The Gren Wash /

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1st Page.indd 1 20/11/08 17:46:33

the martin lindstrom

column / the green w

ash /

Stroll through the aisles of a supermarket and chances are you’ll be presented with eco-friendly-this-and-that in most product categories. Plenty of companies have been quick to jump on the green bandwagon. Eco-friendly baby powder, shaving cream and batteries are among the 300,000 new products that hit the shelves worldwide every year.

But behind the labels, billboards and TV commercials, all replete with wind farms, solar cells and expanses of green fields (or polar bears, curiously) lies a scary fact. TerraChoice, a market research company, recently revealed the results of a study which surveyed 1,018 randomly selected products that made eco-friendly claims. Of all the products surveyed, just one lined up with its claimed green credentials. The remaining 1,017 products failed to live up to their promises. Many maintained they were composed of non-toxic substances, yet contained all sorts of banned ingredients. Claims of biodegradability were spurious. The lies promulgated by these products were multiple. Some would promote environmentally-friendly aspects of their production or composition, whilst failing to disclose their environmentally-negative impacts. Others boasted claims that, while truthful, had no bearing on the well-being of the planet. Still more promoted environmental benefits but obscured the environmental deficits which outweighed the assets. ‘Green’ SUVs were one example of this attempt to seduce the conscientious consumer; others include environmentally friendly Dell computers, NetJet private jets (fractional jet ownership), and Samsung mobile phones.

But these false claims can’t continue. What happens to a brand’s or product’s reputation and long-term survival if it consistently misrepresents itself, or lies outright to consumers? We can look to Japan for an answer. The home of innovation has recently seen consumer trust put to the test.

Shelf life

Japanese social culture invests heavily in, and lives by, mutual trust. It is one of those rare societies in which you can still leave your umbrella at the entrance to the supermarket and come back to find it waiting for you, right where you left it. Leave a phone card in a public telephone and, hours later you can return to find it left thoughtfully on top of the phone with its available credit unchanged. This tradition of trust extends into commercial life. This expectation intensifies the outrage felt by society at large when trust is abused. This was the case when a frozen dumpling product, manufactured, packed and frozen in China and imported to Japan, caused the deaths of 17 people. The mass food poisoning incident was the first of its kind in Japan’s history and it sent shock waves throughout the country. Sales of all dumplings dropped to zero. But that wasn’t the end of it. Almost every other type of frozen food was abandoned by customers. Japanese consumers were in despair about what products they could trust.

Naturally, the Japanese food manufacturing industry instituted remedial action. But the form this took may surprise you.

Taking one of my usual tours of discovery through a Japanese supermarket recently, I noticed that the majority of products’ packages bore a cartoon figure, not unlike the types of drawings you see in the Wall Street Journal. Packets of sugar had a cartoon figure, fresh salad, fish, and even dumplings. Next to the head was the name of a person, his title, age and even the address of where he lived. This information fell under a title which stated: ‘I’m responsible for this product.’ Had Japanese marketing simply come up with another cute cartoon sensation, or was this something else?

The human touch

You guessed it. This was no mere cartoon craze. The names and addresses are genuine and they belong to farmers, growers, pickers, drivers – real people who own the responsibility for their goods arriving fresh and safe to the customer. Proclaiming responsibility for products, no-one was going to lose face by earning the distrust of consumers.

The rest of the world, even if it went so thoroughly into damage control, would probably stop here. Perhaps companies might include additional information on their packaging, explaining the origins or manufacturing process of the product, all of which would be meant to signal quality assurance for the consumer. But in Japan, the personal responsibility taken for each and every product was just step one. The products also carried one of those new generation barcodes. All you need to do is photograph it with your mobile phone for the image to connect you to the internet. Having photographed a barcode beside one of those cartoon faces, I was taken to a website where the person I’d seen as a cartoon appeared on camera a real person. In the video, the guy explained how he handpicked the particular product I was observing. The video went on to show me the production line that manufactured the item, and to reveal the transportation that brought the product from factory to store. The video even included a hot link which, when clicked, took me to more information about the manufacturer and his family - just in case I wanted to check whether there was anything dodgy about him.

The secret life of a Kobe Beef cow

This wasn’t the first time I’d seen this style of full disclosure in action. About two years ago, as I ordered a luxury version of Kobe beef, a grade higher than the already fashionable and highly tender Japanese meat, the restaurant’s chef placed a seven-page report on my choice of beef beside my plate in the restaurant. This seemed silly at first. But I decided to give the document my attention. It divulged the life (and death) history of the cow whose flesh I was about to taste. It detailed the diet which the well-cared-for cow had enjoyed, its family history, the story of the cattle farmer and his family (complete with pictures, of course). Finally, the booklet held…wait for it…the cow’s nose print. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The dumpling story, one year later, explained it all.

You’ve just witnessed a whole new level of trust – of its demonstration, and the earning of it. Today’s consumer is well-informed, demanding and sceptical. Brands struggle to survive our rigorous expectations. It’s hard enough to win and retain trust in this environment. So if a brand starts trying to mislead consumers, it had better start counting its days. Fake promises and long-winded explanations do nothing to earn consumer trust. They have either no effect at all, or act to further obscure the truth. Brands have to present their real stories, and the real faces behind them. Consumers want to see people they can rely on; people who are prepared to put their name on the line to attest to the validity of their claims.

As companies try to bag a spot on the eco-friendly bandwagon, they enter desperate searches for ways to communicate their environmental values and intentions. But this is paralleled by steadily increasing consumer cynicism. We’ve not yet reached a tipping point. Consumer ombudsmen, advertising standards authorities and, in the US, the Federal Trade Commission are in the midst of a battle against brands making groundless claims. In some countries, spurious eco-claims have become the subjects of government hearings to determine genuine environmental credentials and ‘green wash’. The outcomes have been enforced in Denmark.

So where is this likely to end? You could hope that brands with genuine claims may get some credit for their contribution to a healthier planet. And that the liars are punished. But it’s more likely that genuine claims will simply have to escalate their intensity and originality to keep ahead of the pretenders. Yet another layer of convincing communication will need to be applied. At first it will convince, but, over time, its effectiveness will diminish. What was once accepted as genuine will be doubted and then dismissed as just another convincing scam. Who knows if that cattle farmer really exists. He indeed looked convincing, and so did his mother. But didn’t I see him in another ad for chewing gum? Probably not. Who knows?

Martin Lindstrom is author of Buyology –Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, BRAND sense and BRANDchild, and an advisor to several Fortune 100 brands including Disney, Nestlé, Pepsi, Reebok, Procter & Gamble, Microsoft , McDonald’s, and Unilever.

www.MartinLindstrom.com

THE GREEN WASH / BY MARTIN LINDSTROM /

Lindstrom.indd 2

4/11/08 08:31:19

Stroll through the aisles of a supermarket and chances are you’ll be presented with eco-friendly-this-and-that in most product categories. Plenty of companies have been quick to jump on the green bandwagon. Eco-friendly baby powder, shaving cream and batteries are among the 300,000 new products that hit the shelves worldwide every year.

But behind the labels, billboards and TV commercials, all replete with wind farms, solar cells and expanses of green fields (or polar bears, curiously) lies a scary fact. TerraChoice, a market research company, recently revealed the results of a study which surveyed 1,018 randomly selected products that made eco-friendly claims. Of all the products surveyed, just one lined up with its claimed green credentials. The remaining 1,017 products failed to live up to their promises. Many maintained they were composed of non-toxic substances, yet contained all sorts of banned ingredients. Claims of biodegradability were spurious. The lies promulgated by these products were multiple. Some would promote environmentally-friendly aspects of their production or composition, whilst failing to disclose their environmentally-negative impacts. Others boasted claims that, while truthful, had no bearing on the well-being of the planet. Still more promoted environmental benefits but obscured the environmental deficits which outweighed the assets. ‘Green’ SUVs were one example of this attempt to seduce the conscientious consumer; others include environmentally friendly Dell computers, NetJet private jets (fractional jet ownership), and Samsung mobile phones.

But these false claims can’t continue. What happens to a brand’s or product’s reputation and long-term survival if it consistently misrepresents itself, or lies outright to consumers? We can look to Japan for an answer. The home of innovation has recently seen consumer trust put to the test.

Shelf life

Japanese social culture invests heavily in, and lives by, mutual trust. It is one of those rare societies in which you can still leave your umbrella at the entrance to the supermarket and come back to find it waiting for you, right where you left it. Leave a phone card in a public telephone and, hours later you can return to find it left thoughtfully on top of the phone with its available credit unchanged. This tradition of trust extends into commercial life. This expectation intensifies the outrage felt by society at large when trust is abused. This was the case when a frozen dumpling product, manufactured, packed and frozen in China and imported to Japan, caused the deaths of 17 people. The mass food poisoning incident was the first of its kind in Japan’s history and it sent shock waves throughout the country. Sales of all dumplings dropped to zero. But that wasn’t the end of it. Almost every other type of frozen food was abandoned by customers. Japanese consumers were in despair about what products they could trust.

Naturally, the Japanese food manufacturing industry instituted remedial action. But the form this took may surprise you.

Taking one of my usual tours of discovery through a Japanese supermarket recently, I noticed that the majority of products’ packages bore a cartoon figure, not unlike the types of drawings you see in the Wall Street Journal. Packets of sugar had a cartoon figure, fresh salad, fish, and even dumplings. Next to the head was the name of a person, his title, age and even the address of where he lived. This information fell under a title which stated: ‘I’m responsible for this product.’ Had Japanese marketing simply come up with another cute cartoon sensation, or was this something else?

The human touch

You guessed it. This was no mere cartoon craze. The names and addresses are genuine and they belong to farmers, growers, pickers, drivers – real people who own the responsibility for their goods arriving fresh and safe to the customer. Proclaiming responsibility for products, no-one was going to lose face by earning the distrust of consumers.

The rest of the world, even if it went so thoroughly into damage control, would probably stop here. Perhaps companies might include additional information on their packaging, explaining the origins or manufacturing process of the product, all of which would be meant to signal quality assurance for the consumer. But in Japan, the personal responsibility taken for each and every product was just step one. The products also carried one of those new generation barcodes. All you need to do is photograph it with your mobile phone for the image to connect you to the internet. Having photographed a barcode beside one of those cartoon faces, I was taken to a website where the person I’d seen as a cartoon appeared on camera a real person. In the video, the guy explained how he handpicked the particular product I was observing. The video went on to show me the production line that manufactured the item, and to reveal the transportation that brought the product from factory to store. The video even included a hot link which, when clicked, took me to more information about the manufacturer and his family - just in case I wanted to check whether there was anything dodgy about him.

The secret life of a Kobe Beef cow

This wasn’t the first time I’d seen this style of full disclosure in action. About two years ago, as I ordered a luxury version of Kobe beef, a grade higher than the already fashionable and highly tender Japanese meat, the restaurant’s chef placed a seven-page report on my choice of beef beside my plate in the restaurant. This seemed silly at first. But I decided to give the document my attention. It divulged the life (and death) history of the cow whose flesh I was about to taste. It detailed the diet which the well-cared-for cow had enjoyed, its family history, the story of the cattle farmer and his family (complete with pictures, of course). Finally, the booklet held…wait for it…the cow’s nose print. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The dumpling story, one year later, explained it all.

You’ve just witnessed a whole new level of trust – of its demonstration, and the earning of it. Today’s consumer is well-informed, demanding and sceptical. Brands struggle to survive our rigorous expectations. It’s hard enough to win and retain trust in this environment. So if a brand starts trying to mislead consumers, it had better start counting its days. Fake promises and long-winded explanations do nothing to earn consumer trust. They have either no effect at all, or act to further obscure the truth. Brands have to present their real stories, and the real faces behind them. Consumers want to see people they can rely on; people who are prepared to put their name on the line to attest to the validity of their claims.

As companies try to bag a spot on the eco-friendly bandwagon, they enter desperate searches for ways to communicate their environmental values and intentions. But this is paralleled by steadily increasing consumer cynicism. We’ve not yet reached a tipping point. Consumer ombudsmen, advertising standards authorities and, in the US, the Federal Trade Commission are in the midst of a battle against brands making groundless claims. In some countries, spurious eco-claims have become the subjects of government hearings to determine genuine environmental credentials and ‘green wash’. The outcomes have been enforced in Denmark.

So where is this likely to end? You could hope that brands with genuine claims may get some credit for their contribution to a healthier planet. And that the liars are punished. But it’s more likely that genuine claims will simply have to escalate their intensity and originality to keep ahead of the pretenders. Yet another layer of convincing communication will need to be applied. At first it will convince, but, over time, its effectiveness will diminish. What was once accepted as genuine will be doubted and then dismissed as just another convincing scam. Who knows if that cattle farmer really exists. He indeed looked convincing, and so did his mother. But didn’t I see him in another ad for chewing gum? Probably not. Who knows?

Martin Lindstrom is author of Buyology –Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, BRAND sense and BRANDchild, and an advisor to several Fortune 100 brands including Disney, Nestlé, Pepsi, Reebok, Procter & Gamble, Microsoft , McDonald’s, and Unilever.

www.MartinLindstrom.com

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