Posts Tagged “ecology”

There’s reality. And then there’s perception. And when you’re talking about business, there’s ulterior motive. Nowhere is this more blatantly true (and less obvious) than in the rush to “green” products.

Think back to when the “green” movement was known as the “ecology” movement. Remember the brouhaha about grocery bags? First, we were told that paper sacks resulted in killing too many trees, so grocers switched to plastic bags. Then the ecoNazis preached that the plastic bags were bad, as they used fossil fuels, and were therefore killing the planet – not to mention their inability to gracefully decompose in landfills. Today, most supermarkets offer your choice of “paper or plastic,” and have recently started shilling “reusable” bags. A recent episode of the wickedly funny ABC prime time cartoon The Goode Family, the social-climbing mom forgot her reusable totes (6:43 to 7:40 in the clip above) when shopping at the grocery store. Faced with disapproving looks from the other greenies at the market, she finally blurted out, “Load me up…I know a lot of people are comfortable with reusable bags, but I’m not. Those bags are made in sweatshops.” The other shoppers are promptly stricken by kind of Liberal Guilt only someone who is desperately trying to live up to an impossible, illogical standard can feel. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re on a lot of lists. And we get some of the strangest things you’d ever expect – or not expect – to see in your mailbox. As a marketer, I’m always interested to see how others are using direct mail to market their products and/or services. As a pragmatic conservative, I like to look past the marketing, and look at what they’re trying to say with their promotion. Sometimes, there’s a logical disconnect between the product and the marketing. Think of it as a “cognitive dissonance,” where the message and the media contradict each other. This makes for some rich, visual irony in many situation. Case in point, The United States Postal Service, and their efforts to promote direct mail with their Deliver magazine. Read the rest of this entry »