Treat Everyday Like Earth Day

Photo by Flávio Takemoto at stock.xchng.

Earth Day was founded almost 30 years ago by Senator Gaylord Nelson. It was his hope that the events and demonstrations accompanying Earth Day would “thrust the environment into the political mainstream.” Earth Day has certainly lived on in a big way for several decades, but it is really only in the last few years, if not the last year, that the general public has become acutely aware of the dire situation we and our planet find ourselves in.

Marketing departments are definitely figuring out that ”going green” and “sustainability” is all the rave now. Just today, I received a note from Oppenheimer Funds that I can go paperless with eDocs Direct℠. Cool! I’ve been trying to go paperless for months. It is hard when some companies insist on sending out tons (literally) of paper.

I ran across an interesting angle to “green” marketing the other day when I received a piece of direct mail from a company called “CottageCare® - Housecleaning at its best!®.” It caught my eye due to the clearly environmental tone to the design and the promise of “100% ECO-FRIENDLY.” In fact, I had been holding off on getting a cleaning service, because I didn’t want my house intoxicated with chlorine bleach and other chemicals that may possibly be illegal in Europe. This seemed like a good solution. However, the interesting part is this statement:

“CottageCare® has the distinguished record of having been environmentally friendly since our roots in the mid-70’s, not just with the recent popular trend.”

The book “Green to Gold” warns that environmental aspects of product marketing should be “the third button.” I.e. quality, price, and service are still important and should be presented to potential customers before waving the green flag. CottageCare® does a good job with this. The main tagline is “Freedom From Housework® …it’s a fabulous feeling!” (I can only imagine…) They then move on to talk about their affordable pricing: “With prices starting at just $62…” (not bad!). Finally, they present the user with the “100% ECO-FRIENDLY” pitch. Perfect. In addition, they really go above and beyond with the “Green to the roots” statement. We now have a new type of differentiation: “We were green before it was cool to be green.”

CottageCare® has realized that consumers see through the green “fad” (but let’s hope it’s not a fad!) and the accompanying green advertising. This company is smart to point out that they are the real deal. They’ve been doing this since the seventies, just like Earth Day. To them, everyday is Earth Day. They sold me. I’ll be calling for a quote!