It Grows On Trees

Dirtied Animals

Zookeepers in Vienna, Austria actually cooperated with a pair of German artists in an installation called "Trouble in Paradise," meant to question whether the constructed environments of zoos are truly "natural."  Shocking and unforgettable. An example of how great work combines familiar ideas in completely new ways. You have to give props to the zoo for its self-critique. So, no, it's technically not guerrilla art for gorillas....

Via PSFK.

Eco Zoo: Where the Animals Feed You

They feed your imagination, anyway. I'm not even going to comment, except to say Eco Zoo, produced by Tokyo interactive shop Enjin, is one hell of a "petting zoo:" a massive hands-on experience that breaks more than one mold. Enjoy.

Second Growth

Whoa Nellie, it's been a while since I posted. So long that my most obnoxious blogger friends quit harassing me about it.

Well, what can I tell you. I'm building a business, so clients get first dibs on the love.

But I do have catching up to do and I'm on the case.

In the meantime, here's a little love to the folks who prodded me back into the saddle: J. Ottman Consulting, a green marketing shop that's been at this longer than maybe anyone. Some nice folks there gave some linkage to It Grows On Trees this week in their blog, Eco Blog. And that awoke me from my three-month slumber. Thanks folks.

Better still is the online course Ms. Ottman is offering green design mavens and marketers through the Minneapolis  College of Art and Design:  "Design Green: Eco Design and Marketing"

Which proves not so much that Ms. Ottman is one of the preeminent leaders in this niche (she is), but that the explosion of green design and brands in the mainstream is something that will endure at least one more generation.

Tap Project Taps a Deep Emotional Well (Not Deep Pockets)

From an environmental/socially responsible marketing standpoint the Tap Project is a no brainer: when you eat out, you dole out the price of bottled water (or at least a buck) in exchange for a glass of normally free tap water. The restaurant then donates the dough to a UNICEF program that delivers clean drinking water to communities around the world where safe water is scarce. The program kicked off in NYC last year and garnered the support of some 300 restaurants.

From a design/brand standpoint, Tap delights with logos/identities unique to each of the 13 cities with participating restaurants this year. Some of the most respected names in advertising are contributing to the campaign (WK, Crispin). Here's a great spot from the Boston chapter that says all you need to know — about Tap, but also about producing great work that both defies green clichés and big budgets.

What I love about this spot is that it cost — or should have cost — next to nothing to make. With minimal visuals and maximal audio, it's positively Hitchcockian. Best of all, it stays true to the premise of the tap project: let's spend the money to get clean drinking water to those who need it, not to pay for a high-ticket film/video shoot.

Via Ernie Schenck, whose agency Hill Holliday produced the spot. Kudos, kids.

A Nice, Hot Cup of Inconvenient Truth From the WWF.

This one has made the rounds on a lot of ad blogs, but it might be new to folks in sustainable business who aren't as deep into the creative work. Click the image to enlarge and check out what happens when you add a little hot water to your global mug.

As I've asked time and again here, why can't you be doing work this simple, work this cool?  The concept/execution comes from Ogilvy & Mather, China, but there's no reason you can't expect this kind fun for your marketing, too. Via ad goodness.

My Mom Gets The Last Word on Green Works

To me, the Clorox logo on the Green Works package says "bleach." And with that comes the all the secondary baggage: "industrial," "old school," "me-too," "toxic" and "pandering."

To my mom, the Clorox logo on the Green Works Package says "effective."

No lie, ladies and gentlemen, it was the first thing she said when I asked. And this is coming from a lady who has forgotten more about keeping house than I have yet to discover.

So what the hell do I know?

Okay  maybe, just maybe, Clorox/Green Works is on to something. Could it be they are right to focus on the market segment that is less concerned about environmentalism and more concerned about "effective?" Yes, according to Joel Makower. And Honestly, I'm all right with that.

Treehugger has a fairly balance assessment of the significance of the product line's entry into the market, one that somewhat justifies the placement of the Clorox logo. This observation from industry innovator Seventh Generation is most salient:

Seventh Generation CEO Jeffrey Hollender summed it up pretty well: "New competitors will only help this category grow faster than it's been growing. The question is, do you want a big piece of a small pie or a small piece of a big pie? We absolutely want the pie to be as big as possible, even if we have a smaller slice. ... To address problems environmentally, we need to get other businesses involved."

That said, I still stand behind my observation: the Clorox logo can't carry the Green Works identity forever. I just don't believe the bold badge logo will be able to compensate long-term for a middlin' Green Works mark. I wish the company had been more aggressive with the latter; if Clorox is so strong a mark that its appearance on the package solidifies my mom's trust, then they could have/should have leveraged its equity in a brand and package that would win over the rest of us.

I Have Only This To Say About Clorox's Green Works

What exactly are they hoping to accomplish by slapping the Clorox logo so loudly on the front of the package?

Seriously, if you look closely you can actually see a marketing VP come downstairs and bully the in-house creatives. That's them, quivering in fear behind the jackbooted corporate logo.

You can read the warm and fuzzy story behind Green Works here, including how it earned a stamp of legitimacy from the Sierra Club. But for as eco-friendly as Green Works products seem to be, sorry, that Clorox logo is always going to shout "old-school super-noxious bleach."

Maybe the dissonance is part of PR maven Ketchum's ploy for buzz. If so, congratulations. It's working. I just wonder how long it will compensate for the otherwise safe, generic Green Works logo and package design.

Shouldn't Clorox have taken a cue from Method soap? There's design that puts Clorox to shame. Now that would have been a powerful break from standard marketing conventions (a significant portion of which Clorox is responsible for): serve up this new product with a radical new package and identity.

Hey, I'm glad these guys put such effort and investment into these products. But since this blog is about brand choices that attempt communicate green in a tough market, I gotta call 'em out for their design choices. Not good.

It may not be fair, but I feel reflexively suspicious: if the Clorox recongizes the power of a strong logo, why didn't it put effort into developing a strong one for Green Works? Of course they want to leverage their brand equity. I get that. But this combination radiates the feel of a McDonald's Vegan Meal.

Yahoo! Fights Global Warming With Snow Job on Graphic Designer

I like designers. A lot of my friends are designers. Sometimes I even pretend I'm a designer, especially around Christmas when my wife asks me to make cards to send to friends and family.

And so my blood simmered just a little when I found out that Yahoo! just held a contest offering to donate $20K to a non-profit environmental group of the winner's choice in exchange for an icon it could use to flag "eco-friendly things you can do on our network."

In other words, Yahoo! asked graphic designers to help build its brand and cement its eco-cred — out of the goodness of their hearts. According to the "promotion's" official rules:

NO MONEY, PRIZE HAVING A MONETARY VALUE, OR OTHER COMPENSATION WILL BE AWARDED TO THE USERS WHO SUBMITS THE ICON THAT IS SELECTED BY THE PUBLIC IN THIS PROMOTION.

Even better,the company dangled that classic spec-work carrot — free publicity — with the promise that the winning icon would be seen by 500 million people.

Something is terribly wrong here. I'm guessing Yahoo! felt it was blazing some social media trail by opening its brand to others' influence. But when a business juggernaut like this gets others to increase the value of its brand in exchange for warm fuzzies, they're being intellectually dishonest.

I'm glad Yahoo! gave designers an opportunity to support a charity. But Yahoo! is no charity. Yet they bid for two philanthropic contributions from graphic designers: first, for themselves, second for a non-profit.

Of course I'm happy a non-profit benefited here. But what does that leave winning designer Leah Dickey? A happy feeling and post on her site about the win? Yahoo! should pay her the cash fee she earned for services rendered and value created. Just ask AOL's "You've Got Mail" voice talent.

Look, I'm happy Yahoo! is trying to be part of the solution. But let's tell the truth: this isn't just about warming hearts. It's about good business. And to the extent that this bit of design, for which Ms. Dickey was not truly compensated, helps Yahoo! build its brand with a half billion people, that's worth much more.

See all the entries here.

For more on the subject, read this piece on "Design Contests" at No!Spec.

From the Mouths of Babes and the Pockets of BP

More leadership in green communications from BP, which is leveraging the power of social media to get people's hands on their brand. This time it's in the form of a microsite called alittlebettergasstation.com. 

Clearly targeted toward a younger demo, the site features a fun little messaging tool called "Baby Mail." Nothing like a cute little toddler avatar to make a Big Oil company seem a little more cuddly. It's unfortunate that the company has more than a few gremlins that aren't so darling, but you won't see them on this site.

Few in energy communications are as good at the greenwash as BP, but quite frankly, they're blazing trail that companies in clean tech ought to pay very close attention to. It's flat out great work.

The Baby Mail application is almost identical to the Monk-e-Mail  developed almost two years ago by careerbuilder.com, except you can't send an original note but have to choose from a handful of canned messages.

On the other hand, you can copy and embed your message as I have here. That should tell you how clear the creators of the site are about creating a new media campaign for today's broadband-enabled consumer — who, the way, isn't necessarily a 20-something college kid.

I'd like to see recycling, wind, biofuel, solar and green building companies do this kind of work. And by the way, if BP wants a LOT better gas station, it should make it easier for consumer to choose biofuels at the pump.

Are Billboards Air Pollution?

Yes, according to the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Last December, the city of 11 million passed a law banning virtually all forms of outdoor advertising, according to the International Herald Tribune. As of this summer, the removal of the offending media was almost complete (see WorldChanging.com for the update earlier this summer).

According to the IHT, "City planners, architects and environmental advocates have argued enthusiastically that the prohibition, through a new 'clean city' law, brings São Paulo a welcome step closer to an imagined urban ideal."

Everyone knows that advertising — especially the outdoor kind — crams the visual landscapes of our lives with "clutter," "noise" and "junk mail." I find it marvelous that, in a push for a "clean city," city leaders would essentially condemn it as pollution. Makes a sticky wicket for green marketers — on the one hand, you want to promote your green agenda/product/service; on the other hand, you don't want to create visual pollution, do you?

For an eerie look at a metropolis without ad clutter, check out this flickr site featuring shots of a post-billboard Sao Paulo. Totally brilliant.

Via Be A Design Group.