Arnold on ethical marketing

CHRIS ARNOLD

British Gas’s ‘Zero Carbon’ green tariff is just the latest in a series of green wash complaints that have been upheld by the ASA. These highly publicised condemnations are damaging both the brands and the ad industry’s reputation.

The industry is playing a very dangerous game at the moment and the BACC and publications needs to get tougher on false claims, green spin and clients being ‘economic with the green truth’.

E.ON (Powergen) spent millions on lovely ads showing us images of their new wind farms, and they are actually investing heavily in them. But as it was revealed in the press, they are also planning to build the first coal-fired power station in the UK since 1974. Guess which one the public will remember E.ON for?

EDF (having recycled the award winning St Luke’s Ecover ad idea) told us that they plan to reduce carbon emissions by 2020 – forgetting to mention that they would be using more nuclear to do it (nuclear has a zero carbon rating). I wonder how the ad would have looked if they had mentioned their interest in building up to four nuclear plants in the UK and the fact they are going to build a 1,300 megawatt gas-fired power station at West Burton, Nottinghamshire and another at Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire.

Other energy companies are just as bad. Shell tried to tell us they were growing flowers with surplus CO2 but forgot to mention how little was being used. There’s not enough room to list what all the other oil companies have been up to.

It seems when it comes to making green claims too many brands are taking a cynical approach. Rather than get their ducks in a row they just look at it from an unethical angle – “how can we con the public”. It brings to mind the revelations of boardroom conversations in the American tobacco companies.

Ironically they are chasing what is currently a small market – only 1% of homes (around 350,000) have signed up to green energy. But then if the public has no trust in the claims, why would they? The long term effect is they may actually discourage consumer from switching over to green energy.

For those account directors looking at their next brief I suggest you look at the CAP guidelines which state “Claims such as ‘environmentally friendly’ should not be used without qualification unless marketers can provide convincing evidence that their product will cause no environmental damage when taking into account the full life cycle of the product …” (See http://www.asa.org.uk/cap/advice_online/advice_online_database/Show+Entry.htm?advice_online_id=472 for guidelines from CAP.)

It’s not all bad, GreenEnergyUK (the greenest company of all), Ecotricity and Good Energy are at least doing the walk not just the talk. In fact GreenEnergyUK has gone one ethical step further than any other and committed half the company ownership to it’s users, when you buy energy from them you also get shares in the company.

It was Churchill who said that it is better to tell the truth, no matter how painful, than to lie. As false green claims are endlessly being revealed as spin and lies, how do agencies and brands actually think they are going to get away with it when there are so many people and NGOs out there who know the truth?

In criminal law if you help someone do a crime it’s called ‘aiding and abetting’. The same is true if you help clients lie, you are just as guilty - no matter how hard you try to spin. One of the key factors in any relationship – especially between the consumer and a brand – is trust. If you lie you blow it.

I keep asking the question, why are ad agencies not taking responsibility and telling clients that they cannot lie? That it isn’t in the interest of the brand to deceive the consumer or shareholders who will be less than pleased when they discover the marketing department has trashed the reputation of the company and reduced share value.

It also demonstrates that most agencies do not understand or have any real insight into the green consumer.

I have written about ‘brand terrorism’ before – the ability of anyone with a laptop to trash a multi million dollar campaign by using the internet to reveal the truth and speak to millions. Ribenna suffered badly from it when some school kids found their vitamin C claims weren’t what they claimed. You only have to visit mother and baby networking sites like www.motherandbaby.com.au to see how word passes around, even after the event. Years later, Nestle ‘s baby milk and third world debt PR disasters are still doing the rounds. The damage of lying last’s decades.

The ad industry needs to raise the game on morality and ethics if it wants to raise it’s own brand image. It needs to stand up against clients who want to cheat the public. In article on the web we were listed at the same low level as estate agents and tabloid journalists. Wouldn’t it be better if we were up there with the most trusted?