As marketers increasingly look to brand their companies as "green" to win a larger share of consumers' greenbacks, the vacuum maker Electrolux's green marketing campaign offers stark contrast to BP's "greenwashing."
The embattled oil company changed its logo into a green-and-yellow sunflower and its slogan to "beyond petroleum" -- then allowed millions of gallons of oil per day to spew directly into the Gulf of Mexico in an ongoing ecological disaster.
Electrolux, on the other hand, goes well beyond green sloganeering with its well-timed announcement of a plan to turn some of the discarded plastic in the oceans into vacuum cleaners.
Sure, it's a publicity stunt. But ...
"Our oceans are filled with plastic waste," said Electrolux president and CEO Hans Stråberg in a statement. "Yet on land, there is a shortage of recycled plastic. The supply of sustainable raw material, such as recycled plastic, is crucial for making sustainable appliances, and assisting consumers in making their homes greener. I therefore hope people will join us in raising awareness about the threat plastic poses to marine habitats, and the urgent need for taking better care of the plastic that already exists."
To reclaim the plastic, Electrolux will "work with experts and volunteers" to dive, fish, and scavenge several concentrated plastic hotspots in the world's oceans, as part of its Vac From The Sea project: the Pacific, Indian, Atlantic and Mediterranean oceans, as well as the Baltic and North seas.
Plastic is the main ingredient in today's vacuum cleaners. Electrolux product manager Jonas Magnusson claims that the company's line of green devices currently contains 70 percent recycled plastic, and that the main barrier to increasing that to 100 percent is the lack of available plastics to recycle.
The idea of finding the rest of the plastic in the ocean and turning it into vacuum cleaners is clearly opportunistic. But Electrolux's timing couldn't be better in light of BP's ongoing fiasco. And the company actually does plan to remove plastic from the oceans -- a far cry from merely changing a logo and slogan, all the while laying the foundation for major environmental catastrophes.
Of course, no marketing campaign these days is complete without social media outreach. Electrolux has created Facebook and Twitter accounts to attract volunteers, and will document its progress on a blog (not yet online).
Here, too, BP functions as a cautionary tale for companies looking to connect with the public on environmental or other issues. Its problem was very different from Electrolux's – rather than trumpeting its positive effect on the environment, BP's task was to convince us that it was at least somewhat prepared for this eventuality, and that it was doing enough to make things right with the environment and those whose livelihoods were affected directly by its massive mistake.
However, the company took about a month to set up Facebook and Twitter accounts to communicate with the public after the spill, instead spending millions on lobbyists and a one-way television campaign that didn't allow the public to voice its concerns.
Electrolux and BP: One sucks, the other blows.
See Also:
- BP's Social Media Campaign Going About as Well as Capping That Well
- BP's 'Nightmare' Well: Internal Documents Uncover Negligence
- Gorillaz Talk Plastic Beach, Subtle Environmentalism and 'Sunshine In A Bag"
- Drowning in an Ocean of Plastic
- Chemical From Plastic Water Bottles Found Throughout Oceans
- Toxic Soup: Plastics Could Be Leaching Chemicals Into Ocean
- Science Fair Project Isolates Plastic-Eating Microbes
- Plastic Boat: The Building of a High-Tech Eco-Stunt
- Organized Chaos: Viral Marketing, Meet Social Media
- Wired-o-Nomics: Mad Men, Media, Marketing and a Fine Mess
