FPA taps into social media influencers to share its story

One trade group has been using paid promotions through social media influencers to share positive stories about flexible packaging, while dealing with consumers who may be wary of industry-sponsored messages.

The Flexible Packaging Association first started using social media like Twitter and LinkedIn to spread industry news, Danielle Reigle, senior account executive on the FPA account at Cyphers PR agency, told Plastics News.

"As the industry continues to explode, it became very important to get messaging out to consumers because there was so much confusion about what flexible packaging was … and how they're environmentally friendly and have benefits for consumers," Reigle said.

FPA "developed research," she said, to "lay the groundwork to begin pushing this messaging out to a consumer audience."

"Some people are just anti-plastics, period. It doesn't matter how much information you provide them," said Dani Diehlman, FPA's vice president of communications. "We're trying to … promote [that] we are environmentally friendly. … We're not bad and you need us."

The Annapolis, Md.-based FPA created a consumer brand called Perfect Packaging as the platform for its messaging, on which "FPA is minimally mentioned," Reigle said. "Because in more cases than not, industry is considered biased and therefore a lot of consumers don't take their information seriously."

"When we first started out it was a learning experience," she said. "We weren't really accepted. … We definitely made some environmentalists very upset because we're in the plastics category and plastics … are conceived as bad."

"We've tried very hard to make it look like it's just product facts vs. information driven by an association or industry," Reigle said.

Through its paid influencer strategy, FPA is "targeting consumer-focused environmentalists … and parents who could see the convenience in flexible packaging and what it has to offer in terms of … portability and … being resealable," she said.

Influencers that partner with FPA "voluntarily agree to promote" its messaging, Reigle said. "Our team, alongside FPA, vet their existing content, following and created FPA content to make sure it aligns with our messaging."

"We normally chat with [influencers] … to get a read on what their audience responds best to," said Bridget Meyers, digital marketing manager at the Cyphers Agency.

FPA's paid partnerships have been featured on Instagram, where it has a steady paid-promotion budget, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube.

Its partners include influencers like Ashley Renne Nsonwu, who made an Instagram post on how to teach children properly recycle flexible packaging; Chelsea Hood, who made a post about the convenience of flexible packaging for packing a lunch or going on a road trip; and Shelbi Orme, who addressed the carbon emissions and life cycles of plastics vs. glass on YouTube.

FPA's partners "push out information on how you can recycle this flexible packaging so it can get reintroduced back into the economy," Meyers said. Because consumers might assume "if it says it's recyclable, I can just throw it in my curbside bin," which may not be correct depending on local recycling guidelines.

"At the end of the day, it is on the consumer to get [recycling] done," Reigle said, "which is another one of the challenges we face, too, is just getting them to do the work and recycle it.

"Sometimes we also contract them to write sponsored blog posts on our behalf that they can leverage and we can also further leverage on our channels," she said.

FPA's goal is to be up front about problems such as recycling infrastructure, Reigel said.

"Some industries never address the problem; they only address the benefits. We're not scared to address the problem," she said. "Every once in a while … we'll get [a commenter] who goes off on a tangent and responds negatively to every post we have.

"We knew we were going to be confronted with negative people," she added. "People have a lot of really valid questions [and] concerns, so we've never shied away from a hard conversation."

Other talking points in the promotions include greenhouse emissions from glass and cardboard, flexible packaging "[taking] up less space in the landfill," Reigle said, and that flexible packaging improves the shelf life and affordability of fresh produce.

"For the most part," she said, the marketing team believes it's been "able to change [social media users'] perceptions."

Heidi Sanborn, director of the National Product Stewardship Action Council in West Sacramento, Calif., cautioned against using social media to educate the public about sustainability issues.

"Social media is just one vehicle to educate people, and some demographics use it more than others, and different platforms for different age groups," Sanborn said. "It's a tool … but there's so much misinformation on social media and there's no sheriff in town there either making sure [of ]… what's true or not."

That doesn't mean social media shouldn't be used at all for that purpose, Sanborn said.

"I wouldn't say its highly effective because of the amount of cray-cray on there," she said. "You may post a wonderful piece of information but somebody out of left field says something completely bananas [in the public comments], what are you going to do? Get into a comment string with crazy?"

Brands need to focus more on what they're doing and less on feel-good concepts, she said.

"I think it diminishes the believability and the younger generation has a very good bullshit meter," she added. "The CEOs … are not paying enough attention. They have to get on top of their media people and stop the 'feel good about us and our brand' [messaging] … in the long term it's going to hurt brands."

On social media, supporters of environmental groups are critical of brands claiming to be environmentally friendly, Mariah De Los Santos, social media specialist at Greenpeace, told PN.

Greenpeace pushes content calling out big brands to stop greenwashing.

"One of our top performing posts on social media says, 'If your bathtub were overflowing, you wouldn't clean up the water; You would first turn off the tap, and that's what we need to do with single-use plastics,'" De Los Santos said.

"There's a fair amount of distrust toward the plastics industry because the industry is looking to create more plastic," said Lisa Ramsden, Greenpeace's senior plastics campaigner.

She added that consumers feel deceived by the narrative that recycling is the solution to plastic waste, she said.

Research from the Recycling Partnership showed people feel they are getting mixed messages about recyclability. Its survey found that one in four people recalled receiving communication from their local recycling programs in the past year. Those who did were 70 percent more likely to have confidence in their recycling knowledge.

Less than 20 percent of those surveyed reported feeling well informed about what happens to recycling after it leaves the home.

"We're in an interesting time when there are things in the media, social media included, that people have some skepticism, doubt and need for transparency and reassurance," said Elizabeth Schussler, senior director of social change, behavior and impact at the Recycling Partnership.

Consumers are aware of plastic pollution issues, and want industry to take action.

"I hope we're at a time when we're all getting more real about stakeholder roles, and we think all the stakeholders need to be at the table," she added.