Jacquie Ottman's
Green marketing Blog
Green Marketing Myopia and the SunChips “Snacklash”
Posted on October 27, 2010 by Jacquie Ottman & Mark Eisen
Many marketing experts have weighed in on what they believe to be the reasons for the current backlash against SunChips’s new compostable chip package: excess noise. If you somehow missed it, consumers complained so loudly about the snack food’s new environmentally preferable but noisy corn-based bag that the brand reverted to the old packaging for most of its line. Before we blame consumers once again for not sacrificing a little inconvenience for the sake of the planet, let’s …Read more...
EPA’s Role in Advancing Sustainable Products—and You
Posted on September 23, 2010 by Jacquelyn Ottman
According to a new entry in the Federal Register, EPA is now soliciting individual stakeholder input regarding the Agency’s role in the “green” or sustainable products movement. The Agency will consider the information gathered from the Federal Register notice as well as from other sources as it works to define its role and develop a strategy that identifies how EPA can make a meaningful contribution to the development, manufacture, designation, and use of sustainable products.
This represents an important opportunity for …Read more...
Two Birds, One Switch? Brightening The Future With A Dark Idea
Posted on September 10, 2010 by Jacquelyn Ottman
This is a guest blog post by Catie Carter.
For two months this fall, many of the cities largest buildings, including the Chrysler building, and Rockefeller Center, are turning their lights off. New York City Audubon has organized the fifth annual “Lights Out New York” in an effort to help migratory birds. Buildings participating in “Lights out New York” have agreed to turn their lights off from midnight to dawn from September 1st to November 1st.
Read more...
Pizza by Cer té: Greener By the Slice
Posted on July 29, 2010 by Jacquelyn Ottman
This is a guest blog post by Jean-Claude Darne
New York’s first green pizzeria has opened it doors. Responsible consumers and pizza lovers, you can now enjoy a slice that’s made with the environment at heart. Cer té, a popular café in Midtown East opened ‘Pizza by Cer té’ on Earth Day, April 22nd 2010. To encourage us to help us spread the word they sent us a couple of pies to sample. We took it upon ourselves to put …Read more...
Plastiki Trash Expedition Meets Goal—Who’s Next?
Posted on July 27, 2010 by Jacquelyn Ottman
New York Times recently reported that the Plastiki has docked after a four-month voyage from San Francisco to Sydney. The brainchild of British environmental advocate, David de Rothschild, the 60-foot “Plastiki” is a sailboat pieced together from 12,500 recycled plastic bottles and powered by solar panels and windmills. His mission: raise awareness about the amount and effects of plastic waste affecting our oceans.
David was on to something when he built his environmentally responsible craft and sailed it across the Pacific. …Read more...
Creating the Virtuous Cycle: Integrating Online and Offline Green Marketing
Posted on July 20, 2010 by Jacquelyn Ottman
This is a guest blog post by Paul Hannam.
Conscious consumers are shifting to the web even more rapidly than many other market segments. According to a report in early 2010 from Burst Media, the internet is the number one source of product information for green consumers. Almost 40% of this group prefers the web in contrast to the TV, in second place, at only 18%. All businesses and …Read more...
Stand By Your Cause: What Marketers Can Learn From Dawn’s Involvement In The Gulf Oil Spill
Posted on July 12, 2010 by Jacquelyn Ottman
Long marketed by Procter & Gamble as an “effective yet gentle” way to keep dishes free from even the greasiest of grease, Dawn dishwashing liquid was widely publicized during the Exxon-Valdez oil spill in 1989 as an ideal way to remove residue from afflicted bird and mammal species.
Fast forward to mid-April 2010, just days before the 40th anniversary celebration of Earth Day. P&G decided to create awareness for its 30-year long support of bird rescue groups …Read more...
A Creative Way to Handle Prescription Drug Disposal
Posted on July 10, 2010 by Jacquelyn Ottman
As someone quite involved in issues of product takeback and disposal in general, I became quite alarmed to discover how much Percoset and Vicodin, two controlled substances, were left in our medicine cabinet after my late husband’s bout with cancer.
Not wanting to dispose of the drugs in the toilet (for fear they would contaminate local waterways) or in the trash (where the drugs would linger in plastic bags on the sidewalk in front of …Read more...
How We Used “Framing” to Sell the Wind
Posted on June 10, 2010 by Jacquelyn Ottman
This is a guest blog post written by Cathy L. Hartman & Edwin R. Stafford.
Introducing “Framing”
By aligning marketing strategies with the core values of your audience, you can successfully craft a message that resonates with a 
targeted public, and increase your campaign’s chances for success. This is called “framing” and it’s well illustrated in the following two case studies.
Case Study: Utah & ‘The Winds of Opportunity’
In 2003, we collaborated with the Utah Wind Working …Read more...
Now Even Your Eyeglasses Can be “Green”
Posted on May 27, 2010 by Jacquelyn Ottman
Look for ECOs the next time you shop for eyewear. ECO stands for EARTH CONSCIOUS OPTICS, a new line of eyewear from our client MODO. We are proud to be assisting them in their exciting launch.
ECOs come in all kinds of fashion colors (not just green!) and are made from a minimum of 95% recycled stainless steel or 95% recycled plastic. (Another client of ours, ULEnvironment has validated the claims.) Reflecting a life cycle approach to sustainable design, …Read more...
Give Your Stuff Away and Unclutter Your Life
Posted on April 12, 2010 by Jacquelyn Ottman
Wouldn’t it be great if in just one weekend, we could get rid of some of the clutter in our lives by making it available to others who need it?
That’s the idea behind Mike Morone’s Give Your Stuff Away Day, happening on May 15, 2010 all across the country.
The deal is pretty simple: Just bring safe, valuable items that you no longer want to your curb (keeping in mind that no trash, recyclables, food, drugs, chemicals, or weapons should be included) and instantly …Read more...
Doing Well by Doing Good for Your Employees
Posted on March 30, 2010 by Jacquelyn Ottman
Employees are more than worker bees when it comes to green marketing. They are potential advocates in the community, and engaging spokespeople for the brand. By investing their time, they become stakeholders more than mere employees. Ideally, their beliefs, thoughts and ideas should be aligned with a greater sense of brand values. Timberland and Starbucks are two companies that share an understanding of what it takes to green one’s the workforce, align employees with brand values, and turn employees into advocates.
Timberland
Timberland provides an excellent example of how fostering …Read more...
How to Turn Passive Consumers into Brand Advocates
Posted on March 30, 2010 by Jacquelyn Ottman
Consumers have been traditionally viewed as a lesser species with only the power to buy or not buy. (Are readers old enough to remember David Ogilvy’s famous line, “The consumer is not an idiot, she’s your wife.”) In contrast, Method has created a network of brand advocates and pseudo-marketing consultants by engaging their consumers effectively and by tapping into a green culture. How has Method been able to turn their consumers into brand advocates, and what is the advantage of doing so?
Method uses no paid media. Instead, they use …Read more...
40 Million Kilowatts in 40 Days
Posted on March 23, 2010 by Jacquelyn Ottman
Jenn Dolin, our old friend and client who’s now at Sylvania, invites you to take the Sylvania Earth Day Challenge. Representing a great way to get consumers involved in energy efficiency, Osram-Sylvania is challeging consumers to take energy-efficient actions at home and at work, that, in the 40 days leading up to Earth Day, will add up to 40 million kilowatt hours of energy savings.
Just visit their website, populated with easy, energy-efficiency actions for the home and office. Select the steps you’ll willing to do for 40 days, and …Read more...
To Sell Green, Look Beyond the Planet
Posted on March 11, 2010 by Jacquelyn Ottman
This past Tuesday I opened my morning New York Times and decided one of my favorite columnists, Jane E. Brody, should be selling green. Her article (which I paraphrase in tribute here), entitled, To Keep Moving, Look Beyond the Physical, describes various motivators to get people to exercise beyond the specific benefits of the exercise itself. Borrowing the motivational approach often used by commecial marketers— an “emotional hook that creates positive meaningful expectations of how exercise can enhance people’s lives, a way to feel better,” she describes such non-health …Read more...
