Enough With Those Made Up Green Claims Already

By Nick Glenn, The Green Ad Agency

“Just the facts ma’am.” Remember that line from Detective Joe Friday in the old Dragnet television series? It would be wise for manufacturers and marketers today to remember that quote when try to tell us just how wonderfully sustainable their products are. Rather than trying to overwhelm their audience with dubious claims, perhaps they could just give us the facts.

Let’s face it, most products today are sustainable to some degree. But no matter how much we’d like to make it so, some products are not as sustainable as others. Just because your product isn’t as green as the next, you shouldn’t feel compelled to portray it as such. You can still play in the game. After all, isn’t it all about trust and, in pure marketing terms, product retrial?

Just the other day I saw an ad for a metal product with a “wood-like” finish. Great. It is said to combine the performance properties of metal with the appearance of real wood. That’s great too. But then they had to go and claim the product would save trees. Please! Even if technically true, it’s certainly intellectually dishonest.

Rather than distorting reality to make sustainability claims that are spurious at best, product marketers would be wise to look elsewhere for real benefits. How about touting the way the product is made. After all, how a product is made can be just as important as what it’s made of. And if the there just isn’t a sustainable message to tell, don’t say anything. Not every product you make has to be fully sustainable.

If you think about it, false and wild claims affect your credibility with your target markets. Companies normally go to great lengths to substantiate the quality and technical advantages of their products. Why not be more accurate when it comes to sustainability? Why is this any different?

When we market products, we carefully analyze what the market demands and how our product matches and accomplishes those market demands. For some reason, with the green movement, some sort of myopic hysteria has taken place and we have deviated from our key marketing principals. Companies are feverishly making dubious claims about their products’ green attributes out of fear of losing market share.

Everyone just needs to calm down and think this through logically. Come up with a checklist of key (and credible) facts about sustainability. How does your product contribute to actual energy savings? Demonstrate this in simple terms. Don’t over complicate. Does your product efficiently use natural resources? If so, how? Is your product made of recycled materials, and to what extent?

As with other marketing advantages, state your message quickly and concisely. Otherwise you will lose the target audience’s attention and miss the sale.Nick Glenn is President of The Green Ad Agency, which formed as an offshoot of The Ludlow Group, a Virginia Beach, Virginia based advertising and marketing agency with a 15-year track record of selling into the A/E/C community. He can be reached at (757) 463-4703 or by email: nick@thegreenadagency.com.

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