The American Marketing Association hosted a roundtable discussion called “The Many Faces of Green – What it Means for Today’s Brands” in Toronto yesterday.
“Stop acting like marketers,” said Bernard Hellen, business development manager at Cascades Fine Papers Group. “Tell better stories, do better communications and don’t use vague terms,”
Hellen acknowledged that marketers are fearful of criticism, which is why they chose not to talk about their green initiatives. He called it “green-muting.” But when green efforts are communicated effectively, marketers can leverage them to build brand equity among stakeholders, he said.
Hellen said marketers are “logo crazy” and have done themselves a huge disservice by simply putting the image of a tree on their packaging rather than have products third-party certified.
“A lot of companies exaggerate to look like they’re doing more than they are,” added Owen Ward, national director at Air Miles for Social Change. While adding new logos may be an improvement over the original packaging, the product can still be bad for the environment.
Originally published in Marketing Magazine, June 10, 2011
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