Greenwash is now a criminal act, brands beware!

Neil Andrew of One Food took greenwash a bit to far when he falsely claimed to be selling organic products (salmon). Now big brands beware, Andrew has just got banged away in prison for 27 months. Seems Northamptonshire County Council trading standards and the Food Standards Agency don’t mess about when it comes to greenwash. Lying about your green credentials to sell things is fraud. This is the first time someone’s gone to jail but it symbolises how serious organisations are starting to take lying. So could all those greenwash ads for cars, lagers, petrol and many other products results in a few more company chairmen doing porridge?

Organic food sales have slumped, no surprise in a recession. Firstly organics are bought by many because they see them as quality and tasting better rather than planet saving (sorry my green friends but that’s the way it is). The real problem is greed, the supermarkets have been over pricing organics for too long and given the recession they are first on the list of cutbacks.

As an ad on LBC suggests, when people are worried about their jobs, savings and their home, trying to convince them they need to worry about the planet is a non starter.

Yeo Valley, Tesco, Green & Blacks and a few others have been reported to be considering pooling budget together to run an ad campaign through the Organic Trade Board to try and reverse flagging sales. The solution is simple, stop supermarkets over charging. I was called up by the BBC last week to comment on this, “did I think an ad campaign would reverse sales”. “No “ I said.

Yes it could maybe if the strategy was dead right, the supermarkets played ball and the media plan was right. But history tells you that these brands will end up at the wrong agency (they’ll go for a safe big name), get the wrong advice, a bland media plan and spend their money the wrong way. Cynical maybe, but there are so many badly marketed green campaigns about, just look at Stella (all my green friends think it’s a cynical campaign).

An interesting point, in the survey we carried out into ethical buying of supermarket products (full details and results in the book Ethical Marketing & the New Consumer) most people didn’t recognise the organics symbol. Well it is terrible, the Soil Association really needs to have it redesigned, the Tesco’s one is far better.

However, green cleaning products are suffering, the only exception being recycled paper kitchen towels (well they are cheaper than posh ones). The cause is price slashing. Consumers are faced with a dilemma, save money of save the planet… umm… she thinks… save money. This is not helped by the fact that some green cleaners don’t clean as well. Again this all comes down to the same factor, greedy supermarkets charging too much.

Green legislation is a big worry for supermarkets, especially when it comes to plastic bags. Of course no one wants knee jerk legislation from ill informed politicians, more interested in saving face than saving the planet. Packaging is still high on the agenda and challenges many brands. Kerrygold is leading the food field with massive savings on packaging, over 90 tonnes annually. But Britvic’s J20 outdoes Kerrygold as it is launching a lighter bottle that could result in a saving of  4,000 tonnes, a 10% reduction on 40,000 tonnes of glass it produces.

Whereas organics may be suffering local isn’t. Groups like Spar have seen a 5.2% rise in sales. However, this is not enough, the Federation of Wholesale Distributors has been trying to get people to shop local by dumping the car. The ‘My Shop Is Your Shop’ campaign is a good idea but the cheesy title feels like it was dreamt up in a PR agency.

BBC Watchdog launches with new format and shoots down Virgin Media

The BBC has relaunched Watchdog with a more lively style and bought old Anne Robinson back. Gone are the po faces and serious looks, instead it’s largely upbeat (more Top Gear). To test child buggies they took them to Silverstone racetrack and had a lot of fun trashing them. It reflects a less serious approach to serious issues and one that is surprisingly more effective. 

Two weeks ago we got a call at Creative Orchestra from the BBC asking if we’d appear on Watchdog. Oh my God we thought, have they finally rumbled out internet stair lift scam or our dodgy holiday apartment share scheme? No, they wanted us to do the old ‘advertising guru’ bit and give advice to some disgruntled consumers about dealing with Virgin Media. I do love how everyone is always called a ‘guru’. A friend of mine who runs an ad website was called into a big American TV channel and asked to comment on some marketing story. In a panic he called me, “I have no idea what to say, I’m just reporting it on my site”. We put together a script and the following day there he was on the TV as a ‘marketing guru’.

Recently we’ve done quite a bit for the BBC, including two programmes on how to sell rubbish food and one on selling breast milk. These programmes are fun to do though seeing it from their side it’s quite different. However, the power of these programmes to influence consumer opinion and their effect upon brand reputation is very powerful, many times more than ads.

Watchdog have received hundreds of complaints about Virgin media so the 3 people in the programme really were the tip of an iceberg. They all tried writing to Richard Branson because the consumer sees him as a consumer champion, what they don’t know is there is a nasty little department of Hobbits in between called ‘customer service.’ There are more than 200 companies worldwide that bear the Virgin name and though Branson doesn't run them all (I do wonder if he even knows what most of them do) the whole brand relies on his reputation and a commitment to customer service. So no surprise the customers were miffed when they didn’t get any customer service, just the usual disclaimers, negative responses and the usual lie about data protection issues. Boy that term has become so abused as an excuse for everything. I was recently told off in a shop for taking a picture as “it breaks data protection laws”. What! I doubt the security guard could pass an 11 1plus let alone has law degree.

It is still amazing that in many companies the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing. One deparment gets the customers in, builds the brand and grows the reputation. The other upsets customers, treats them like rubbish and blows the reputation. That is a very expensive way to run any business.

In defence of Branson we did point out he probably would support the customers if he knew. So how do you get to him? Well he starting in music, so how about a song?

We suggested a Dave Caroll (United Breaks Guitars) style song & film on YouTube. It’s had over 5 million views of just one of the many postings, not to mention endless PR coverage. Bad ad for United, great for Dave’s career, his song is now on the Apple iTune store.

As usual, 2 hours of filming for 15 seconds of fame, bit like advertising really. The result was a song written by comedy musician Mitch Ben and titled ‘Virgin Media bills to dead people’. It’s not quite reached 5 million yet though it would have been seen by that number on Watchdog, so how much bad advertising for Virgin Media was that? How much would they now need to spend to reclaim their lost reputation. Many millions.

So one department, customer service has managed to screw up the reputation of a multi million pound spending company. I bet the marketing department must feel like going out and shooting the lot of them, well that’s if they could get hold of them on the phone instead of the usual answer, “please wait you call is important to us.”

An interesting and final point. Have a look at the BBC Watchdog site and at the comments – most have had to be removed due to the strong feelings of those posting them.

If you don’t listen to your customers they simply won’t have any to listen to. Common sense really, but then sense is rarely common.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/09/virgin_media.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph8HmOJWWfY

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ethical-Marketing-New-Consumer-Economy/dp/0470743026/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252663866&sr=1-1

www.ecoethicalmarketing.plus.com