is going to get a lot of agency heads thinking about their more conventional “who we are & what we do” sites. This one certainly shows they understand the Web 2.0 world. I just wonder if any prospective clients will find what they’re looking for–after about 5 minutes of trying, I couldn’t find one example of their work. Of course, this could be irrelevant since the cool factor probably tells the whole story. (20 minutes later) Realizing I probably overlooked something, I went back and found more navigational options in the upper left hand corner. There I located their mission statement, which I absolutely love:

    We believe brands are like people. They have hopes. Dreams. Personalities. Insecurities. But ultimately, brands want love, happiness and a long life just like the rest of us.

    And, not surprisingly, they develop relationships just like we do. In our experience, people fall in love with brands that know who they are, that have a clear point of view and aren’t afraid to express themselves.

    Our most fulfilling relationships are with ambitious brands who are enthusiastic and optimistic about the world they live in. Our mission is to make these brands matter.

    From there, I found myself on Laura Ries’ blog reading her thorough commentary on the Starbucks’ closing and her article called “By the numbers or by the brand.” Looking for a way to comment on her story, I ended up joining Newsvine and posted an extensive comment which begs the question, if a comment is posted in the blogosphere and no one is there to read it does that comment really exist? Gotta go walk the dog while you contemplate that one…

    Packaged Good?

    Posted on by Drew Neisser

    You know Marketing for Good has gone mainstream when the two largest consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies are battling it out to prove their goods are the most good. Here’s an excerpt from AdAge called “P&G Or Unilever: Which Is Best At Saving The World?”

    Nothing indicates the growing importance of “ethical marketing” more than the concept’s growing embrace by Procter & Gamble and Unilever, the world’s two biggest spenders. While both have been engaged in such efforts for years, they’re talking about them–and particularly advertising them– like never before.

    Bill Gates recently mentioned Unilever as a top-of-mind example of a company involved in sustainability efforts. The same day as Gates’ statement, P&G indicated it would make communication about its own sustainability efforts–defined to encompass a broad range of community-betterment programs–a much bigger priority in 2008.

    Though both P&G and Unilever see prospects for substantial gains from such efforts on their bottom lines and for the communities in which they operate, both acknowledge that much of the effort is for internal consumption. Simply put, it’s getting impossible to attract or retain marketers without a solid reputation for ethical marketing. Cause-marketing efforts have “a big motivational impact,” says P&G global marketing officer Jim Stengel. “It fires the agencies up, too.”

    CPG companies have traditionally been among the most sophisticated of marketers, refining their product, pricing, promotion and packaging with ever increasing efficiency. Typically, doing good fell into the “promotion” world and often meant cross-promotions that apportioned some percentage of profit to a particular charity. Now these efforts are turning inward as they try to well by doing good in every corner of their business. Whether they are doing this simply to boost morale and retention OR because the leaders of these companies simply believe it is the right thing to do, I’m delighted to witness this shift. It is a profound shift and will inevitably trickle down to other marketers who often following the lead of CPG companies. Or at least I hope so…