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How Far, Pray Tell?
How far have your products traveled from manufacturing plant or farmer's field to market? Perhaps it's time to tell your consumer. In a marketplace where more and more consumers want to know their carbon footprint, and the marketers themselves are often confused about how to craft their sustainability messages, meaningful, easy-to-understand information is at a premium. Too many think, for instance, that bamboo (which travels 6,000 miles to get to your floor) and fair trade bananas are going to "save the planet," when the truth is that locally procured alternatives are the better environmental bet.
Finding ways to let consumers discover one simple determinant of sustainability — such as "miles traveled" — in a creative, distinguishing way would not only be enlightening to consumers, but also satisfying to marketing communicators. Who among us, after all, would give up the chance to have our company's sustainability story told by a real-live local farmer, a fourth-generation manufacturer of vacuum cleaners, or a local designer of one-off pieces of jewelry?
If this sounds a little offbeat for many of you who meet the needs of mainstream consumers, consider that Timberland has recently introduced the equivalent of a "nutritional label" to their shoe boxes, complete with information on the energy used to manufacture the enclosed product as well as the amount of renewable energy. Disclosing "miles traveled" would simply take such information one step further to clarity for consumers.
~Jacquelyn A. Ottman, President, J.Ottman Consulting and SLM Advisor
This Week's Top Branding Stories
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Is It Time to Ditch "Sustainability"?
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Can PR People Become Agents of Change?
In a word, yes. Blogger Caroline Wilson says PR professionals should be pro-active about encouraging sustainable behavior even if they’re not working for an organization obviously associated with sustainability. (GoodGreenPR) Read more...
Annual LOHAS Conference Draws Record Crowds
The 11th annual LOHAS Forum attracted more than 700 attendees and showcased some 80 speakers from Fortune 500 companies and successful startups leading the way in this fast-growing industry, which experts say could quadruple by 2015. (Press Release) Read more...
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Tools & Frameworks
Green Branding 2.0
ImagePower's latest survey, released in May, pegs the top ten green brands in the U.S., as well as globally by industry — find out who made the cut. Download now...
Branding Experts Speak!
John and Jane Emrick on "Attracting a Customer That Cares"
The former owners of Norm Thompson, John and Jane Emrick, describe how best to present greener products — without greenwashing. (Run Time: 1:00 Min.) Listen now...
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