Organics, an ethical choice or just a good example of hype?

‘Anger as organic claims shot down ‘ was the headline on the Metro yesterday. The Soil Association and green food lovers are up in arms about a report by the Foods Standards Agency that dents the image of organic food. Far from it being healthier for you, the report says it’s the same as non-organic.

In a £2bn market that has already been dented by the recession – organics is the only ethical product suffering – this report does nothing to help sales. But then charging silly margins doesn’t either, I noticed that an organic cucumber in one supermarket was twice that of an ordinary one.

Based on both my own research (Ethical Shopping Survey) and others, consumers seem to buy organics for several reasons. Firstly a small number are true green buyers, seeing it as a much better ethical choice. They know the whole picture and it’s part of their green lifestyle.

The second group see it as chemical free, which is not quite true as they do use copper sulphate on onions and leeks for example.

Then there’s the middle classes who see it as a better quality, better tasting choice, a premium purchase. This is the group that’s abandoned it in the recession. I would like to add that a recent piece of research published in one marketing publication portrayed a decline in organic purchases as evidence that consumers were abandoning ethics. This isn’t an accurate interpretation when you consider the last group of buyers.

The reason people are angry is that the report focused just on nutrients not on the residue of pesticides and other chemicals. The Soil Association regard that as key to the definition of ‘healthier’. The FSA don’t. But their research is not shallow, they looked at over 162 research documents covering 50 years of work and over 3,500 food comparisons.

Meanwhile in the Mail, they have attacked the attack on organics as part of a cynical campaign by the food industry, in alliance with pharmaceutical and big biotechnology companies. They also claim there’s a hidden agenda to promote GM as they claim the FSA and the government are pro GM.

GM is another area that stimulates big debate. One organisation recently did a PR stunt by attacking a field of GM crop dressed in nuclear suits. Why? Stupidly they were risking their credibility, GM and nuclear have nothing to do with each other. But the organisation were using spin tactics to try and make dumb punters think so. Is that ethical?

The Guardian aren't fond of the FSA report either, with Leo Hickman calling the FSA "one of the most weak-willed, pro-industry government bodies out there ".

However, there does seem to be some truth in the claims that the FSA have ignored key facts that may not fall under the term healthier rather than nutritional. For example, in one study by the FSA it was found that some organics had 11.3 per cent more zinc, 38.4 per cent more flavonoids and 12.7 per cent more proteins. So what does ‘healthier ‘ mean?

The claim that organic meat and veg tastes better is a debatable one. This can be as much about the growing method and breed as farmers tend to use better stock. But as a former allotment owner all my chemical free produce were usually misshapen and half eaten by insects. Of course they tasted better, as they were fresher. Not surprisingly, some tests have revealed a placebo effect is also at work.

One thing that came out of research I conducted last year (Ethical Shopping Survey) was that of all the symbols we tested Fairtrade came out top for recognition (the Grocer found a similar result). By contrast, the organic/Soil Association one came bottom. It’s a bad logo and I’d love to redesign it. Based on narratives, Tesco’s organic logo was seen as better. Soil association please note.

Personally I think the FSA report will make no difference to current organic shoppers. What it has done though is stimulate debate, and that's alwasy good.

Forget recycling, get creative and try upcycling

The one thing I love about the eco-ethical area are the new words that keep appearing. We already have the 4 R’s,  re-cycling, reduce, re-use, repair but now there’s downcycling, precycling and upcycling.

Upcycling is applying creativity to someone else’s junk and giving it a make over and a second life. Brands like Junky Styling have been doing it with clothes for a while. There's a  trend in Australia where people have been combining unusual fabrics like curtains with old clothes to give them a new lease of life. The results are often trendy and highly fashionable. Sadly the outcome can be shallow greens (a term for people who adopt green as a fashion accessory) paying big bucks to parade about in upcycled clothes trying to look green.

Precycling is making a choice in advance to prevent waste, like not buying the latest trendy green bag because it’ll sooner or later end up in landfill. Or buying loose produce so you don’t have any waste packaging.

Second Life Packaging is packaging designed for another use afterwards, like Gu pots.

Hypermiling is not a drug induced state but a way of driving to reduce fuel consumption.

Terms like ‘make do and mend’ and ‘waste not want not’ and other war time terms are starting to make a comeback. Nothing like recycling old language, especially when we at least understanding it unlike many modern terms.

Then there are those words and phrases that seem to fade out of fashion like Acid Rain and CFC (Chlorofluorocarbon) or have been replace with confusing terms.  Green house effect has been replaced with global warming and pollution with carbon footprint. Trouble is there are too many science based terms which leave the consumer puzzled and therefore disengaged. What we need is consumer friendly vocabulary.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, when we were doing one survey one consumer when asked what carbon foorprint was thought is was the carbon they put in an urn after you’ve been cremated. It’s not such a dumb answer really.

One term I love is ‘Vampire Power’ that’s the power electronic items (like your phone charger) use when left on standby. It’s actually one of the least offenders in your home, your fridge if frozen up, a light left on for an hour, an extra cup of tea will consumer far more electricity. The danger of making consumers think that by just turning off the standby they will save the planet is dangerous and results in them sitting back in their over lit, over heated living rooms and thinking “job done”.

But for real cool try ‘ecosexy’. It refers to any product or company that is ecologically sustainable, socially responsible and cool. No surprise it comes from Australia.

A harder to digest word is ‘photovoltaic’, it’s some scientific term relating to solar panels. Then there’s ‘day lighting’ – designing buildings to use the maximum sunlight. ‘Grey water’ sounds as unattractive as it actually is, that’s using used bath or washing up water for another use.

Sandbag, is an organisation dedicated to the climate change issue likes to use consumer friendly words like pollution and greenhouse gases (because people actually get that). The Sandbag site is great fun and uses humour and comedian Marek Larwood. One example is their use of biscuits to demonstrate carbon trading (look up Sandbag on TouTube). They also blow away the vegan argument about cows being anti-environmental. A refreshing change to the over serious depressing po faced campaigns by people like Gore.

Out of fashion are eco-bags – too many and very boring. Have you bought your  “oh no not another green slogan on a bag” bag yet? Electric cars and home wind turbines, are also out in fashion is sharing, from Freecycle to the more trendy PSS, product service systems. These provide a mix of service and product and usually provide a reduction of material consumption.Many believe it will improve eco-efficiency by what is termed "factor 4"…I won’t bore you with the rest, look it up on Wiki.

There’s an innovative recycling idea from Oxfam, working with Marks & Spencer they are offering M&S vouchers to shoppers who recycle old curtains, cushions, throws and bed linen. The M&S and Oxfam Soft Furnishings Exchange is designed to raise money while reducing the amount of textiles sent to landfill. (Few people are aware that clothes and fabrics make up a significant percentage of landfill.) This idea deserves a new term, maybe ‘cash for crap’ or ‘curtains to poverty’.

Finally, we’ve seen new phrases join the language like ‘five a day’ (for students reading this that means fruit not pints of beer). Check out ‘Fresh Fruit? - Laura Ben and Him ITV2’ on YouTube, very funny sketch that takes the mick out of five a day.


http://www.sandbag.org.uk/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNUabVPfNLc&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Esandbag%2Eorg%2Euk%2Fpress&feature=player_embedded
http://planetgreen.discovery.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X_OqHoMKyU&NR=1
www.ecoethicalmarketing.info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_service_system

Sweden & Miami Ad Schools clean up at D&AD Student Awards

Tonight was a great night for foreign colleges at the D&AD Student Awards. An amazing standard of work as usual judged by the industry’s best. Few would disagree that this is probably one of the worse years you could graduate with few if any jobs, but the mood was positive and upbeat.

One the big winners was Sweden’s Berghs School of Communication, based in Stockholm. The college has a two year ad course with just over 50 students on it, yet they were winning awards all over the categories. Recently the school was named World’s Best Ad School at Cannes and collected a One Show Grand Slam, 4 golds, 2 silvers and 3 bronzes and a Gold Medal at the global Clio’s. Seems Stockholm is the new creative generator, whatever they are doing there they are doing it right. Must be all that Omega 3 in the fish.

The Miami Ad Schools did very well too with US, Germany (Hamburg) winning awards but Spain (Madrid) doing exceptionally well. I for one have always rated the Spanish, they are brilliant designers, perfectionists, very visual and that Latin sensitivity means their work always has a passion about it. Their weakness is being self publicists.

Another American based school, Creative Circus, found an inventive way to pay for their trip to London and one that’s generated a lot or chat about them. They set up a website called The London Project and invited agencies to help ‘pack our bags for London’ to sponsor their trip. In exchange they’d take any object (the odder the better) over to the UK send them back a photo of it in any London location they wanted. The six young creatives managed to get agencies on board, despite the recession, and all made it to the ceremony to pick up their award.

There were the usual British colleges winning, St Martins (28 finalists), Buckinghamshire New university (10), Kingston (10), Northumbria (10), Chelsea (9) and Middlesex (8) but the foreign colleges stole the show. Miami Ad Schools got 30 shortlisted, Berghs got 11 and there were many other over sea colleges getting nominations too. Ironically we can’t dominate theirs as few allow us to enter their country’s ad awards.

My favourite UK entry was from Chester University, an amusing film of a kid lost in his mobile for Blyk. As he walks along his journey he is oblivious to things happening around him, all those things being references to ads – drumming gorilla, kid with Hovis, coloured balls, 118 118 runners, Tango Man, iPod. It makes a simple point, kids these days don’t notice traditional ads so you need to reach them via mobiles. Very funny. Check out the link below.

Judging the student awards is very different from the normal D&AD awards. As one of the speakers said, “normal D&AD is like going into a diamond dealer, you expect to see beautiful diamonds. But with the student awards you see the unexpected.”

I think this year there was a notable lack of traditional advertising style work but a notable number of brilliant ideas. I think it marks a turning point for our industry. There is a new order and the younger generation think in a very different way. Like music, styles change and we are seeing a transformation from the traditional approach of 40 years to a more technology influenced approach. I also think that foreign students are less influenced by the English style and are exploring pushing the boundaries more.

Students are also producing more business savvy ideas too. The ebay brief produced a very clever idea, ‘Find it’ created by students at Berghs. The concept is simple, you see something you want, you take a picture of it and post it on Find It on ebay and they try and find it for you. The ideas received a special award.

Between the awards they ran a few short films about collaborative projects like City Brand, Shellsuitzombie and Onedotzero. The common factor was bringing together kids from different disciplines. Not something many agencies have risked doing but personally I’ve found it highly effective as I believe Mother and W&K have too. One of my favourite ideas was an urban design project for street furniture (City Brand) where the item looks like it’s been peeled from the pavement, hard to describe but an awesome idea.

Even though job hunting will be tough (we’ve had over 500 people from 11 countries apply to us at Creative Orchestra since we launched in March) there is a lot of great talent out there. Recession or not, I’d urge every agency to take on at least one team as an investment in future talent, because without it we’ll just become a manufacturing industry rather than a creative one.

And finally, congratulations and high praise to all those at D&AD who worked so hard to make this event possible. It’s an important event, more so than the main D&AD Awards I believe because it’s cultivating the industry’s future supply of creative talent.

And well done to all those that got nominated, you are this industry’s future.