What's in a name?

This morning I attended the launch of the Marketing Society's Green Alliance which is now calling itself the Marketing Society's Mayday Alliance. Happy to clarify this.

Naming 'green' in a language understood by consumers was very much on the agenda for the meeting held at the Engine Group's offices where I seem to spend half my time there these days.

The tone of the meeting was set when Chris Satterthwaite, one of the co-hosts along with Jo Kenrick, asked the audience whether they knew the percentage of the UK population that had a chemistry degree. The answer is 0.6% which he said proves that communicating around carbon is understood by the few not the many. Not sure about this extrapolation but it’s an interesting theory nonetheless.

Goodness knows what Christian Cull, the director of customer communications at BSkyB, who was one of the attendees, thought of this though given that his company has spent a great deal of time and money becoming ‘the world’s first carbon-neutral media company’.

After that the 70-strong audience was split into groups with a brief to come up with three consumer-friendly industry-wide terms/concepts that companies which are taking action against climate change can use.

The resulting ideas were really inventive and I was impressed by the enthusiasm shown by the bunch despite the 8.00am start.

One group suggested messaging around the five ‘R's’, reuse, recycle, reduce, respect and reward. Another wanted to see a return to ‘80s words like ‘pollution’ and ‘waste’ as these are still understood. Meanwhile Engine Group bigwig Matt Edwards’ group came up with a concept called ‘buckets of choice’. Not sure about that one, to be honest.

But by far the most popular suggestion was a traffic-light system – yes the same standard that the food industry has slammed for being over-simplistic. I’d like to be proved wrong, but something tells me that this particular idea could fall by the wayside once it goes to the wider membership which is the plan.

I mean, what company is going to be happy displaying a ‘red’ mark?
 

Carbon debate hots up

Great to see that my front page news story on the Marketing Society's Green Alliance has generated so much debate already. Thought I would wait to see the comments from its first day online before blogging about it and I’m glad I did.

As I suspected the debate has been around whether talking about carbon is helpful for brands who want to show the public that they are doing their bit.

I must say that I’m sympathetic to the view expressed by Christopher Sewell. He expressed the concern that ‘coming up with a new green language will only add complexity and confuse the consumer’.

My fellow BR blogger, Chris Arnold, points out rather humorously that one guy he spoke to during a survey thought a carbon footprint was ‘the stuff they put in the urn after they cremated you’. Arnold contends that ‘water footprint’ is well understood by consumers.

But while I appreciate that not everyone properly understands the term carbon footprint, in time could it not become common currency if it’s embraced on a wholesale basis?

The energetic Jo Kenrick, the former B&Q marketing director who is leading the project, told me she wants to launch the initiative without preconceived ideas.

But I can’t help wondering whether industry should take its lead from the prevailing wisdom on this instead or trying to reinvent the wheel.

Honda gets informal with the ASA

Honda, which has built its reputation on its green credentials, would appear to have an extremely good relationship with the Advertising Standards Authority.

A recent complaint made to everyone's favourite watchdog about a press ad for Honda's CR-V 4x4 has been 'informally resolved'.

The ad stated, '...the CR-V is fuel efficient and it also has low emissions,' when in fact the car's 173g CO2/km is 13g over the European average. Honda agreed to change the ad and avoided the shame of a public roasting.

Meanwhile the likes of Lexus have been hauled over the coals through the formal route.

What's the criteria for these decisions? I'd love to know...

Waste not want not

I have a Taste the Difference Sainsbury's apple pie in my fridge at the moment. It is a few days past its sell by date and is creating ructions in my household.

I want to eat it; I'm pretty sure that there is nothing wrong with it. However the other half is squeamish about these things and prefers not to touch stuff once it is within two days of the date displayed on the packaging.

I think it's a waste to throw it out (plus these pies don't come cheap!) while he, on the other hand, thinks it's disgusting to go anywhere near it.

But now environment secretary Hilary Benn wants to scrap the ‘best before' label as people throw away 4.1m tons of food every year and landfill sites are filling up at an alarming rate.

Things might be swinging in my favour...

Every little (green) bit helps

Happy World Environment Day to you. If you missed this it, it was last Friday.

Tesco bigwig Sir Terry Leahy pulled no punches in a speech to the Politics of Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen to coincide with the momentous occasion.

In typical Tesco fashion he defended consumers right to, er, consume. ‘If we want to turn people off the green agenda, the best way is to say we're going to tax and regulate their consumption,' he said.

‘Inform, empower and encourage consumers to move to a low-carbon lifestyle,' he trumpted.

He contrasted Ireland's attempts to cut carbon through a hefty carrier bag tax with Tesco's policy of giving one Clubcard point to shoppers re-using their a bag.

While Tesco is not always the most popular retailer due to its aggressive expansion strategy this ‘more carrot less stick' approach to changing behaviour will prove popular in the downturn.   

Maybe not so plane stupid

Welcome to my blog. Thought I would kick off by highlighting some rather interesting research that I came across recently.

Good Business, the responsible business consultancy, produces a monthly survey documenting the views of 'Concerned Consumers'. Put simply, these are the people who are more into CSR issues than your average Joe.

Surprisingly, this group's opinions of the airline industry - so often the whipping boy for environmental types - appear to be shifting. This year 23% said they believed that the airline industry was doing enough to lessen its environmental impact compared to 19% last year.

Even starker still, a whopping great 39% feel Virgin, BA et al are taking their environmental impact seriously, a 12% rise on the 2008 figures.

Seems like airlines' green marketing messages are beginning to change consumer perception.