GDUSA Green Newsletter
MARCH 2011

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE

One unresolved aspect of the new FTC Green Guides is their potential impact on third party certification programs. Many such programs are useful, and I fear that bureaucrats, lawyers and purists will manipulate the Guides to pick them apart. But in at least one recent case, an FTC crackdown is hard to argue with. The Commission has barred the “Tested Green” environmental certification program. Turns out the organization was selling its imprimatur for $189 (“Rapid Certify”) or $549 (“Pro-Certify”) based on a single criterion: a valid credit card number. Business, we are told, was brisk.
 
– Gordon Kaye

Graphic Design News

ALL GLORY IS FLEETING
This wall-size mural in Lower Downtown Denver is made from a garden-sized plot of live green grass. Denver is one of three cities chosen to launch Green Giant’s Green Awards campaign, which will reward ideas, initiatives and thinkers in communities across the nation. The mural is an example of the “engagement marketing” movement, which uses sustainable earth resources, from sand and snow to flowers and moss, to convey messages. “It’s designed to be temporary; nothing is long-lived,” said Maikel van de Mortel, co-founder of Element Six Media of Minneapolis, which created the billboard. With co-founder Bjorgvin Saevarsson, van de Mortel started the company two years ago to create fleeting, temporal campaigns. “No one believed it would work,” said Saevarsson. But he says that corporations are realizing that customers care, and Green Giant approached them to develop the eco-campaign. The other two cities tapped: Venice CA (beach and sand carving) and Philadelphia (snow sculpture).

HAVE A GLASS
Creative agency Beattie McGuinness Bungay New York found a unique design solution that goes beyond p-o-p. Their concept takes emptied bottles of Bols Genever, a Dutch spirits brand, and via a specialized handmade process recycles them into attractive drinking glasses. The glasses are being leveraged as selling tools and premiums, with the vision to expand the program to consumers through a mail-in program.

SKEPTICAL EYE
In anticipation of corporate environmental messaging leading up to Earth Day, ClimateCounts.org is re-upping the ”Green Watching” campaign the group first launched last year to help consumers question environmental marketing claims and support companies taking meaningful climate action. ClimateCounts.org and partnering non-profits are encouraging consumers to use the group’s website, free iPhone and smart phone apps to send Green Watching messages to companies stating when they see the difference between real green action and meaningless green advertising.
Read More >

ENVIRONMENTALISTS ARE NUTS
The Nutmobile, a traveling ambassador for the Planters brand, has gone green. The new model runs on biodiesel and has a wind turbine, solar panels, LED interior lighting, recycled parts and wood floors purportedly reclaimed from a 19th century barn. It made its public debut at the Global Green Oscars preparty. The redesigned Nutmobile joins a succession of mobile ad vehicles, best known of which is the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. Jason Levine is Planters’ senior director for marketing. He has the new Nutmobile is based on an Isuzu box truck. According to James Riseborough, chief creative officer of builder Turtle Transit, the fiberglass peanut body is held in place with an underlying steel frame. Energy captured and converted by the wind turbine and solar panel drive an alternator that recharges batteries for interior lighting and sound system. Joe Doyon, Turtle Transit’s general manager says that this kind of advertising is having a renaissance due to the popularity of camera phones.

FOLLOWING THE RULES
Are you a Resource Conserver, an Animal Lover, a Outdoor Enthusiast or a Health Fanatic. These are the four major categories of “green consumers,” according to The New Rules For Green Marketing by consultant Jacqueline Ottman (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). “Different segments of consumers tend to interpret ’green’ in their own ways,” says Ottman. In identifying the four segments, the book stresses the importance of building credibility with each of these streams. Interestingly, she offers the successful example of Method, the home-products company, which has subsequently been named a 2011 AIGA Corporate Design Leader for its sustainability efforts.

ALL QUIET ON THE CHIP FRONT
Frito-Lay has silenced its SunChips brand bag. The noisy but remarkably compostable eco-bag upset sensitive consumers and triggered a noise-free bag movement. The company states: “You asked for a quieter bag and we heard you loud and clear.”
Read More >