See more videos at TakeMeFishing.org, a microsite from Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. RBFF’s mission is to increase participation in recreational angling and boating and thereby increase public awareness for protecting, conserving and restoring our nation’s aquatic resources.
Boulder’s tda advertising & design is helping 1% For the Planet get the word out.
Members of 1% For the Planet donate 1% of their sales to a network of 1500-plus environmental groups worldwide.
It may be an oversite, but I don’t see tda in the list of members. BTW, I just sent an email to the group to inquire if AdPulp might become a media partner, which means we’d run their ads and offer discounted rates to their members.
According to The Wall Street Journal, railroad companies are starting to market themselves as the ultimate eco-friendly, low-fuel-consuming industry.
For instance, a new CSX Corp. radio ad declares that even the most fuel-efficient hybrid car can’t compete with a train, which “can move a ton of freight 423 miles on a single gallon of fuel.”
“Too bad we can’t all drive a train,” the announcer says before urging listeners to visit CSX’s Web site to learn about the Jacksonville, Fla., company’s “commitment to protecting the environment.”
Freight trains now use much cleaner and more fuel-efficient diesel engines, and railroad companies are testing new engines that the industry is touting as “ultralow-emission.”
Many environmentalists acknowledge that the railroads have a powerful argument, given that freight trains burn far less fuel than trucks and can help reduce highway congestion.
I’ve never heard of Toms Shoes until a couple of minutes ago. I’m sorry to say I’m not attracted to their footwear, but I love where they’re going with their give-away concept.
[via Fresh Creation]
Myanmar, the nation formerly known as Burma, is in the news this week, as its military regime has seized United Nations food shipments in the wake of the devastating typhoon that has killed thousands of the nation’s citizens.
Fanista–a community for entertainment enthusiasts–is running a 30-day campaign, Burma: It Cant Wait, with the hope of “raising a million voices of support” for Burma.
Their campaign is one part disaster relief and another part pro-democracy advocacy. The Kardashian sisters, Sarah Silverman, Eddie Izard, Julie Benz and others are appearing in the campaign.
[via Make the Logo Bigger]
Adam Werbach is the global CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S. He formerly served as national president of the Sierra Club.
Here are some words he wrote for Ad Age:
Consumers are resisting the proliferation of “green” communications and products being pushed at them from all directions. The recent Cone/Boston College survey showed that more than half of American consumers are “overwhelmed” by the tsunami of environment-related messaging. Less than half trust companies to tell them the truth about sustainable practices and products. Even fewer consumers believe companies are accurately communicating their environmental impact.
We are witnessing green fatigue on a grand scale. This is a huge threat to everything the environmental movement has worked so hard for, that consumers have valued, and that manufacturers and marketers have struggled to deliver. It is also threatening the credibility — and sustainability — of the marketing industry itself. People with no technical expertise in the complex harmonies that sustainability demands, no capacity to help a company reinvent its products or processes, and no sense of urgency are promising quick fixes and cheap tricks.
Quick fixes and cheap tricks. Isn’t that the story of our industry’s life? Yes, I believe it is.
At any rate, Werbach proposes we move to blue. He says, “Green puts the planet at the center of the dialogue; blue puts people — consumers and shoppers — at the center.” Werbach’s blue has three pillars: Price, Purpose and Process.
David Roberts writing for Fast Company questions American’s zeal for overworking and measures the impact of this hyperactivity on the environment.
The United States leads the world in two categories: work and waste. American employees put in more hours and take fewer vacations than just about anyone else in the industrialized world, and our individual ecological “footprints” are much larger.
Coincidence? I think not. The way we work drives our habits of consumption and waste. The more we work, the more we drive, the more energy we burn, the more styrofoam to-go containers we use. At the end of the day, we’re so tired, we devour more takeout and TV, often falling asleep in front of the latter. If we want to accelerate the recent trend of reducing waste, it may be time to consider the radical step of, well, relaxing more, consuming less, and living fuller lives. May the Wall Street Journal editorial board strike me down.
I’d love to hear your responses to this. The agency business isn’t exactly known for lightweight workloads. In fact, I’d venture that some shops are proud of their sweatshop reputations (sick though it is, such reputations prevent laggards from even applying).
Rolling Stone has an in-depth interview with Dr. Larry Brilliant, the man running Google DotOrg, the philanthropic arm of the search giant.
DotOrg is not just another corporate philanthropy — it’s a bold experiment in philanthropy itself. Its uniqueness begins with its structure. Unlike most foundations, DotOrg has no endowment in the traditional sense and no external board. It was funded with an initial grant of 3 million shares of Google stock, currently valued at $1.3 billion, and a promise of one percent of the company’s profits each year. Its goal is not simply to give away traditional grants like the nonprofits of yore but also to allow Google to invest money in projects that have the potential to do good and turn a profit at the same time. “We have a tremendous amount of flexibility,” Brilliant says. “We can give away grants like a traditional foundation, or we can invest in new companies or even start companies of our own.”
Brilliant calls this approach a “hybrid philanthropy.” In the Old World, the essential dynamic of corporate giving was extract, exploit, get rich, then pass out nickels to charity to atone for past sins. In the New World, Google wants to sink those nickels into clean-energy ventures and promising entrepreneurs in the developing world. “Yes, there may be profit from that,” Brilliant acknowledged recently. “But the real reason for doing it isn’t to make a profit. It’s because business is a better engine for creating jobs than aid.”
Brilliant offered his medical services to the Native Americans who occupied Alcatraz in 1969, he helped eradicate smallpox in India, co-founded Seva and The Well and was friends with Jerry Garcia.
According to Greenpeace, Unilever is speeding up climate change by buying palm oil from companies busy destroying Indonesia’s rainforests to make way for palm oil plantations.
Unilever uses palm oil to make Dove soap and other products.
It’s important to do cause-related marketing right. The best way to do it is to find a natural tie to the brand. Häagen-Dazs, with the help of Goodby Silverstein & Partners, has achieved this with their new Help The Honey Bees campaign.
For an overview of the environmental problem, see this 2007 New York Times article.
Have y’all seen this?
These spots are running a lot right now.
If you had $300 million to do an ad campaign for environmental awareness, would you put these two in a commercial? Or Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi?
Once upon a time I helped to orchestrate a deal between Calistoga Mineral Water and American Rivers, where I worked on the development team. So, I know firsthand what it means to bring corporate dollars to an environmental group. The basic premise is tread carefully, so as not to upset the dues-paying grassroots members of the group.
According to sources, Sierra Club may have glossed over that key point when it struck a deal with Clorox, maker of Green Works, a “green” product line of household cleansers. The agreement includes a Sierra Club endorsement on Green Works’ packaging.
Given that Sierra Club members and other environmentalists have been battling chlorine pollution for years, this fit seems unnatural at best. Sierra Club activists in Florida have been particularly outspoken about the matter and now find their “keep it clean” hands slapped by Sierra Club mucky mucks.
The Sierra Club’s national board voted March 25 to remove the leaders of the Club’s 35,000-member Florida chapter, and to suspend the Chapter for four years. It was the first time in the Club’s 116-year history that such action has been taken against a state Chapter.
The leadership of the Florida Chapter had been highly critical of the national board’s decision in mid-December 2007 to allow The Clorox Company to use the Sierra Club’s name and logo to market a new line of non-chlorinated cleaning products called “Green Works.” In return, Clorox Company will pay Sierra Club an undisclosed fee, based partly on product sales. The Clorox Company logo will appear on the products as well.
A 2004 report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund named The Clorox Company as one of the nation’s most chemically dangerous.
Florida in the house!
The Guardian has more on the story.
A few days ago I was wondering about P&G’s FSIs and what, if anything, they had to do with content. In order to extend the dialogue on this topic, High Jive kindly clipped the following images from yesterday’s paper and sent them AdPulp’s way.
Here’s what High Jive is saying about these content-infused FSIs:
P&G has been taking a “magalog†approach to their FSIs, attempting to make them feel like brochures. I know some people at Upshot in Chicago, one of the agencies where these things are produced. I have no idea if the public even reads or notices the “branded content,†as I suspect more people are only interested in clipping the coupons. Not even sure it’s right to call it “branded content.â€
I’d call it “cause-related marketing” before I’d go to the “branded content” phraseology. Either way, it’s more than a simple price pitch.
Google, a company which vows to do no evil, tonight “went dark” to support World Wildlife Fund’s “Earth Hour.”
Will you choose SunChips because they’re made with solar power? The Frito-Lay division of PepsiCo certainly hopes so.
According to The New York Times, a 10-acre “farm†of solar collectors is being installed at the Modesto, Calif. plant, to provide up to 75 percent of the energy needed to produce the product.
The plant, one of seven in the United States that make SunChips, is scheduled to start using solar power on Earth Day, April 22, as part of ambitious efforts by Frito-Lay and PepsiCo to convince consumers that the companies care about the environment.
Those measures include buying renewable energy credits, a move that is being promoted on packages of SunChips. The company is also rethinking manufacturing processes to use less water and power and is installing fuel-efficient ovens.
This effort seems sincere, and from a branding perspective you couldn’t find a more perfect product than SunChips. Solar is built in to the snack’s identity.
[NOTE] We previously posted about PepsiCo’s efforts in this area last November.
Brandweek has an upsetting piece on greenwashing.
Seventh Generation, Method and other leading personal care and cleaning brands may soon face lawsuits if they don’t remove the word “organic” from their labeling and marketing by Sept. 1. The ultimatum comes following a recent investigation by the Organic Consumers Assn., which uncovered a potentially carcinogenic contaminant in various products.
The OCA investigated nearly 100 organic cosmetic, personal care and household cleaning formulas, and found that nearly 50% of them contain detectable levels of 1,4-dioxane, which is known to cause cancer in lab animals. None of the manufacturers disclosed this information on their labels, even though many had levels greater than 1,000 times the acceptable level.
The biggest offenders were the “natural” dish detergents, including Citrus Magic 100% Natural Dish Liquid, Earth Friendly Products Ultra Dishmate, Method Dish Naturally Derived Ultra Concentrate, Planet Ultra Dishwashing Liquid and Seventh Generation Natural Dish Liquid.
Brands found not to contain 1,4-dioxane include Burt’s Bees, Clorox Green Works, Avalon Organics and Dr. Bronner’s.
If you’d like a free sticker, send a standard-sized self addressed stamped envelope to:
Hug Nation
PO Box 264
Solana Beach CA 92075
Efficiency Vermont wants Green Mountain staters to buy lots of compact fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs. So much so the advocacy group turned to Burlington agency, Kelliher Samets Volk for a TV, print and interweb campaign called New Bulb In Town.
The goal is to sell 600,000 CFLs in Vermont this year. In other words, one for every resident.
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