Green Is the New Clutter

My colleague Jennifer Schurter has an interesting post on “greenwashing” — the practice of making dubious environmental claims in a marketing campaign.

I found it especially timely, having recently encountered:

1. Three different dry cleaners claiming to be “environmentally friendly”.  One has made that claim for years; the other two recently added signage to that effect.

2. A Portland pest-control company advertising its “concern for the environment” — an interesting position to stake out when its primary business is to kill living things.

3. A Portland radio station (not one of mine) honoring  Comcast Cable as part of its “Green Team”. Apparently this is because if you stay home and watch movies on demand, you’re not driving to the theater or rental store.

4. Thursday’s Wall Street Journal article on the difficulty of verifying environmental claims.

All of these claims may very well have some truth to them — although the cable one made me hoot in my hybrid.  And the reason for the approach is that environmental impact and energy use are definitely on consumers’ minds.

But the proliferation of “green” messaging will ultimately cause consumers to tune much of it out.

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Categories: Advertising, Copywriting, Marketing, Phil Bernstein, Portland advertising, Portland marketing
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One thought on “Green Is the New Clutter”

  1. I love this post. It’s dead on – most companies are claiming green-ness because it’s selling, not because they care about the environment. The Comcast example really cracks me up.

    Reply