Green is the new gray
By Jon Bell, Associate Creative Director
Don’t get me wrong. I’m as granola as they get. I read my emails on screen, not on paper. I maintain a worm bin in the garden, and keep my little friends happy with table scraps. Heck, I even recycle my tofu containers. My kids say I put the “mental” in “environmental.”
So I’m delighted that everyone has jumped on the eco-bandwagon – and stayed there in spite of the economic downturn. We seem to have an army of hippies in high places.
What I’m troubled by is the word “green.” It’s everywhere, and it has lost its meaning. The word is so overused, it has become practically invisible. And it’s inflated – while I applaud your using 10% recycled consumer waste in your paper, does that really make you “green”?
My suggestion: Be as creative in your marketing as you are in your environmental efforts. If I see another green leaf as a symbol of your greeniness, I’ll pass over it faster than your fine print. And please consider language like bio-friendly, compostable, re-usable, eco-committed – anything but gray . . . er, I mean green.
“Green” is the way out of our predicament
By Carolyn Hansen, VP/Marketing
My direct marketing instincts tell me we haven’t come close to overusing the G-word. Probably because of Jon’s granola-ness, the word penetrates his consciousness to the point that it’s worn out its welcome. But the rest of the world is not there yet.
I work in a company that makes great efforts to be . . . let’s say, “environmentally aware,” just so no one reading this dozes off. Yet, every time I look, I find recyclables in the trash and trash in the recycle bins. It’s frustrating to the greenies among us. It means that we need to continue to beat the drum.
Direct marketers find a control and keep using it until results diminish and they find something to beat it. General advertisers, on the other hand, are more likely to get bored with their hard-working campaigns and abandon them before they even hit their stride. And it’s all because they’ve been living with their slogan and advertising executions every day, all day. They think consumers are as tired of it as they are.
If “green” is the word, let’s keep using it until everyone is on board.