Adweek.com has an interesting story about green marketing that starts with a plastics-related example. The story is "True Green? Determining what's really green is tricky. Marketing it is even trickier." It leads with an example from Neil Grimmer, co-founder of Nest Collective, an Emeryville, Calif., company that makes organic baby food. The company packages its Plum Organics brand in what Adweek describes as "micro-thin [plastic] container that's devoid of Bisphenol A."
Competing baby food brands in glass jars use nine times as much fossil fuel to transport and take up to 14 times the amount of landfill space. By contrast, Plum's disposable pouch is eco-friendly, competitively priced and convenient to use. So, what's the problem? It's plastic. And in the minds of most consumers, that's not "green." Sure, Plum could try to explain statistics about landfill space and weight-transport/carbon-usage ratings, but that's a lot to cram onto a 4.2-ounce bag. "These things are hard to talk about," Grimmer says. "There's nothing sexy about a landfill."The story points out that frequently plastic packaging is "a lot more ecologically friendly" than alternative materials, but marketers are faced with a difficult task -- explaining the advantages of plastics to consumers -- including some who have preconceived notions that plastics = bad for the environment.
Visit your local supermarket and you'll see hundreds of products purporting to be eco-friendly. But without a third-party monitor, a twisted dynamic emerges: Much of what consumers assume is green is actually not, and those brands that really are green are often left to make a complex and technical pitch that people don't understand or just don't hear. As eco-marketing consultant Jacqueline Ottman puts it, "The consumer is very confused about what's truly green and what isn't. Marketers are confused themselves. Some products can be green in one instance and not in another. So it's all potentially confusing."Sure, companies like Nest Collective could spend their marketing dollars convincing customers that their plastic packaging is sustainable. But why should they? That's a message that's the responsibility of the plastics industry -- both the materials suppliers and the processors/converters that make the packaging. Don't hold your breath waiting for an effective campaign. The attitude these days seems to be to let Wal-Mart decide what's sustainable...
