Have you got a sustainability idea or initiative to get off the ground? You might want to take yourself a lot less seriously.
Less than two months ago, the Crazy Sustainable Commute was just a fun office idea in the head of Steve Unger, a Senior Director at SAP. The concept is now gaining momentum throughout Vancouver and may one day go even further. 
The event, to be held on August 27th 2010, is a campaign designed to inspire people for ONE day to rethink how they can commute to work in an eco-friendly way that is sustainable, fun and raises awareness. 
“Each small step you take to reduce carbon emissions is one BIG step closer to a healthier planet and a healthier you.” says Steve.

When the Crazy Sustainable Commute team called me I have to admit the idea was too fun to resist. Especially when Steve told me how he was planning to commute on August 27th. So Green Briefs and Unicycle Creative jumped on board by offering blog coverage, logo design and production of a YouTube video featuring Steve’s alter-ego, Canoe-Man.

The Crazy Sustainable Commute team has since been to the July Critical Mass ride and has started a web page for participants to share their fun commuting ideas at www.crazysustainablecommute.org.
If you have an event or initiative to get off the ground, remember that humour and quirkiness go a long way in today’s cluttered, serious world. A fun idea will attract more sponsors, marketing partners, media coverage and participants. (It may even get you a good deal on some creative!) So turn the wacky side of your brain loose. Joining the Crazy Sustainable Commute on August 27th is a great way to start.

When I see some of the big-money idiocy that passes for brand advertising these days, (Yes, the ad you see above is real) I want to throw this smart little book at marketing heads left and right. That’s one of the reasons I bought a box of them. The other, I must admit, is that Unicycle Creative (the agency behind Green Briefs) is featured as one of the brand examples.
Branding Basics for Small Business has a lot of information packed into its pages, from classics like 10 Key Questions for building your strategy to sections that address today’s issues (“I know my brand strategy… it’s to build a Facebook page!”) And author Maria Ross’ Brand Building Blocks format makes it easy for busy businesspeople of all levels to visualize a process that has stumped more MBA’s than a Sudoku with a typo.
I was proud to have been interviewed for the ‘Choosing a Name’ section. It was a chance to remind the world that a name with a good story behind it is well worth the up-front investment. It’s one step that, done right, can help market your business forever.
If you want a free copy of Branding Basics for Small Business for yourself, leave a comment below and offer up your best brand advice. If you miss this little promo (quantities limited, etc etc) is easy to order a copy online at Norlights Press (one of the friendliest virtual booksellers I’ve met) and it’s a bargain at only $15.95.

As a Province that has just spent millions to convince tourists to visit her pristine vistas, Alberta can’t be too happy with the new campaign from Corporate Ethics.  “Rethink Alberta” billboards are going up in Seattle, Portland, Denver and Minneapolis that compare the tar sands to the BP Blowout oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The ads lead to to rethinkalberta.com, a website featuring a hard-hitting 96-second YouTube video that shows some choice stats and shots that make a pretty damning case against tar sands development.

In one particularly frightening quote, James Hansen, an eminent climatologist from NASA, has said they if the tar sands are exploited fully, it’s essentially game over for global warming.

For those who agree with this conclusion, it stands to reason that the ends justify almost any means in a campaign to stop this disaster.

But a strategy designed to punish one sector to effect change in another has implications for all businesses. Think about your supply chain, your government and any local issues that may be the target of some future anti-advertising campaign. Are there areas where your business could be affected by a boycott? How would you respond? Especially if you agreed with the proponents of the campaign? (Should the owner of an eco-tourism operation in Alberta be punished for the policies of his government?)

The Green Briefs Two Bits:

As business becomes globalized, so does protest. More groups will link broad leveraged action with their causes, so know your supply chain, keep your own corporate policies transparent and be ready to respond if you get caught in the middle. Then be ready to make hay from any publicity opportunity. Our fictional Alberta Eco Tour operator could probably get airtime by offering a Tar Sands Tour complete with a protest stop at the Alberta Legislature. Then again, by doing that they might become the target of roving gangs of pickup-driving Alberta tar-lovers. Oops, was that my outside voice?

You can link to a fairly balanced Alberta newspaper article about the campaign here, and form your own no doubt equally balanced opinion.

Take a look here for the Calgary Herald newspaper’s tit-for-tat retort.

It was all flying high for awhile with the TV show and sponsorship deal, but when the purple one left to ‘explore his/her true self’ and their agent split to the Caymans with the cash, it all came crashing down.

The 5th Annual ImagePower® Green Brands Survey is out, with some encouraging and surprising results. First, the environment is not going away, despite our best attempts to kill it. With over 9000 people polled in eight countries (Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India and the United Kingdom) this study concludes that overall, concern for the environment is up 3.5%. And the growth is coming from some very interesting places.

Emerging economies are the new eco marketing goldmines.

While cost remains the biggest hurdle to buying green in mature markets like Australia, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, the environment still trumps the economy as the issue of greatest concern in the emerging economies of India and Brazil. While 30 percent of all survey respondents plan to spend more on green products next year, in Brazil, China, and India that number rises to more than 70 percent. In China and India, this is a 9 and 3 percent increase, respectively, over 2009. HELLO makers of green products!! Massive Market ALERT!! In China, confusing labeling makes purchases a struggle; shoppers can’t figure out which products are truly more ecofriendly. I guess their packaging communications problems aren’t limited to bad English translations. Seriously though, China could really benefit from a well-managed certification system. Green certification agencies like Canada’s Terrachoice (managers of Canada’s successful ECO-LOGO program) have their work cut out for them.

Message from the world to corporations: Stop poisoning us.

Across the board, consumers want to buy from environmentally responsible companies. And their #1 concern: reducing toxics. It has become the cost of entry for brands in most markets, the survey says. As Google becomes a global verb, the transparency of toxic ingredients, manufacturing processes and disposal issues will only increase. Water conservation takes second place in Australia, Brazil, China, and India, while consumers in France, Germany, and the United States focus on the use of recycled materials. British consumers show the most interest in reducing the amount of packaging used, ranking it second behind toxin removal.

The Green Briefs Two Bits:

While this survey focuses on global brands and attitudes, there is learning for local green brands as well.  The good news is that consumers generally trust green advertising, especially in developing markets. But people decide for themselves what ‘green’ means, so it’s up to you to find out what your customers value most. Clear communication and transparency will always be in style. And best of all, we’re on the side that’s winning. So stay the course. The world will beat a path to our door.

Maury McCausland and Dennis Dong from London Drugs, feeling the green display love.

Trade shows and networking events are a great way for sustainability-focused companies to spread their message. But if the display itself doesn’t share those green values, what’s the point?  When creating a display for London Drugs’ What’s the Green Deal program at the 2010 EPIC Sustainable Living Show, we set the objective of our booth to be 100% recycled, recyclable or reusable.

We had four main communication objectives: 1) Introduce the ‘What’s the Green Deal’ program, 2) Make people aware of our Bring Back the Pack styrofoam recycling, 3) Profile some of our green products and 4) Showcase our responsible electronics recycling.

Using a combination of custom-built displays and commercially-available ‘green’ booth components we were able to do all that and come pretty close to achieving ‘3-R’ status.

Sourcing ‘green’ stand-up displays.

Most off-the-rack booth systems we researched were more concerned with traditional variables of cost, weight and performance than the use of sustainable materials. One exception was the Panda Banner stand we discovered at Go Green Displays. The unit is made from 90% renewable resources (bamboo) and  the image is printed on cotton fabric utilizing low VOC inks. We ordered two – one for our introductory message (mostly type on white) and one for our responsible recycling info (type reversed from a darker photo). For both, we provided PDF files from InDesign and were very pleased with the crispness of the type and the rich colour of the images. The stands come in handy carrying bags and set up easily. My only complaint was that one of the two stands we ordered seemed to lean forward a bit more than the other.

To build a recycling display, start at the recycling bin.

Visiting London Drugs’ recycling partner, Genesis Recycling, is a fascinating experience. Their technicians can break a laptop down to its component parts in a matter of minutes and their styrofoam compressor turns a mountain of white blocks into polystyrene pucks with equal ease. To bring some of this directly to the booth, I had them give me one disassembled laptop and a minivan full of styrofoam blocks. It was then a simple matter of combining clean design with science-fair-project engineering to display what basically was a pile of junk without it looking like… well, a pile of junk. For the ‘exploded laptop’ display I spent an evening with zap straps and some pegboard, designing the panels to fold inward for easy portability. The Bring Back the Pack display was a cardboard box built around a tall table which held the TV/DVD unit which played some of our Green Deal YouTube videos. I surrounded this with an explosion of styro blocks held together with bamboo shishkebab sticks. All graphics were printed out on 100% PCW paper.

For the retail part of the display, we sourced some Green Deal products from the store and displayed them on a shelf that our client, Dennis, brought from his garage. The finishing touch was an area rug from the same source.

All in all, the EPIC show was successful for London Drugs. We spoke to a lot of people about What’s the Green Deal, and got TV interviews from Global and CBC. The client is setting up the display at their head offices and will use it for other community events in the future. And when it’s message becomes outdated, almost every component will be able to be kept out of landfill. And that’s a good feeling that lasts long after the tradeshow lights have dimmed.

This year I attended the EPIC Vancouver Sustainable Living Show as an exhibitor (with two clients) as well as a blogger, shopper and beer sampler. There were brand and product concepts aplenty, offering a creative marketing boost as well as a feeling of genuine entrepreneurial optimism. Sure, the usual flock of ‘green’ graphics were on display, with their obligatory sans-serif typefaces and bamboo-wood backgrounds. And there were likely more overpriced niche products than rich hippies to buy them. But overall, the mainstreaming of sustainablity was evident, from the decidedly non-green-and-fuzzy crowd demographic to the inclusion of retailers like London Drugs in the exhibitor mix. I only had so much time to focus on a few interesting brands in my video highlight reel, but you can learn more on the EPIC Vancouver web site. Maybe we’ll see you there next year. Enjoy.

There is something inherently sad in the idea of waste. So when London Drugs set up a partnership with FreeGeek Vancouver to help collect usable older computers and keep them out of landfill, I saw an opportunity to have a little fun and tug on the heartstrings at the same time. As part of a series of videos I host for LD’s What’s the Green Deal initiatives, I hit some of Vancouver’s lonely alleyways looking to rescue some down-and-out machines. Director/Videographer Don Barnard shot and edited the spot, giving it a slightly desaturated look that fit perfectly with the melodramatic tone. And while we were definitely spoofing the maudlin NGO plea formula, there is a very real issue at the heart of reducing e-waste. Much of what is carelessly discarded or irresponsibly recycled ends up in poorer countries creating toxic dumps. So have a look and pass the video around if you can. The more people we can have dropping off workable machines at London Drugs, the better for all of us. (Cue schmaltzy violin music….)

Protesters at the Olympic Village Open House show their disappointment at the reduced amount of social housing in the neighbourhood. The giant bird shows his disappointment at being made of plastic.

I hear this question a lot. Especially while I’m trying to rationalize to the untweeted masses why I spend inordinate amounts of time chirping at the world in 140 character expulsions. While speaking about Social Marketing at a recent conference I used an anecdote from my own experience to offer one answer.

As @GreenBriefs on Twitter, I follow a number of sustainability and green marketing feeds. One of these is Granville Online – a Vancouver-based green lifestyle publication. On April 21st, I was checking my Twitter feed when this post caught my eye:
Because I know and like Granville Magazine, like music and am into recycling, I clicked the link. This led me to the Granville blog article and online video. From there I linked to the ScrapArtsMusic Facebook page where I watched a few more video samples of their work. There I found out they were performing two Vancouver shows, on the 22nd and 23rd. I was so impressed I bought two tickets for the very next night.

From Twitter to blog to Facebook to a $60 sale in less than 20 minutes. All for a group I had never even heard of until that day.

And the show was so good, I wrote my own blog review of it, including a review and critique of their marketing and brand. My GreenBriefs blog article was then re-tweeted and mentioned on Facebook by Granville and ScrapArts. I got two new subscribers to my blog and ScrapArtsMusic even contacted me to ask about my marketing services.
And I swear I didn’t do this just as an example. It wasn’t until afterward that I thought about just how revolutionary a purchase process this was.

So don’t dismiss Twitter as 140 characters of mindless drivel times 100 Million just yet. Get the right followers and the right network and you could be making real sales to new fans.