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Photo credit: basheertome on Flickr

I love this quote, which comes from a recent LA Times article about how auto companies are using Twitter to reach out to their customers. It’s from Geno Effler, Volvo’s VP of public affairs:
 
“We helped condense [Volvo president Doug Speck’s] sentences down to 140 characters. It helped him connect with consumers. We found it to be very worthwhile to talk about the XC60 as it was coming to market, to answer basic questions about the car or about safety, and convey the information in very short spurts.”

I love it because it mentions character counts, which is something many of us at AHA! wrangle with on a daily basis. Some of us do it so much we can tell how many character a sentence holds, just by looking at it.

Writing to a character count can be a frustrating task  at times. When you have multiple stakeholders, all with strong views, sometimes you just don’t have enough characters to accommodate everyone. On the flip side, it forces prioritization. When you only have 25 characters, including spaces, you better know exactly what you need to say.

So delivery mechanism aside, character counts can be a good practice to put into place, especially when there’s an important message that needs to be communicated and lots of ideas jockeying for attention. Even if it’s used as an internal tool, and your character-restricted phrase or sentence never sees the light of day, the discipline it imposes can serve as a touchstone when creating a longer piece.

Counting characters, it seems, can also build character—brand character, that is.

Photo credit: szlea on Flickr

I am still thinking of this brilliant blog post, which I read almost two full months ago. The first sentence stopped me in my tracks:

“Did you know that the industry most responsible for high levels of carbon emissions, and also with the biggest potential role in mitigation is … banking?”

The post goes on to argue that because today’s banking is an industry based on selling credit, the credit card purchases we make today tax the resources of tomorrow.

I don’t expect even the most responsible of banks to change their business strategy. There’s no profit in telling your customers to stop swiping their plastic. I could cut up my credit cards, but I’m holding out for an alternative.

Earlier this year, AHA! released a white paper on triple-bottom-line banking, in which we featured three small banks that have made social and environmental responsibility part of their mission. But I am waiting for the big guys to get hit with the clue bat. What a great story it would be—what a differentiator—if a big retail bank used credit and other financial products for good. I can easily get a credit card that gives me bonus points or dollars back for every purchase I make (which just encourages me to buy more and spend more credit). But what about awarding points for more environmentally friendly purchases, like ENERGY STAR® appliances, or TerraPasses? Banks could still make a profit, but could encourage more environmentally responsible buying habits.

Or mash up ING and Global Giving: Let me choose where the power of my savings goes, perhaps to make loans to environmental startups, or micro loans to local businesses. I would be motivated to save more, just knowing how my bank is reinvesting my money. Right now, my savings could be going to fund the development of a new mini-mart.

So blogosphere, is there such a thing? Someone tell me that my Google search was too hasty and I missed something. Here comes Citibank with a new green credit campaign?

If such a thing exists, it seems like it would be the marketer’s dream. As the folks at egglog point out, there’s more and more consumer skepticism regarding gratuitous consumption, and lots of demand for products people actually want and need. A product that is good for customers, their financial status, plus good for the planet? That’s an easy sell.

The FTC recently took action against certain companies that claimed their products were biodegradable.  The issue here revolves around language, around what we can really, honestly say about green products and services.

According to Michael Davis, an FTC lawyer, even if products (in this case disposable wipes and plates) are theoretically biodegradable, the fact is that most consumer products go straight to a landfill, where they stand little chance of ever “returning to nature” (to use the FTC’s phrase).

So what kind of claim to biodegradability can be made? “It’s hard to think of one marketers would like,” said Davis. It’s hard indeed to imagine his example phrase as a selling point on the side of a box of wet naps: ”Biodegradable in 1,000 years.”

Davis’s remarks bring a central conundrum of green marketing into bold relief.  Marketing, in the most basic terms, is supposed to create desire for a good or service. But to make certain green claims truthful, it requires so many caveats and footnotes as to wither any appeal the original claim once had. Some might say this is the price of truthfulness, but I think it suggests a broader idea of what marketing might be. Instead of persuasion, what if marketers engaged in education? For instance, if company X makes a product that can biodegrade, shouldn’t that company also explain how to dispose of it to make sure it does biodegrade? Maybe the campaign focuses not just on disposable wipes, but on composting and how easy–even cool–it can be.

I realize this sounds a bit naive, or at least idealistic. But then again, idealism has been known to sell pretty well at times. It sent a man to the moon in less than a decade forty years ago, after all. Maybe the time is right for companies to inspire purchases by inspiring environmentally sustainable behavior, rather than by adding asterisks and footnotes to their green claims.

Technology is often referred to as our savior amid this environmental crisis: Cleaner vehicles. Energy-efficient machines. Gadgets that eliminate paper waste. Rarely do we hear about the footprint left behind by the production and eventual disposal of the technology. Even rarer, though, is a discussion about human rights.

Enter Eve Ensler, author of the Vagina Monologues. At the recent All Things Digital conference, she shared with the audience of tech executives how 1,100 women a month in the Democratic Republic of Congo are raped as a result of the mining and trading of coltan, the mineral used in the manufacture of cell phones and laptops. This was news to me, and I can tell you that as much as I covet the iPhone, I may never look at one the same again: watch the video here.

So what is the answer to the problem? What role do technology companies have in protecting the lives and livelihoods of communities from which they source their materials? Yes, it is a complicated issue. And yes, it will take more than just the oversight of electronics manufacturers to solve it. But, in my opinion, every company should take responsibility for ensuring safety and health at every step in their supply chain. Mining may feel very far removed from the finished product, but it is nonetheless at the core of the sustainability story.

And I, as a consumer, want to know that my cell phone was produced without the cost of human life, dignity, terror or pain.

I spent most of this morning’s sessions with a furrowed brow and pursed lips. My skepticism about big brands going green overtook me as I listened to spokespeople from Clorox and Pepsico brands show-and-tell their recent green product, packaging and marketing initiatives.

-  The Clorox senior manager of sustainability, Mike Kraft, held up the Brita, Burt’s Bees and Green Works brands as examples of the $5B corporation’s green product portfolio.

-  Sun Chips director of marketing, Thomas Oh, walked us through campaigns around their new compostable bag (which is pretty gnarly) and their fully solar-powered plant in Modesto, California.

And in a presentation of survey results about the greenest brands, I was unsettled by finding from a 2008 McKinsey survey:

“The green brand most frequently mentioned by respondents who could think of one was Clorox Green Works.” Really? Before Toyota Prius and Tom’s of Maine and Trader Joe’s? Wow!

Of course, it goes to show that megabrands have megabucks to get a consistent message out with frequency. And yes, because of the size of their ad and marketing budgets, they are in the best position to get environmental, sustainability and social responsibility messages out to the masses. And it is good to see big behemoths trying to make progress in the sustainability arena because we’re all on a journey here, right? And none of us is perfect, right? Yeah, but … I remain skeptical that these two companies in particular (makers of health-friendly products such as bleach, Kingsford MatchLight charcoal and Mountain Dew) are being:

1) Fully authentic and true to their core values (versus just riding a new marketing strategy); and

2) Transparent and forthright about where they still need to make huge improvements in the way they conduct business

I’m searching for a positive note to end on here, but damn!, look at the time. Off to hear from the Citizen Group about creating brands that build community and shift behavior. More later …

There’s a strong “North Star” message at Sustainable Brands ’09 in Monterey this week. Last night, Duke Stump, former CMO of Seventh Generation (and before that he was at Nike), kicked off his this theme with the recommendation that those shooting for a sustainable business over the long-term should find and be guided by their true north. And those looking to build a sustainable brand should start by building it inside the company first – where it’s coming from people who are inspired and empowered. “Great brands have great cultures,” Duke said. “And that is often overlooked.”

 Other presenters at this morning’s sessions echoed that North Star idea and added humanness, empathy and connectedness as important attributes for brands that want to be sustainable – environmentally, socially and over the long haul. Highlights for me included:

Dacher Keltner, PhD, and executive director of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center shared his hypothesis, backed by some healthy research, that we are all wired for good. And so, a brand (run by humans) also has that potential – to do good and not evil.

Dev Patnaik, co-founder of Jump Associates and author, took that argument one step further and built a mini business case (he only had 15 minutes) for empathy. His more fleshed out case and the argument that the real challenge businesses face today isn’t lack of innovation, it’s lack of empathy, can be found in his recently released book Wired to Care. He used the classic great brand experience created by Harley-Davidson to illustrate his point. “Harley fosters a deep and ongoing conversation and connection between employees and customers and because of it, the brand is able to deliver what customers really want.”    

And cooking up (literally) a different kind of presentation for SB09 attendees this morning was somewhat controversial former Sierra Club president Adam Werbach. He’s now the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S and through a live cooking demonstration, he proposed that building a sustainable business is a lot like cooking a meal. Use ingredients you know; do a good amount of taste testing; innovate along the way. Adam said he would post the demo on Facebook but in my few seconds of poking around the Saatchi Facebook page, I couldn’t find it … yet.

Okay, off to see the director of Yahoo! for Good now. More peeps out of me later …

Photo credit: shikeroku on Flickr

I’m intrigued by Yahoo!’s Make-It-Green site. The idea is this: submit your best eco-friendly idea for the chance to win $2,500 and an opportunity to see your idea turned into a product available at a retailer near you. Viewers can vote for their favorite ideas, but the final winner will be picked by Edison Nation, a company that helps independent inventors bring their products to market.

Neat idea. It’s brings social networking and DIY culture together, then gives it an entrepreneurial twist.

I can’t help thinking about Make-It-Green in terms of The Natural Step training I attended last week—I’m starting to think about it with everything I do. Natural Step sets forth four principles for a sustainable society:

1. Eliminate our contribution to the progressive buildup of substances extracted from the Earth’s crust
2. Eliminate our contribution to the progressive buildup of chemicals and compounds produced by society
3. Eliminate our contribution to the progressive physical degradation and destruction of nature and natural processes
4. Eliminate our contribution to conditions that undermine people’s capacity to meet their basic human needs

I know. Pretty serious-sounding stuff. I am still trying to grok it myself.

Basically, what it means is that in doing what we do every day, are we taking too much stuff out of the earth? Are we putting natural substances together in toxic ways? Are we changing the natural formation of our planet in harmful ways? Are we making life harder for other people?

In my own life, I can look at small actions through the lens of these principles and see room for improvement. Let’s take making a cup of coffee.

On the surface, it doesn’t seem like coffee has anything to do with extracting materials from the earth’s crust. Then again, an awful lot of fossil fuels get used in fertilizers and pesticides, not to mention transporting coffee beans across the planet to my neighborhood grocery store. That’s just principle number one! When you consider principles two through four—the impact of farming coffee on the habitat, the people who grow and harvest the beans, the plastics and other synthetic compounds used to package the coffee, the water I use to brew my java, to my choice of drinking vessel—I start to see a whole lot more than just a tasty cup of joe. It’s a tangled net of choices.

Here’s where I get back to Yahoo!, or any company that is trying to make it green. The challenge is to not just to be less bad by being more green, but move toward sustainability by working to untangle the net, and make good choices at every knot.

I see an opportunity for Yahoo! and their partner Edison Network. Can they ensure the winning product is brought to market by manufacturers, distributors and retailers who will do it in a sustainable way? Can they truly make it green?

“What is your bank trying to sneak by you?” asks the website for the newly launched Ally Bank. Unlike all those other bad, bad banks (you know, the ones who loaned all your money to people who couldn’t pay it back and then went out of business?), Ally is a bank you can trust.

In its mission statement, Ally claims:

We’re a bank that values integrity as much as deposits. A bank that will always be open, accountable, and honest. Yes, honest. We won’t deal in half-truths, kindatruths, or truths only buried in fine print. That’s because we don’t have anything to hide. We’re always going to give it to you straight.

This all sounds great, except that what Ally appears to be trying to sneak past us (they asked the question, after all) is the fact that in their former, and very recent, incarnation as GMAC (the finance arm of foundering General Motors) they were having some serious problems.

Remember those bank stress tests the government was putting banks through? It seems that after getting $6 billion in federal bailout funds, GMAC still had the “biggest [capital] shortfall by far” of any of the 19 banks tested. This is a fact that prospective customers of Ally Bank might be interested in, and it raises an important question about how to communicate with customers in this post-crisis era: At what point does straight talk become really, really risky talk?

Consumers already have a pretty low opinion of banks at the moment, so there’s clearly an opening for a no-nonsense approach to banking. But when you bill your new (actually, old) bank as the keeper of virtue and trustworthiness, the potential for customers to feel outraged, betrayed and disappointed at the slightest misstep seems even greater than it would be for today’s run-of-the-mill, TARP-fund guzzling banks.

The time is right for a company like Ally Bank. But we’ll have to wait and see what customers will do when the brand-new paint begins to rub off the Ally logo, revealing the old letters underneath: GMAC.

After a wondrous holiday weekend here in Portland (blue sky, sun, lots of planting, farmers market, live local music, mountains in view—is this heaven?), here’s something that helped me get back to the ol’ grind this morning. McDonald’s, who, IMHO, has done quite well the past few years in the area of CSR reporting, has done it again.

The granddaddy of all fast-food chains has just released a report that includes 80-plus green practices from their locations and operations worldwide.

The report features successful practices in energy, packaging, anti-littering, recycling, logistics, communications, restaurants, sustainable food, supplier leadership and other areas

Here are two nuggets that I’m particularly McLovin’ from this showing:

• You can read the report in a nifty virtual flip-book format (not just the standard PDF)
• You can cast a vote for one of five different environmental initiatives for the corporation. Way to get people to interact with the brand!

So … hats off to Micky D’s for its CSR communications efforts. Great, now I’m hungry for fries.

photo by Kevin Dooley

Here at AHA!, many of us are writers who live, breathe and even dream about messaging. So when the New York Times ran a front-page article, “Seeking to Save the Planet, With a Thesaurus,” on a soon-to-be-released report that gives climate change messaging a makeover, it got my attention. The report, “Climate Truths: Making the Necessary Connections,” written by EcoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing firm in Washington, D.C., is due out at the end of May.

The writer for the Times, John Broder, who read a leaked summary of the report, generally pans the report’s assertions as misguided advertising techniques. Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Carbon dioxide discussions should be reframed as “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” And, “cap and trade” may gain more traction rebranded as a “pollution reduction refund.”

My first reaction to the writer’s skepticism is why should concepts like “global warming,” “climate change” or whatever you want to call it NOT get the same attention to the nuance of language and research around its perceived meaning among key target audiences that goes into successfully marketing a product, service, campaign or program? I mean, this is the greatest messaging project of the twenty-first century. And clearly, science doesn’t sell itself.

My second reaction is that—if examples cited in the article are any indication—the writers could use our help. I do like “pollution reduction refund” versus “cap and trade.” However, “our deteriorating atmosphere” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. I share many of the same thoughts as George Lakoff, who responded to the Times article very eloquently on the Huffington Post.

I don’t want to detract from the report with even less information than the Times writer. I eagerly await the published report. I promise I will hang on every word. And, I invite EcoAmerica to contact us immediately to begin work on “Climate Truths 2.0.”

I’m serious. Call us. 360-750-1680.