Category: Marketing

Your Marketing’s Carbon Footprint: Does It Matter?

On LinkedIn’s Answers Forum, Don Carli asked this question:

Is it important for advertisers to know the carbon footprint of the advertising media they buy?

My answer, which I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about, was this:

While there may be exceptions (skywriting comes to mind), in general, carbon footprint has to rank near the bottom of the relevance scale for an advertiser. Any advertising will use some resources — in most cases it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible to accurately calculate and compare each opportunity on that basis.

Marketing dollars are precious, especially in these times. The goal of most advertising is to generate customers and business — if the campaign achieves that, I suppose you can use some of the income to plant a tree.

Mr. Carli sent me an email (which he has given me permission to quote) taking issue with my answer. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Communication, and is chairing an upcoming conference on sustainablility in media. Carli points out that there are already some tools for measuring some media campaigns:

The carbon footprint of some advertising media options are easier to determine than others, but none are exceedingly difficult or expensive to determine or to offset. For example if you want to know what the carbon footprint of a banner ad is you can get a free estimate by using the ClearSky carbon calculator developed by imc2:

http://www.imc2.com/carbon

And, if you want to know what the carbon footprint of your website is you can use the free widget developed by CO2stats:

http://www.co2stats.com

Some advertisers are already want to know. Recently Timberland determined the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the broadcast campaign for its EarthKeepers product launch in Boston and offset them by purchasing Renewable Energy Credits in Massachussets.

So I’ve learned that although not all media is measurable, carbon-footprint-wise, some of it is. And that some major advertisers are paying attention to the subject. At the same time, I’ve had hundreds of meetings, and thousands of conversations, with my own local customers in the past year, and the subject has never once come up.

Which prompts me to put out a two-part question:

1. If you’re in the media business, has a client ever asked you for information on your media’s carbon footprint? If so, how did the conversation go? Do you offer any kind of offset program as as an option for your customers?

2. If you’re an advertiser, have you ever asked your media partners for this information? Would you ever switch media (or options within a medium) to reduce or mitigate your impact on the environment?

Please answer by leaving a comment below.

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Effective Buzzwords for Press Releases

For those who have sent out press releases, only to be met with complete indifference:

Tara Bloom’s blog Ditch the Dusty Widget points us to a New York Times article on getting your press release noticed, and used. From the Times article:

Those who make their living composing news releases say there is an art to this easily dismissed craft. Strategic word selection can catapult an announcement about a study, a product or a “breakthrough” onto the evening news instead of to its usual destination — the spam folder or circular file.

The thought process behind press release writing is not too far from that used in effective advertising copy. You can find Tara’s take on the subject, along with a link to the full article, here.

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Membership Fees and Repeat Purchasing

Church of the Customer’s Ben McConnell uses the airlines’ current troubles as a springboard to discuss membership fees — would instituting a membership fee (like Costco, etc) in frequent-flyer programs generate real loyalty?

Research in the 1990s by Alan S. Dick in the Journal of Product and Brand Management might indicate yes. In conducting computerized shopping experiments focused on video store rentals, Dick found that a membership fee can become “psychologically amortized” in the minds of customers, making them “hesitant to switch as the would feel uncomfortable ‘wasting’ the investment” of the membership fee.

In other words, membership fees increase repeat purchases.

Worth considering in many retail businesses, actually. If you’ve instituted a membership program in your business — or attempted to — I’d love to hear about it. How did it work, or not work?

Leave a comment below.

Maybe It’s Not the Price

When a product or service isn’t selling, the first reaction is often to cut the price. Sometimes the price cut works, but in many cases price was never the issue.

From the world of sports comes news that Barry Bonds’ agent has offered Bonds’ services to all 30 major league baseball teams for a pro-rated share of the major league minimum salary — $390,000. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the discount this represents, you should know that Bonds made $15,800,000 last year.

To generate a “sale” of Barry Bonds’ services, his agent cut the price by 97%. Which is the most he could cut it without violating the collective bargaining agreement. And to sweeten the deal, he offered to have Barry spend his entire salary on tickets for underprivileged youth. So Barry Bonds, in essence, is available for free to any major league team who wants him.

There are no takers.

Got something that isn’t selling? Maybe price isn’t the issue.

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A Smaller Pie Doesn’t Mean No Pie

Over at the Sales and Marketing Loudmouth Blog, Tim Rohrer has a very interesting take on the role of local marketing. He summarizes his premise this way:

Remember, to advertise effectively at the local level, find out how consumers are behaving and then fashion your message to take advantage of their direction and momentum.

I agree with him as far as that goes. But he loses me when he tackles the car industry. Although he doesn’t come out and say it, this paragraph would lead an auto dealer to conclude that he should stop all advertising until sales improve:

Auto dealers must measure the cost of the advertising against the return they are likely to get right now and not on some future share. The reason is simple: A very small percentage of the public is in the market for a car (maybe 3% under normal circumstances and 2% right now). Consumers only hear the advertising that pertains to them. So, any market share gains made by a local auto dealer are being made with the 2% of people who are “now” buyers of autos. These now buyers will not be in the market again for another three years so the advertising seller is asking the auto dealer to spend money with them to 1) gain market share of an unusually small pie and 2) wait three years to get a payoff on that growth in share.

What this argument neglects is that if, for example, Chrysler’s sales are down 25% (as they were in May), that means that 75% of the normal-year buyers are still buying Chryslers from someone. And there are fewer Chrysler dealers on the radio this year than last.

So the “right now” pie is 25% smaller, but a Chrysler dealer willing to be agressive has a shot at a larger piece of that pie right away. And that dealer’s ads are also talking to a lot of folks who are going to buy from someone later this year. If you’re a Chrysler dealer, the fact that overall sales are down 25% doesn’t mean that you have to be down 25%.

A good, well-thought-out campaign may mean that you’ll stay even while your competitors drop even more. And the difference may very well justify a significant advertising investment even now.

All the standard rules apply — frequency, a strong offer, and good creative — in fact, those things are more important than ever. And yes, dealers are going to have to cut back.

This scenario is playing out in many different industries. Some consumers have changed their behavior, but many are still going to buy from someone. The fact that the pie may be smaller right now doesn’t mean there’s no pie to compete for at all.

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Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising Blog.

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Got a question? Call me at 503-323-6553.