Author: Drew Neisser

Every once in a while, it is fun to chronicle the “greenrush” in action. Here are a few examples of companies rushing to make green by going green.

As reported by Environmental Leader, Best Buy announced this week that is going to build eco-friendly stores beginning in 2008:

Best Buy intends to build only eco-friendly stores, certified by the
USGBC through LEED Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal reports.
Best Buy announced the plan in its recently released
corporate responsibility report. According to the USGBC, if all Best
Buy stores were LEED certified, the retailer would cut its energy
use by approximately one-third.

Now, we move from green boxes to green bananas. As reported by Climate Biz, Dole is planning to making its entire banana and pineapple supply chain carbon neutral.

FONAFIFO and Dole, with $6.2 billion in 2006 revenue, will focus on
mitigation practices that increase carbon dioxide capture, such as
more efficient transportation methods, altering agricultural
processes to lower emissions and implementing preservation and
reforestation programs with Costa Rican farmers.

Not one to be left out of any party, SONY announced this month that is was going to offer recycling for old CE equipment. As reported by EFY Times (who knew?), Sony is partnering with Waste Management hoping to have 150 recycling centers in place within one year. And the good news for all you fans of other brands like Panasonic, SONY’s recycling centers will take any gear you’ve got… at “market prices”:

Sony Take Back Recycling Program, which begins on 15 Sep, allows
consumers to recycle all Sony-branded products for no fee at 75
Waste Management (WM) Recycle America eCycling drop-off centers
throughout the US.

Then there are the ad agencies that are practically turning green (with envy) as they compete for Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection assignment. As reported by AdAge,

Four elite agencies — Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Bartle Bogle
Hegarty, the Martin Agency and Y&R — are squaring off for the
business and are expected to present to the former vice president
himself early next month, according to executives familiar with the
review. The budget for the “historic, three-to-five-year, multimedia
global campaign,” as the request for proposals puts it, is
contingent on how much money the alliance raises. Media spending
will likely be more than $100 million a year.

I’m not trying to make light of any of these efforts and have no issue with any company that wants to make green by being green. That said, it does feel a bit like 1869, with everyone rushing West crying “there’s green in them there hills.”

Talk, as they say, is cheap. Actions speak volumes. Last week, instead of talking about doing good, an enthusiastic collection of Renegades did a little. We did this in the spirit of AND–do a little good AND build agency teamwork, do a little good AND celebrate our accomplishments AND perhaps most importantly, do a little good AND have some fun. In the process, we learned a lot about the agency, about our fellow Renegades and about the folks with whom we share this city.

Here’s a little more about the day from our EZ 2 B GOOD blog which chronicles the day and encourages more of the same:

EZ2BGood is rooted in one simple formula, being good = not hard. You
don’t have to be Bono, you just have to do even the smallest thing
and it could make someone’s day. We figure that all these little
things could add up to make life a little easier. So we tried our
little experiment and here are the results!

The conversion of company picnics and summer outings into community service projects is a growing trend. I wrote about this back in May and have subsequently learned of several other companies that take this approach. Digitas, for example, dedicated a day to helping repair a Bronx school working with the non-profit organization, Children for Children. IMG did the same.

With retention being a top priority for most companies, transforming the company picnic into a meaningful experience is a no brainer. I can tell you without exception, every Renegade who participated (unfortunately a few had to work through it) felt good about themselves and a bit better about the company that otherwise provides bi-monthly paychecks. It isn’t the whole answer to improving retention but it certainly is an EZ 1.

“Beware the braggart for thy comeuppance never sleeps” is how they might have said it in the scriptures if they had had a blog back then. But they didn’t. So I made that one up (further evidence that you should not believe everything you read especially in blogs especially about controversial subjects as you will see below).

The braggart on my mind is BP and their comeuppance is in the form of bad press that I’m sure kept a lot of BP execs awake from Chicago to London. The issue is BP’s desire to dump ammonia into Lake Michigan and the permit they obtained from the state of Indiana. BP, the active promoter of their efforts to move beyond petroleum and help make the world a little greener. Here’s a bit about the story from this week’s AdAge:

The move, which allows BP to dump 54% more ammonia and 35% more
suspended solids into the lake, enraged officials in the Windy City
and raised the specter of consumer boycotts of BP, which has its
U.S. base in Chicago.

Sounds bad, doesn’t it? Well maybe yes, maybe no. A bunch of comments on a Chicago Tribune blog note that BP played by the rules, various interests groups are fanning the flames for personal gain and that this is really a tempest in a teapot since there are far worse polluters than BP. Hmm. Lots of positive comments–how did that happen? Turns out BP paid bloggers to make positive statements as part of an aggressive regional marketing campaign to try to neutralize the issue.

Environmental blogs, on the other hand, went to town simply asking BP to “live up to its advertising.” The EPA eventually got involved offering BP seven ways it could help clean up Lake Michigan including:

1. Finance projects that reduce pollution from other companies
that discharge into the Grand Calumet River or Lake Michigan.
2. Divert all or some of the refinery’s wastewater to nearly
municipal treatment plants. The Hammond Sanitary District,
East Chicago Sanitary District and Gary Sanitary District are
options.
3. Pay for sewer upgrades in neighboring towns to keep sewage and
storm water out of Lake Michigan.
4. Set aside money to filter pollution that seeps into the lake.
Projects could include wetlands, shoreline restoration or
storm-water retention ponds…

That’s a lot of options. So many in fact that BP just announced a few hours ago that it wasn’t going to exercise its option to take a dump in the lake after all:

BP says
it will not invoke provisions of a new permit that allows it to
release significantly more ammonia and suspended solids into Lake
Michigan, The Chicago Tribune reports.
The move is a response to criticism
from politicians and the public. BP said it would abide by more
stringent limits in its previous permit as the company moves forward
with a $3.8 billion expansion of its Whiting, Ind., refinery.

Ironically, BP really had no choice. They had to back down or their truly innovative effort to lead the petroleum industry into greener pastures was at significant risk. As they say across the pond, “in for a pence, in for a pound.” If you brag about being green you better be green. If not, the green meanies will find you out and mercilessly hold you over the barrel until you turn green one way or another.

Stepped on a Times Square Shuttle train the other day and suddenly found myself underwater surrounded by gorgeous angle fish, luminescent coral and fluffy anenomes. I was all but drenched by the experience, a perfect set up for the Westin Hotels highly engaging “this is how it should feel” campaign. The experience continued in the corridors of Grand Central with multiple posters of beautiful vacation retreats from rain forests to secluded beaches. Some of the posters were lenticulars, showing how “rush hour” is in the city and how it should be on vacation.

The campaign by Deutsch has already received a lot of commentary in the trades and on blogs. A photo of one of the Times Square Shuttles that was turned into a rainforest was in AdAge this week. This travel industry blog shows a picture of one of their three dimensional billboards and provides a lot of details about the campaign including:

The campaign’s clever use of imagery and “environmental messaging”
literally and figuratively turns everyday negatives into positives,
transforming the mundane commute into an unexpected oasis. A busy
escalator, for example, is transformed into a rushing tropical
waterfall, while airport signage creates a mental link between
negatives like the frustration of delays and positives like the
exhilaration of surfers lined up waiting for the perfect wave. In
New York, an interactive Bluetooth billboard invites passersby to
download a soothing, original Westin ringtone because “renewal is
calling.”

Another travel related blog focuses on the print executions in this campaign:

Full-page ads—I saw one in The New Yorker—resemble perfume ads,
complete with a subtle fragrance residing under a sticky flap. A
single line of text over a photo of dewy leaves announces: “White
tea. The calming new scent of Westin.” … The scent in the magazine
ads will apparently be wafting through Westin hotels this spring.

Initially, I thought it might be a stretch to label this campaign Marketing for Good since on the surface it is simply an ad campaign with beautiful pictures. But on further reflection and successive 14 hour work days (like so many “work never stops” New Yorkers) , I came to truly appreciate their *inspiring* “personal renewal” message. I also suspect the power of this message will fill quite a few Westin hotel rooms. We simply can’t get enough reminders of the need to stop and smell the roses (or anemones).

With my plane delayed and my wireless down, I found myself subjected to a few minutes of Fox News last week at JFK. The two cheerfully dimwitted anchors were debating the merits of gathering health-related content online after relaying the “news” that 7 out of 10 people now look for health info online. While doing their best to scare people from searching even reputable sources, one of the anchors acknowledged that it wasn’t a terrible idea to do some homework before visiting a doctor. No #@&* Sherlock! Clearly, Fox News is not my source for expert advice, “fair and balanced” or otherwise.
Regardless of how some doctors might like to roll-back time, the cat is out of the bag. Consumers are information hungry and are taking to the web by the droves to learn everything they can about their particular ailment. Many are walking into doctors offices armed like never before with questions, self-diagnoses and even treatment options. This seismic shift in the balance of power between patient and doctor is part of the greater trend of consumer empowerment, a trend that a new website called People Jam.com hopes to leverage and encourage.

MediaPost reported about PeopleJam last Friday:

Fusing two of the hottest trends of the last 10 years, digital media
vets Robert Tercek and Matt Edelman are about to launch a self-help
social networking site named PeopleJam.

“PeopleJam is a place for individuals who want to get ahead of
life,” said Edelman, who is acting as the company’s CEO. “We’ve
built the first social media company that provides Internet users
with the means to figure out how to fit together the seemingly
disconnected parts of their lives.”

Since the sight hasn’t launched yet (maybe September?), it is a little tough to determine right now whether or not this site will truly *engage* consumers. The notion of aggregating experts from various fields and making them available to a specific interest groups makes a lot of sense to me. I can also tell you that their promise has Marketing for Good written all over it:

Our simple belief is that everyone deserves a great life. Our
ambitious goal is to provide the most comfortable place on the
Internet where that’s possible for you.

Marketers in a whole range of categories from financial planning to health care, fitness to travel, career planning to religion would be smart to check out PeopleJam.com. It also sounds like it will be a very advertiser friendly experience:

We look forward to doing business with you. When PeopleJam launches
publicly, we will offer a variety of programs for advertisers and
sponsors, but why wait? We’re in discussions now with leading brands
interested in being one of our exclusive launch sponsors, so if
you’re interested, let us know. Please complete our short form and we’ll contact you.

Good advice, medical or otherwise, is hard to find. Maybe the “experts” at PeopleJam will have the right stuff. Maybe not. We’ll see soon enough.

Easy Bikes

Hey everybody, Its David Castillo from Renegade filling in for Drew while he is on vacation. So lets get to some MFG action. My post du jour comes from the green sector again, this time its bicycle vending machines. The folks at Treehugger posted about this beautiful new system that could help cities become greener and healthier. This is what they had to say,

“Dutch design agency Springtime scooped up a Spark Design & Architecture Award this year for a concept that promotes efficiency in eco-friendly transport. Bike Dispenser units would ideally be placed in cities where bike rental/free bike exchange programs are promoted, allowing easy one-way journeys and convenient pick-up/drop-off locations in various neighborhoods, while also keeping everyone’s costs down. Riders pay a small fee to rent the bikes which are outfitted with RFID chips to track and log journeys. The nitty gritty of return conditions, repairs, and theft, aren’t clearly addressed, but it’s just in concept mode for now, after all.”

Even though all the rules aren’t worked out completely, this idea could be applied in so many other contexts beyond city use as well. For example, I could see a network of these also being useful for a university with a large campus. All the time at my alma mater kids used to drive from one side of campus to the other, it was ridiculous. Yet they didn’t really have too much of an alternative unless they walked. Yet if they had a convenient one-way bike system like this one, I bet it would *inspire* more than a few to change their habits.