Forget Green advertising, think Blue if you want to win over consumers.

It’s a shocking fact that green ads are less trusted than normal advertising. So now is a good time to take a different view and follow the Americans and move from green to blue.

With a wise public who see through the spin why do we keep seeing new greenwash ads daily? It seems some marketing directors (or maybe it’s the agencies) don’t take responsibility for their budgets, wasting it on pointless green waffle. And in these recession times that’s just as shocking as MP’s wasting public money on dubious expenses. Spending precious company cash on ads that don’t work, or worse actually alienate consumers, is plain stupid.

I could write a list of brands but I won’t (naming and shaming isn’t the game), making people think is.

Adam Werbach, a highly controversial environmentalism guru in America, is the man behind the Blue movement. He was founder of Act Now (which Saatchi’s in the US bought and renamed Saatchi S). He believes that green tokenism isn’t enough and in many cases bad as it allowing consumers to do token things, which means they think they are making a difference when they really aren’t. It’s like putting a pound in a charity box and thinking you’ve cured cancer, or saved a nation from poverty. As he says, “most people say they care but few really act.”

Werbach, like other wiser ethical driven visionaries have discovered that green is a narrow form or ethicalism and that people are just as important as the planet, if not more so. Don’t just think planet think people and planet (this is a big theme of my book Ethical Marketing & the New Consumer).

Werbach lists 4 elements of Blue as: social, cultural, economic and environmental. This is pretty much the triple bottom line (people, planet, profit). He believes that the real challenge is to get people to change their view of the world, not use small token acts as a form of salvation. You can imagine the scene at the gates of Heaven as St Paul asks why each should deserve to be in Heaven. “I recycled my bottles, bought Fairtrade tea, organic vegetables and took the bus rather than the car to work.”

Putting environmentalism aside, we have a number of serious social issues that are also cultural ones as well. Health and obesity, alcohol abuse and a loss of social values. Here’s a real shocking fact, 826 million people in the world go hungry (UN figures) while over 1.6 million people are suffering health problems from eating badly or over eating. Over 1 million people in the UK are clinically suffering from malnutrition due to poor diet (fast food, snacks and ready meals). 50% of healthcare costs in the US are linked to bad diet and lifestyle.

The challenge is that consumers are time poor, now cash poor and junk food is an easy option. As much as they will tell surveys that they care about the environment, society and their health, the reality is very different (which is why I think most green surveys are wishful thinking).

The problem isn’t trying to sell the consumer an organic or a Fairtrade carrot instead of a normal carrot but getting them to consider a carrot over a fatty, sugar enhanced snack or a bag of crisps.

The left wing green lobby has done a great job of making people and brands think that green is what it’s all about but it isn’t. Consumers care but they don’t want to compromise their indulgent, affluent lifestyles unless they get some benefit. Cost savings make installing low wattage lights desirable. Better quality food makes organic desirable. Feeling less guilty makes Fairtrade desirable. Doing anything that makes the Jone’s respect you more is very desirable.

I’ve developed a number of different consumer segmentations to help brands understand the different purchasing dynamics of consumers. The most interesting group are the suburban off-setters. The biggest spenders they love the illusion of being eco-ethical and see it as a way to off-set their indulgent lifestyles. They can fly long haul by paying to plant a tree. The 4X4 is offset by the wife’s Prius. And so on…

For some it’s about being an evangelist, having a purpose or cause. We’ve all met that classic middleclass eco-evangelist at dinner parties who preach their ethics (though usually know few real facts). They spread guilt and try to force feed their beliefs upon others. At my local climbing centre they have banned Coca-Cola, Walkers and a group of other products from the café for some very dubious reasons (many inaccurate) whilst still selling pasties, sausage rolls, non Fairtrade coffee and a range of snack and organic sodas loaded with calories. Eco-ignorants do little for the real cause.

Werbach is a man who follows common sense rather than common opinion or emotional obsessions, which is why he managed to upset a lot of followers when he signed up to advising Wal-Mart. Many followers thought this was like the Pope advising the devil. But Werbach points out that the average American shopper spends an hour a day shopping and lot of dollars. Wal-Mart is one the biggest buyers from China, one of the world’s largest corporations. It employs 1.4 million people, 89% of Americans visit one at least once a year and spend over $125 a week there.

Werbach is very smart, and has balls, he knows if you want to change the world you need power and using the most powerful retailer, and the biggest customer base, the difference he can make is dramatic. Running an organic fruit stall at Borough Market may be very ethical but it’ll make bugger all difference to the world. He also knows that Wal.Mart had woken up to ethics as a business need, the really wanted to have zero waste, use renewable energy and sell greener, more ethical products. When someone as big as Wal-Mart wants help to reform only a fool would say no.

One of the great things Werbach has introduced to their employees is the Personal Sustainability Projects (PSP), these are acts that each employee agree to do that will make a difference. When over a million people do this the difference is dramatic.

Big brands like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Unilever, P&G  and McDonalds may be demonised by the green left but in reality their eco-ethical activities are making significant differences.

(A little experiment. Many PR agencies claim to monitor blogs so lets put it to the test. I’ve written (on Creative Orchestra letterhead) to the UK heads of Coca-Cola, Pepsi Co, Unilever, P&G, McDonalds and Wal-Mart (Asda) asking them if their PR companies pick when they get blogged on Brand Republic. I’ll let you know the results next week. With over 600,000 members it’s one of the biggest platforms for brands so you’d though they’d be monitoring.)

Finally, as I listen to Passion the Planet (great radio station) and scan various eco websites I came across this gem. Something that makes for a very odd marketing positioning - a square toilet roll. Yep, that’s the USP of a new eco product that claims that having a square tube in the centre is more eco friendly. If that’s not enough, you can get a toilet roll holder that makes a noise when you try to take too much. What next!?



Links:
http://www.saatchis.com/birthofblue/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ethical-Marketing-New-Consumer-Economy/dp/0470743026/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243128516&sr=8-1

Ad agencies unite against road safety campaign pitch fiasco.

Seems we in the UK aren’t the only ones to get exploited when it comes to mass pitching. The Spanish government’s equivalent of the Department of Transport, DGT, has just held a pitch involving 18 of Spain’s top agencies and managed to upset 17 of them.

Now 18 seems extreme, Publicis has successfully handled the account for the two previous years, so why a review is questionable. Given that a pitch can cost the average agency £10k - £20k, that’s a lot of money being wasted in a recession, and probably a lot of jobs going as a consequence in the loosing ones.

There really isn’t any argument that supports mass pitches other than indecision. Any good marketing director can see how good an agency is from the work they’ve done for others. A chemistry meeting, a proposal and a trial period is what it takes. It’s also no coincidence that the bigger the pitch the shorter the lifespan of the account. We all know that pitches are the equivalent of asking a good chef to knock up a quick meal to evaluate them for a future banquet. Often pointless and certainly unreasonable expense in a recession.

But what the DGT has done is not only managed to anger the advertising community - some call it a “massacre” - but unite it against this kind of unprofessional behaviour. I doubt the government will be able to get some of Spain’s top agencies to pitch for other accounts as a consequence, it’s just not worth the pain. It takes guts to speak out against this kind of fiasco for fear of reprisals but unlike us modest Brits, Latin people say what they think and don’t stand for this kind of thing. Rafa Anton, Executive Creative Director of Leo Burnett and president of CdelC (similar to our D&AD) has done just that. Good on him.

The real point that has upset the professional agencies, and Spain has some very creative shops that produce work just as creative as many London agencies, is the scoring system. Typically civil servant in style, they scored the agencies out of 60, not uncommon in beurocratic pitches, but you don’t then publish the results with an arrogance reserved usually for agencies rather than civil servants. The winning agency got 42 points, the rest (all 17) got just 3 or 4 points.

That’s not only condemning but insulting. It also suggests a bias. Quite rightly, the ad industry are questioning the professionalism and competence of the panel. To give top professional agencies just a few points suggest that those judging are totally inexperienced and unable to judge marketing campaigns, which questions if they have the capability to plan and run a publicly funded road safety campaign well. Anton has written an open letter to the Spanish ad press, Anuncios (the Spanish equivalent to Campaign & Marketing) asking for an explanation and payment for the pitch, quite right too.

This opens up a similar moral debate over here, should pitches be paid for? There’s a cost and someone has to pay that cost, there’s no such thing as a free pitch. Trying to unite an industry in good practice has proved unsuccessful over the years, both the IPA and DMA have not managed it yet because there are too many agencies who will break ranks. Yet in one piece of research many clients were open to the discussion, so why don’t more agencies ask the question, who pays? With increasing procurement involvement and lengthy RFIs (request for information) chasing business is getting expensive, especially for small businesses.

And if there’s more than 4 on a pitch list, financially too high risk (if only the best agency did win every time). It’s important to be aware as a client that a pitch is a financial investment by the agency, real money gets paid out. Surely that cost should at worse be shared and at best covered by the client. Even when you do win the pitch that cost comes out of the bottom line, so you’ll see little return on the business for at least 3 months. But it’s not just the ad agencies, pitches often involve media planners, printers and data planners, all expected to donate their expertise and time. I know of one story where an agency gained documentation that revealed a pitch was a show only, the client had already decided who was getting the business.

The agency demanded their costs back – they threatened the client with fraud based on the documentation. This is a real issue, fake pitches could well end up with a client in court one day. The last mass pitch fiasco was in 2001 when over 38 agencies were asked to pitch on video for a well known client at a cost of over £600,000 to the industry. The real joke was that the pitch was conducted by procurement, without even consulting marketing. Both agencies, marketing departments and trade bodies were incensed. Discussions were had about legal action. It fell upon me do what Anton has done and to be the lone voice that actually got up and spoke publicly about the situation.

As a consequence, changes and promises were made. In these times of recession it must be tempting to throw briefs about to hungry and even desperate agencies but a recession is no excuses for a lack of morals or honesty, because when it ends people will remember those that abuse others, and remember great men like Anton who made a stand. Pitches are not the most ideal way to judge agencies but they sadly are the current way of the industry. The only way forward is a cooperative approach involving all aspects of the business. There is a better way, we just need to work towards it.