Hasta La Creative!

You know “green marketing” is getting more sophisticated when it includes a subtle attempt to hamstring a brand’s competitors. That’s one aspect of Salada Tea’s new “Unbottle Your Tea” campaign (created by Salada’s marketing agency, the Pinckney Hugo Group of Syracuse, N.Y.), which emphasizes the many virtues of drinking fresh-brewed rather than bottled tea. Along with telling you about the superior health benefits and lower cost of fresh-brewed tea, the Web site includes a petition consumers can sign that urges Congress to enact the Bottle Recycling Climate Protection Act. That bit of environmentalist legislation would mandate a five-cent deposit on all beverage containers, including those for tea and water. Needless to say, this would be a blow to Salada’s bottled-tea rivals. Nothing like saving the planet and sinking your competitors in one fell swoop.

—Posted by Mark Dolliver