Author: Drew Neisser

Grey launched an interesting initiative called Green-it-Forward a few months ago with the hopes that they could *inspire* our industry to be greener. They started with their own internal green efforts which I have summarized below:

* Implementing comprehensive recycling program;
* Using Energy Star approved office equipment;
* Consolidating printers & servers to reduce equipment use by 30%;
* Switching to recyclable & biodegradable office products;
* Encouraging employees to walk, bike or use mass transit;
* Working with their cafeteria to use more locally grown foods;
* Reducing travel by encouraging tele-conferences and file sharing;
* Promoting volunteerism in community environmental efforts.

This is a really good list for just about any company. Many of the elements require modest effort by the employees and where effort is required it is encouraged with things like group discounts on bikes and extra time off for volunteering. But Grey hopes to do more than simply get its employees involved. They want to get the entire ad community *engaged* in the conversation. Thus far, only one non-Grey agency has joined this effort (a branding firm called Ologie which has its own list of 20 things it is doing to be green.)

Why have so few agencies joined with Grey’s Green-it-forward initiative? Maybe they just haven’t heard of it. Maybe they don’t see the value. Or maybe we are all just too darn competitive to unite. My guess is that it is some combination of these reasons with the last being foremost. Frankly, I’m a little reluctant to add Renegade’s name to the list though I will leave it to our Green Team ultimately to decide. I’m sure other agency heads share my reservations about aligning on a Grey site BUT would like to see our industry come together to fight green washing and promote green living. We communicators must join this battle in full force. We just need to figure out where.

We’re doing some work for a smart start-up out of India called iYogi.net that provides highly personalized customer support for PC owners. They offer a number of service plans including a flat rate of $99 for a year’s worth of help and thus far their service resolution rates (84%) and overall customer satisfaction ratings (93%) are amazing. I believe these folks are really doing good everyday, helping the otherwise helpless out of one PC jam or another. My favorite part of the service is that once they’ve completed a successful call, the technician says “good karma” to their very grateful customer.
Here’s a little bit more about iYogi from their website:

Headquartered in India, iYogi provides computer support via phone
and remote access for home and small business users globally. Live
24/7 support coverage extends to technologies that we use everyday.
iYogi was founded by a highly experienced team in India that is
passionate about raising the bar on service quality.

iYogi recently enhanced their offering with a “Green PC Initiative.” What’s smart about this program is that is helps all you PC owners (I’m a Mac guy) do a little good without really doing much. Here’s what Vishal Dihar, co-founder of iYogi.net, told me about this service:

While our service is to help make PC usage more energy efficient,
people need help with purchase, disposal and recycling. The online
website enables them to do that and will eventually be a resource
guide for consumers who need assistance while buying or upgrading
their machine. Most consumers are not aware that these options exist
for their PC. We hope to customize these options for all our
existing customers and through online marketing reach many more
computer users.

With most of us seeking big and little ways we can help the environment, having a “green PC” is indeed the PC (politically correct) thing to do. Good karma to you.

I’ve talked a lot on these pages about the opportunity for marketing to move from talking at consumers to providing them with a genuine service. One of the best examples I’ve seen of this is Nike+, a program designed to help runners be runners. The Nike+ program has been around for awhile and something I have a lot of heart for since Renegade helped Nike set up the runners club in New York several years ago.

The New York Times had a great article on this program last Sunday noting why Nike is taking this approach:

“It’s a very different way to connect with consumers,” says Trevor
Edwards, Nike’s corporate vice president for global brand and
category management. “People are coming into it on average three
times a week. So we’re not having to go to them.”

Last year, Nike spent just 33 percent of its $678 million United
States advertising budget on ads with television networks and other
traditional media companies. That’s down from 55 percent 10 years
ago, according to the trade publication Advertising Age.

Behind the shift is a fundamental change in Nike’s view of the role
of advertising. No longer are ads primarily meant to grab a person’s
attention while they’re trying to do something else — like reading
an article. Nike executives say that much of the company’s future
advertising spending will take the form of *services for consumers*,
like workout advice, online communities and local sports competitions.

The article also notes that Nike is not alone in this approach:

…many large marketers are taking huge chunks of money out of their
budgets for traditional media and using the funds to develop new,
more direct interactions with consumers — not only on the Internet,
but also through in-person events.

The Nike+ program is also smart in the way it seamlessly blends physical brand experiences (the runs) with virtual brand experiences (the Nike+ website). Both experiences are important and support the other. Of course, you can not have a running program without physically running so the running clubs are at the heart of its success. This physical interactions also create the opportunity for Nike’s running experts to counsel runners on running and the importance of proper footwear. One dedicated Nike+ participant noted that a Nike counselor really helped her:

At a recent Tuesday night gathering, Linda Martello, 34, an
executive assistant, said she was grateful to Nike. After she
injured one of her calf muscles, she said, a Nike coach helped her
figure out that she was wearing the wrong shoes. (She, of course,
bought a pair of Nikes.)

At the risk of beating you over the head with the idea of Marketing as Service, here’s another quote from a Nike rep on why they are investing their dollars in the Nike+ program:

“We want to find a way to enhance the experience and services,
rather than looking for a way to interrupt people from getting to
where they want to go,” said Stefan Olander, global director for
brand connections at Nike. “How can we provide a service that the
consumer goes, ‘Wow, you really made this easier for me’?”

Right now many CMO’s are about to lose their jobs because they can’t demonstrate ROI. The reason for this is that many CMO’s continue to focus on marketing as messaging and not marketing as service. Messaging is an intangible. Service is tangible. Messaging is a monologue. Service is a conversation or better yet a satisfying *engagement*. Messaging is a one-way ticket to nowhere. Service is a round trip to the Marketing for Good hall of fame.

Marketing for Good turns 1 next week. One year of chronicling how select marketers are trying to do well by doing good. One year of monitoring cause marketing, corporate social responsibility efforts and all things green. 220 or so posts later, I’m happy to report that it has been worth the effort. I’ve made a lot of new friends, honed my POV and learned to write really really fast. I’ve even been approached by PR types who wanted me to write about their clients which was both flattering and unsettling.

As a birthday present to MFG, I’m delighted to join Blogger Action Day and focus today’s column on green. First, I wanted to highlight a few of my recent MFG posts on green activities:

* Ericcson’s Green Tower of Power
* The Battle over Clotheslines
* BMW’s Hydrogen Car
* Starbuck’s Green Game
* CPG’s downsize packaging to be more green
* The risks of over-stating your greenness

Then I wanted to share the highlights of a conversation I had last week with the CMO of a large food manufacturer. He and his company will remain confidential for the moment as I still need to convince him to take his company’s Green story public (so let’s just call them Company G for now). The story is a good one made all the more remarkable by the fact that they haven’t promoted any of this to their customers.

A few years ago Company G decided to go as green as they could without breaking the bank. They looked at every element of their manufacturing and distribution process. They started to use rugged pallets (fiberglass?) which could be reused over and over again versus the cheaper wooden ones that usually break-down after a couple of shipments. They examined their packages and eliminated as much waste as possible including plastic lids for yogurt. 85% of their packaging comes from recycled materials. They talked Wal-Mart into taking an 8-pack instead of 6-pack which increased packing efficiencies and decreased shipping costs. They did more and I will be sure to write about them more once they are ready to share it all. Turns out Company G is also addressing a number of health related issues including shifting to hormone-free milk for all its dairy products, not just those they make for Whole Foods.

I asked the CMO if he had considering telling the world about their Green efforts. He said “you know, we’ve just been doing it and are probably too close to it to recognize the promotional opportunities.” Interesting. Could it be that the companies that are sincerely going Green are the ones that are too busy to talk about it? Conversely, could it be that the ones that are actively promoting their greenness aren’t sincerely committed? I have often cautioned about greenwashing on this blog noting that over-promising and under-delivering would we discovered and appropriately ridiculed. But over-delivering and under-promising feels like a lost opportunity. Not just for the company but the world we share.

Every Green claim is a gauntlet thrown. Every Green claim leads to a potential competitive advantage that other companies will have to consider matching. Green claims beget Green awareness beget genuine change. A recent study by the organizers of the Good and Green Conference noted that more than 66 of Americans believe that “doing well by doing good is a savvy business strategy” as reported on Associated Content. Here’s a bit more on this conference:

The Good and Green Conference [November 29-30 in Chicago] is the
green marketing conference designed to teach mainstream marketing
professionals how to tap into the benefits of green marketing
without greenwashing.

The conference further supports the notion behind today’s Blogger Action Day:

According to these Web 2.0 experts, bloggers and social media sites
have helped drive the niche environmental movement of the early
Earth Days into mainstream audience discussions across the world.
They also believe that green is the new color of a company’s bottom
line.

It’s nice to know it all adds up. Many voices make a chorus, many choruses make a movement. The Green movement is as undeniable as it is complex. All I know is that we marketers need to join the movement now. With all our collective might, we can do well for our brands and of course, do some good for the world we share.

I’ve been watching a lot of baseball over the past week or so, as the Yankees battled Cleveland in the AL Division Series. While I don’t want to dwell on the outcome of the series (other than to say–see ya Joe), one thing did catch my eye. There was a Captain Morgan spot that aired frequently throughout the broadcasts which featured a couple of enterprising guys who found a way to get home safely after a night out and get their late night snack at the same time.

In the commercial, the two guys leave a bar, go into a pizza place, and order a pizza for delivery. We then see that they are catching a ride home with the bewildered pizza delivery man. In short, they are getting a late night snack and a free (and safe) ride home to boot. When they get back to their house, we are reminded to always designate a driver.

This Captain Morgan spot is not only selling the brand (”Got A Little Captain In You”), it’s also encouraging responsible drinking. Diageo, who owns the Captain Morgan brand, develops similar responsibility communications across many of their brands.

From the Diageo website:

A key component of our strategy is to promote a shared understanding
of what it means to drink responsibly. For this reason, we have
developed a range of branded advertisements whose core objective is
to deliver a responsible consumption message. Different
advertisements have been developed for different cultures including,
the UK, Thailand, Ireland, Australia, the USA, Spain and the
Netherlands. In the USA for example, we spend 20% of our broadcast
advertising budget on branded responsibility advertisements.

Other than possibly upsetting pizza delivery people, who may now be ferrying their customers home as a result of the Captain Morgan spot, this is an entertaining example of Marketing for Good. Diageo is undoubtedly hoping that they can sell more product and encourage responsible drinking at the same time. It is a marketing tightrope for all purveyors of adult beverages but one that Captain Morgan has managed to handle quite nicely. Perhaps the Captain’s experience walking planks is coming in handy. Regardless, we think this is an *enlightened* approach.

Check out this photo of the Ericsson Tower Tube–a stunning example of Swedish design, which is not only attractive but also amazingly energy efficient. Here’s more on this bizarre structure that is not likely to be in the US real soon but would be more attractive than those giant metal towers with fake tree branches:

The Ericsson Tower Tube is an innovative construction that houses
base stations and antennas, fully encapsulating them in an
aesthetic, energy-efficient and environmentally friendly tower. It
employs cutting-edge design and building materials, and can be built
in a variety of shapes and sizes, with customized finishes that make
it a natural fit for any landscape.

Turns out Ericsson is leading the green way in the telecom world:

Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC), the world’s leading telecommunications
supplier, was honored as “Best in Class” in its approach to climate
change disclosure in a report released by the Carbon Disclosure
Project (CDP), a coalition of over 315 global investors with more
than USD 41 trillion in assets. Ericsson was the only
telecommunications supplier and Swedish company to be named in the
leadership index.

Ericsson is not shy about praising themselves for this effort:

Ericsson threw out the rule book to create the Tower Tube. It
embraced revolutionary thinking and cast aside established
conventions to transform an extraordinary idea into reality.

Hopefully their immodesty is justified.