The Meatrix- How Does this relate to green-branding?

One of the most successful viral videos of all time (with over 15 million views) promotes a vegetarian lifestyle and sustainable foods while criticizing large scale agri-business and factory farms.  Its called The Meatrix.

It is aimed at educating people about the effects of large-scale factory farms in a way that is entertaining and accessible to all audiences of all ages (and most nationalities, its been translated into 39 different languages). It was created by Free Range Studios, a "messaging firm" that also created the shorts "The Story of Stuff" and "Store Wars". It seems that the goal of Free Range Studios is to get to educate and motivate people to action with their funny (if cheesy) short films.

So what does this have to do with green branding? It shows how a small independent media producer like Free Range Studios can educate large numbers of people using only the internet and viral video campaigns.

It also emphasizes a particular trend of more educated consumers, people who are starting to wonder where their food comes from. People are starting to pay attention to the impact that their food is having and are starting to think that there is a better way to do things than the "conventional" one.

This trend is gaining ground. There have been a number of  documentaries discussing food origins: King  Corn,  Fast Food Nation and popular novels such as "An Omnivoure's Dilema".

What does this mean for us as advertisers? More educated consumers that are demanding better products from better companies.

Is Ford Legitimately Going Green?

It's out of the norm for me to praise car companies for their green efforts. Usually I am calling bullshit on "green" marketing efforts for automobiles, because if there is any industry that is unsustainable and problem causing it is the automobile industry.

I am, however, beginning to changing my tune when it comes to Ford. Talking to Adam Werbach the other day made me realize that even the most unsustainable industries can benefit from adopting sustainable practice and Ford's efforts are hard to ignore.

I'll start with their latest "green dealership program" which you can read about at TreeHugger and at the Rocky Mountain Institute (who is teaming up with Ford on this project). 


I agree that this voluntary program to make Ford dealerships more energy efficient is a smart step for Ford to make. As the RMI article talks about, this is going to be beneficial to these dealerships not only in terms of energy and $$$ saving but also as a touch point for green consumers looking to support a domestic car company when they buy a new car.

When it comes to sustainability, companies need to be thinking how they can be sustainable on a large scale and one effort is really not enough. But Ford seems to be making multiple efforts. Working with William McDonough, they designed and built world's largest green roof at their Kentucky facility.

They have begun retrofitting (and spending big $$$) their Wayne, Michigan plant in order to start producing "next-generation hybrids" and batteries to go with them. They have also made a serious effort to design car software in order to have a better infrastructure for plug-in electrics. Ford is also making an effort to increase the MPG of all their vehicles and is offering more fuel-efficient models than they ever have.

Other than their "green" efforts Ford has also made efforts to become more socially sustainable. They  famously declined to take bail-out money and have been moving a lot of production back to the U.S. This is creating jobs and helping to eliminate our high unemployment.

Ford, as the strongest of the American car manufacturers, is beginning to see that the future of the automobile industry is going to be much different from the past and are beginning to make efforts to embrace this new future.

I am of course not without my criticisms. Ford is talking a lot of "green" and are doing it a bit prematurely. They still produce their fair share of gas-guzzling SUVs and large trucks with low MPG and they are still a polluting car manufacturer. However, at least they seem to be making a legitimate effort to enact some sustainable changes. I hope that they will one day become a leader in green car production and will put the U.S.  on the map as a producer of better automobiles.

Adam Werbach in Person (kinda)

Wednesday in class we got to meet face to video screen with Adam Werbach.  Here's a couple of takeaways I got from our interaction:

• Like record companies and purveyors of gas-guzzling SUVs (Ahem..GM), The old advertising industry is dying a rapid death. Due to the availability of information and the ability to broadcast your opinions to the world, people are calling bullshit on advertising to the point where it is affecting sales. People just don't want to be "sold" to anymore. Sustainability has the potential to save the advertising industry by making agencies the purveyors of change, not pushers of products.
• "The best tool you have is knowing nothing" Werbach emphasized having an opoen mind and that the new generation of advertsing (us) have an advantage because we are not stuck doing things "the old way." We can be mentally and creativly flexible. These are essentails if you want to push change.
• "Greenwashing is bad marketing" and is also dying a rapid death for most of the same reasons that the old ways of advertising are dyding. You just cant trick people anymore.
• Sustainability starts within a business long before they should communicate about it. The time to communicate about a companies sustainability is at the "point of no return." This is when a company has integrated sustainability deeply in their business and have made capital investments which guarntee they follow through. The "point of no return" is a different time for every compnay.
• While Werbach said there are a few industries that are "inherently evil" namely, oil, tobacco, and bottled water companies, the majority of currently unsustainable businesses can benefit from adopting sustainable practices. Yes, even companies like Wal-Mart and McDonalds. 
• Regarding sustainable practices, companies are not asking the question, "should we do this?" but "how do we do this?" This is a big shift from just a few years back.
• Despite is flaws, our current industrial/economic model has done much to bring about social/economic justice and well-being to large numbers of people. This model needs to be "re-energized" with sustainability (social, economic, environmental, and cultural) guiding it, if it is going to continue being successful.

One thing that I've been thinking about a lot lately is how the relationship between ad agency and client is changing. Talking to Werbach helped me realize that agencies need to work very closely with their clients in order for them to promote their sustainable practices.

So closely that maybe the agency model needs to be changed. I think that in the years to come we will see that internal client-side advertising/sustainability initiatives will take off as opposed to ad agency-based external ones. It seems that Saatchi S, Enviromedia, etc. are now occupying a niche in the agency world that is going to soon go mainstream and may even disappear. Just a thought, but I am interested in seeing where things are going to go!

Thank you Adam Werbach for the inspiration and insight!

Green Branding Beer

I am a huge fan of micro-brews and particularly Oregon ones. I do the beer buying at my job and have noticed recently that more and more breweries are branding themselves, or particular beers, as green. Not surprisingly Portland, home of more breweries than any other city in the nation (source), is leading the charge with sustainable breweries, notably Hopworks Urban Brewery and Laurelwood.

Hopworks Urban Brewery (HUB) brings together three things I love, bikes, beer, and sustainability. They call themselves an "eco-pub" and source local and organic ingredients to make their beer (and serve at their restaurant). Wuth HUB being founded by a bunch of bike nuts, its not surprising that sustainability is one of their core values. They have even created a pedal-powered "bar-bike" so they can support events without having to drive to them.

HUB has an additional list of things they are doing to be more green, besides being organic, listed on their website. It seems that have put considerable thought into making thier brewery as sustainable as they can.

Laurelwood was the first Oregon brewery to produce 100% organically certified beers. While not striving to be a sustainable brew-pub like HUB is. They are leaders in the organic beer movement and make one of my favorite beers Free-Range Red. On a social sustainability level, Laurel wood also produces Prevail IPA, with proceeds of this beer going to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Both of these breweries are exceptional and in perfect positions to brand themselves as green. They are 100% organic from the ground up and have sustainable thinking throughout their businesses. Its not surprising that, even though their beer are a bit more expensive (about $4.70 for a 22oz bottle), they have been very successful and both breweries have recently expanded their bottle and keg distribution areas.

Yet Another Interesting Transportation Trend: Car Sharing is Booming

When gas prices hit a record high in 2008 people began to think a bit harder about transportation. To deal with this unexpected rise in oil prices some people bought more fuel efficient vehicles, some people started using public transportation, some started riding a bike, and others began to car-share. According to this article at Treehugger a lot of people began to car-share. Most people did it to save money but others were interested in helping the environment and lengthening the time we have before oil runs out.

I found this really interesting because Portland has a very successful car share program, Zipcar, with strange and awesome branding. They mostly highlight how Zipcar can save you money and help the environment but they are doing some quirky things like naming their cars and giving them personalities. Zipcar is definitely one sweet green brand with an eye on sustainability.

To go along with my last post they are also a kick ass service-based company that decreases consumption of one of the biggest purchases people make, automobiles. If that Treehugger article is right I see big growth for the Zipcar folks.

Kevin Tuerff from Enviromedia: How do we sell less consumption?

Last Monday Kevin Tuerff from Enviromedia came and spoke to my Green Branding class and I just wanted to touch on a few of his insights.

 

First off Kevin is the founder of the first "green branding" agency, EnviroMedia. He came to our class with challenges relating to the future of sustainable advertising/business and asked the question: How would you sell?

Wine in a keg (to eliminate the waste of glass wine bottles)

Boats powered by hydrogen (to eliminate water pollution related to boat fuel)

Lawn irrigation that uses treated waste water (to conserve water)

A brand of electric car charging stations (to build a electric car infrastructure)

Roof top shingle-solar panels (for home power generation)

And perhaps the toughest question of all: 

How do you sell less consumption?

This is the question that has had my attention a lot lately. I don't think it is a contradictory idea. It would require in how business does business but I think it is a possible goal. These are the two biggest changes that need to happen before we can start to sell "less consumption."

The first thing that would need to change is how products are produced. In a time of rapid technological change companies need to start designing products that can be upgraded,  thus creating products that never become technologically obsolete.You could then advertise not the new product, but the new upgrade, thus not advocating for more consumption. This could virtually eliminate "e-waste" and would create greater customer loyalty to a particular brand. A win for business and the environment.

The second thing, a concept discussed by Paul Hawken in Natural Capitalism, is a much needed shift from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy. To explain this I'll use my favorite example: Zerox. Zerox doesn't really sell copiers anymore, they rent them and provide service for them (and do upgrades). The Zerox copier has shifted from being a manufactured product to a service product. again this is a win win. Zerox saves money in the manufacturing process, businesses save money and time (not having to purchase a copier, and not having to call that repair guy in a week to fix it). Again it, is a product that can be advertised for its ability to decrease consumption and provide a win-win for businesses and manufacturers.

So that, Mr. Tuerff, is the answer to your question about how we sell less consumption. By being more creative, of course!

Organic Ceritifications: What Do They Mean?

So I've been curious about organic certifications and how/if the different ones use different criteria. This was prompted by my interest in doing a campaign for Oregon Tilth with a few colleagues and we needed to find out what differentiates one organic certification from the next. So I did a bit of research, and here are 4 of the major organic certifications that are used in the western U.S. and how they are different and the same.

OTCO: Oregon Tilth uses the Organic certifications laid out by the USDA's National Organic Program and certifies crop production, wildcrop harvesting, livestock production, and handling production (such as restaurants). Oregon Tilth also provides certifications for a number of different organic certification programs including the European and Canadian ones.  Oregon Tilth, however, is more than just a certification agency they are also a nonprofit organization that provides education and advocacy for organic farms and farmers. Some of the companies certified organic by OTCO include: Organically Grown Company, Kettle Chips,  Annie's Homegrown,     Organic Valley and Laurelwood brewery.


CCOF: California Certified Organic Farming was one of the first organic certification programs. It has its own guidelines for organic certification but it is also recognized by the USDA program. CCOF also has a trade association and a foundation which is concerned with education, research, and advocacy. Interestingly CCOF was originally a group of farmers that had their own published standards and certified each other. Also their standards were the foundation for the USDA ones.


QAI: Quality Assurance International is a U.S. based organic certification program and is "the leading provider of organic certifications worldwide." Again it uses the USDA's criteria for certifying organic products. They certify a (very) long list of different companies.

OCIA: This is one that I'd never heard of before starting my research.  The Organic Crop Improvement Association provides Organic certifications and "access to organic markets." They seem like the most international of the organic certification organizations I looked at and are accredited by the USDA, IFOAM, JAS, CARTV, and MAG. They have been around since 1985 and are a non-profit, and member owned "agricultural organization" which is again concerned with education and research. They also certify a huge number of different producers and products.

Conclusion: Well by comparing these four programs I yielded way more similarities than differences (at least with the criteria that I chose to compare them with). They are all non-profits, they all go by USDA organic standards,  have active research and education campaigns and are all member controlled. This is awesome becasue it means that the different organizations are all cerifying to the same standards, guarantying that the porducts are actually organic. They seem like they are unified in their quest to produce better organic products and educate consumers and are not in direct competition with one another. They also all seem to serve their own regions even if they are international.

I think that if I dug a bit deeper I would find bigger differences associated with costs, scale and etc. but at least the most important fact to consumers, quality of certification, seems to be excellent across the board.

FTC Takes Action Against Companies Making False Green Claims

I just saw this article on The Greenwashing Index and thought that it was deserving of a little discussion.

Here is the first paragraph of the article, which lays down the situation:

"The Federal Trade Commission has charged four sellers of clothing and other textile products with deceptively labeling and advertising these items as made of bamboo fiber, when they are made of rayon. The complaints also charge the companies with making false and unsubstantiated “green” claims that their clothing and textile products are manufactured using an environmentally friendly process, that they retain the natural antimicrobial properties of the bamboo plant, and that they are biodegradable."

So basically these four companies were greenwashing to the extreme and flat-out lying to their customers.To highlight just how ridiculous these companies claims are I suggest you check out their websites: Pure Bamboo, Jonano , Bambooza and Mad-mod (whose website is conveniently unavailable). 

Yeah I am sure that your bamboo is organic, sustianable, and whatever but YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO USE IT in a pure form and not turn it into RAYON to make your "bamboo" clothing. 

                         And just in case you were unsure here's a visual:

I just don't quite understand how companies making false green claims expect to get away with it. Wake up this is the information age! If you lie sooner or later someone is going to dig up the dirt on your company, especially if you are trying to pull a fast one on consumers buying green products (one of the more educated groups of consumers.) 

Cheers to the FTC for going after these companies and I hope they continue the trend of ferrating out the unethical liars which have no place making any environmental claims.