It Grows On Trees

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.

Max Roach: Immortal

Max Roach, one of my ultimate heroes, gone today at age 83.

Few Americans had such vast creative powers, and few did so much with them as this man. A pioneer to the end, Roach never rested, never settled and kept carving out new ground for millions of others to follow (some of many reasons he gets a place in this blog).

Plus, he had to be about the coolest looking dude to ever set foot in a jazz club. We are so lucky we had this man walk among us. I will miss him.

Live Earth Part II: A Glimpse of What's to Come

Okay, it's been over seven + seven + seven + seven + seven days since seven-seven-ought-even (7.7.07), the fabled date when half the planet got married and the other half watched the Live Earth concerts. And it seems a good time for a gut-check on the effect and meaning of the big extravaganza. After all, it's been a month.

Did it work?

Now, I was psyched to see the Police get back together to send an SOS to the world. But I wondered how long the love would last -- not just between them but with everyone in attendance.

Live Earth succeeded in pulling huge numbers. Organizers lined up 10,000 "events" in 130 countries to coincide with the live broadcast of the concerts. Media partner MSN reported  55 million concert videos streamed on its network. PR flacks and bean counters estimated that some 2 billion people world wide (that's um, one third of the planet) were exposed to the concert, the largest entertainment event ever.

On the other hand, the success of the program might depend on what you considered its objectives (Raising awareness? Raising money? Smacking you in the chops with an inconvenient truth? Or, at bare minimum, simply maintaining the momentum of a new environmental movement?).

For anyone who has a stake in delivering a message of sustainability, the event succeeded in a very big way as a simple sign post for what's to come in "talking green," particularly as consumers continue their affair with clean tech and green living:

New Media:

I'm convinced this is the axis around which both environmentalism and green living and marketing will revolve and succeed. Everything that was right and good about social media was in play at the concert, though perhaps not to the fullest extent yet possible. The live event incorporated text messages from people around the world on jumbo screens behind the stage and on the viewer's TV screens at home. It was a two-way, interactive experience. Better still, the concert lives still online. You can watch performances here, get your hands dirty (clean?) on green/sustainable issues at liveearth.org and keep involved with some concrete, value-adding online tools. That two-way user experience in Live Earth's combination of video, podcasts, brass tacks tips and information, along with the cell/pda text messaging, will keep the issue going long after the mosh pit dissolved. Intuitively, it makes sense: if you're trying to change your audiences behavior, let the users "behave" when they touch the vehicle that carries your messages. In concrete terms, there's just other way: this is the "broad-band-enabled economy," and lecturing your audience will get you nowhere. Live Earth was a concerted, massive effort to leverage the event into a two-way, value-adding experience both live and online. Big, big kudos to organizers on this one. Let marketers take note.

Celebrities:

You know Al Gore. You know Leo DiCaprio. Now add old-schoolers like Kevin Bacon, Cameron Diaz and Ginger Spice — grown ups. Interestingly, the generational marketing firm Archrival from Lincoln, Nebraska has noted that the millennial generation ("Gen Y") holds the environment as its #1 social issue. That's because the environment is a no-brainer. It doesn't involve uncomfortable dilemmas and dichotomies like Iraq, abortion or health care. There's like no controversy here: the environment is easy to get behind. So it goes with celebs, which brings up the next two points:

Half-hearted Consumers:

Half a heart is better than none. But this is the premise of this post: more than a month since the big event, how different are people's behaviors, really? Did the concert move the issue further into the center of the public and policy stage? When Kevin Bacon took the stage to make his plea for awareness and changes in behavior, it was stunning how little enthusiasm the crowd seem to show. Bacon was a distraction; it was obvious the crowd was waiting for him to shut his yap and make way for the next musical act. That one was weird. But then, with an issue as diffuse, impersonal and general as "protecting the environment," what do you expect? It's easier to get excited about, say, Madonna or the Police reunion, than an abstract, impersonal issue like carbon emissions. Will this be the elephant in the room for the environmental movement and the next Live Earth concert? The already-converted choir is singer louder than ever, but the unwashed come to church because it's an easy, low-commitment social venue.

Intergenerational Bonding

Back to Archrival's work in this category: if grown-ups like Al Gore and Ginger Spice are partying with the Kids, that's a good thing. Maybe an essential thing. In terms of selling the green agenda, it makes sense because only now, for the first time in decades, the generational stars are aligned. According to Chuck Underwood, founder of marketing firm Generational Imperative, boomer parents like Gore and even Bacon have a way of hovering over and micro-managing their now-20-something offspring; meanwhile those kids identify more with their WWII-tested grandparents than their Gen X predecessors. That's huge. Their grandparents were joiners who wanted to belong to clearly defined social groups (The Lions, The Elks, The Shriners, the Company, etc.). If boomers are once again trying to change the world — "Their aging will change America almost incomprehensibly," Underwood explains. "Their activism is beginning    to re-emerge." — they'll do it with the help of new youth, whom Underwood calls "cooperative team players."

Design

The best for the last: the design work for the identity of the event, along with the staging and the motion graphics for the video bumpers between broadcast segments where breathtaking, ground breaking and light years beyond convention for design in the green space. L.A. design firm The Groop blaze as much trail for those of us interested in green brands as the concerts themselves. The work points the way to a new, vibrant way to express the values of sustainable living without resorting to cliché like pandas and tree frogs. I wrote about it here, but offer for your consideration a few samples below. Marketers and design firm, take note — and break free.

We could argue that Live Earth's huge attendance numbers are a spurious measure of the concert's success; I would argue that these keys to the execution of the event are the real mark of its success. They'll define almost everything about the way we "sell" the green movement.