Have been out of action for a couple of days watching the action at the Panasonic Open (AST Dew Tour) down in Baltimore. If you have never seen action sports in person, I highly recommend it especially if you kids. The sheer athleticism is astounding. On Friday, teen phenom, Ryan Sheckler, dazzled the crowd with his patented “Shecklair” move (and new tattoo) as he won the skateboarding park competition. On Saturday, Olympic gold winner Shaun White, showed why he is one of most versatile and talented athletes anywhere, skying high to victory in the skateboarding “Vert” half-pipe challenge. And on Sunday, Nate Adams death-defying flips on a 250 pound motorcycle proved once again that FMX (freestyle motocross) simply must be seen in person to be appreciated.
Being down there also alerted me to a new phrase among teens–”what’s good?” It’s the equivalent to “what’s up?” but far hipper. It came up as I was texting my teen daughter that my son and I were hangin’ with Ryan Sheckler at Circuit City (he was there on behalf of Renegade client Panasonic). Her response was “tell Ry what’s good.” Ryan was way too busy signing autographs for his adoring fans and fending off marriage proposals to tell me what’s good. Subsequently my daughter warned that if I were to use that phrase in public, she’d disown me (sorry Em). Nonetheless, the phrase “what’s good?” resonated as on-going issue for this blogger–case in point, a New York Times article today on Home Depot.
As I wrote about before, Home Depot has developed a designation for eco-friendly products it calls Eco Options. The article points out that it is not always easy to tell “what’s good” as so many marketers try to jump on the green gravy train.
“In somebody’s mind, the products they were selling us were environmentally friendly,” said Ron Jarvis, a Home Depot senior vice president who oversees the Eco Options program. But not in his mind.
“Most of what you see today in the green movement is voodoo marketing,” he added. “If they say their product makes the sky bluer and the grass greener, that’s just not good enough.”
By the standards of Mr. Jarvis — who fertilizes his own home garden with a liquefied worm waste product packaged in recycled soda bottles and fills his swimming pool with salt water to avoid putting chlorine into the environment — only 2,500 of the products made the cut.
That’s out of 176,000 products that Home Depot sells and 60,000 that tried to qualify. Since sales of Eco Options are up 10% since the program launched in April, Home Depot can expect lots of pressure from their suppliers to gain this designation. Home Depot will need to fend off this pressure in order for the program to maintain its integrity. (NOTE: Eco Options is one of the few programs out there providing quantifiable evidence that promoting green is in fact Marketing for Good; doing good for the brand and hopefully the world.)
As other marketers seek growth by turning green, they should do so with as much integrity as they can muster. False claims of greenness will inevitably be “outed” and the claimant suitably pummeled by blogging watchdogs. Standards are being developed in various categories and marketers will need to meet/exceed these or work with their industry to develop better ones. With so much green to be had by going green, the risks of “voodoo marketing” need to be severe. We consumers should have no doubt as to “what’s good?”