by kevin, on September 3rd, 2009
Two weeks ago I attended and spoke at the second Food Marketing Institute Sustainability Summit held in San Francisco. Joel Makower, author of the recently published book Strategies for the Green Economy (reviewed here) and executive editor of Greener World Media, presented the keynote address titled From Here to Sustainability. I’ve seen Joel serve as host at one of his own events where he seemed uncomfortable on stage in front of a large audience. Which seemed strange given the fact that he’s been a public speaker for decades. So I was worried that he would stammer through this presentation. I could not have been more incorrect. Not only was he an exceptional speaker, but his show content was fascinating.
Mr. Makower referred to the efforts of many businesses as random acts of greeness – somewhere between casual and serious commitment, and without real strategy. He showed a funny series of slides illustrating the often confusion language that companies and the press use – green is the new black, green is the new pink, green is the new orange, green is the new blue, and finally green is the new green. He ended this series with the word green on top of a color wheel. Pick and color and green is the new version of that. How can the average consumer understand what green is if it’s everything? He also showed a series of slides about how the phrase ‘it’s not easy being green’ is terribly overused. In a simple Google search, that phrase will find more than one million hits. And this seems to be a state of the art brand statement, yet it’s connected to Kermit the Frog. Is a forty year old expression the best idea the top branding minds in the country can come up with?
Mr. Makower ended with an idea that I totally support – the best way to engage consumers is through storytelling. In my opinion, no issue can benefit more by utilizing storytelling than sustainability. The problem is that green stories are hard to tell. They’re often about being less bad, or the attributes aren’t actually in the products themselves, or green claims make you a target. These issues scare many companies from touting the good their products actually accomplish. Ultimately it’s not what you can claim, it’s what you can prove that will set you apart from competitors. Mr. Makower boils it down to three questions that should guide any green effort – what do you know, what are you doing, and what are you saying?
Sustainable design will not move forward in any significant way if companies, and the designers they hire, continue to confound customers with ambiguous claims, meaningless labels and seals, antiquated slogans, and confusing language. Sustainability benefits from transparency and clarity. That’s what we should be striving for. There were other highlights, but Mr. Makower’s keynote was clearly the best material of the show. Attendance on day one was strong, but unfortunately dropped off dramatically the second day. I hope FMI continues to press forward on this issue and will build on last year and this year to develop an even stronger show next year.
[...] have seen an ad or heard the expression – it’s not easy being green? As I mentioned in an earlier post regarding a lecture I attended by Joel Makower, that phrase is more than forty years old, yet seems [...]