This year I attended the EPIC Vancouver Sustainable Living Show as an exhibitor (with two clients) as well as a blogger, shopper and beer sampler. There were brand and product concepts aplenty, offering a creative marketing boost as well as a feeling of genuine entrepreneurial optimism. Sure, the usual flock of ‘green’ graphics were on display, with their obligatory sans-serif typefaces and bamboo-wood backgrounds. And there were likely more overpriced niche products than rich hippies to buy them. But overall, the mainstreaming of sustainablity was evident, from the decidedly non-green-and-fuzzy crowd demographic to the inclusion of retailers like London Drugs in the exhibitor mix. I only had so much time to focus on a few interesting brands in my video highlight reel, but you can learn more on the EPIC Vancouver web site. Maybe we’ll see you there next year. Enjoy.

There is something inherently sad in the idea of waste. So when London Drugs set up a partnership with FreeGeek Vancouver to help collect usable older computers and keep them out of landfill, I saw an opportunity to have a little fun and tug on the heartstrings at the same time. As part of a series of videos I host for LD’s What’s the Green Deal initiatives, I hit some of Vancouver’s lonely alleyways looking to rescue some down-and-out machines. Director/Videographer Don Barnard shot and edited the spot, giving it a slightly desaturated look that fit perfectly with the melodramatic tone. And while we were definitely spoofing the maudlin NGO plea formula, there is a very real issue at the heart of reducing e-waste. Much of what is carelessly discarded or irresponsibly recycled ends up in poorer countries creating toxic dumps. So have a look and pass the video around if you can. The more people we can have dropping off workable machines at London Drugs, the better for all of us. (Cue schmaltzy violin music….)

Protesters at the Olympic Village Open House show their disappointment at the reduced amount of social housing in the neighbourhood. The giant bird shows his disappointment at being made of plastic.

I hear this question a lot. Especially while I’m trying to rationalize to the untweeted masses why I spend inordinate amounts of time chirping at the world in 140 character expulsions. While speaking about Social Marketing at a recent conference I used an anecdote from my own experience to offer one answer.

As @GreenBriefs on Twitter, I follow a number of sustainability and green marketing feeds. One of these is Granville Online – a Vancouver-based green lifestyle publication. On April 21st, I was checking my Twitter feed when this post caught my eye:
Because I know and like Granville Magazine, like music and am into recycling, I clicked the link. This led me to the Granville blog article and online video. From there I linked to the ScrapArtsMusic Facebook page where I watched a few more video samples of their work. There I found out they were performing two Vancouver shows, on the 22nd and 23rd. I was so impressed I bought two tickets for the very next night.

From Twitter to blog to Facebook to a $60 sale in less than 20 minutes. All for a group I had never even heard of until that day.

And the show was so good, I wrote my own blog review of it, including a review and critique of their marketing and brand. My GreenBriefs blog article was then re-tweeted and mentioned on Facebook by Granville and ScrapArts. I got two new subscribers to my blog and ScrapArtsMusic even contacted me to ask about my marketing services.
And I swear I didn’t do this just as an example. It wasn’t until afterward that I thought about just how revolutionary a purchase process this was.

So don’t dismiss Twitter as 140 characters of mindless drivel times 100 Million just yet. Get the right followers and the right network and you could be making real sales to new fans.

So far, it may have more to do with luck than anything, but petroleum giant BP seems to be successfully evading more than just the question of responsibility for the worst offshore oil disaster in history.

Quick – what’s the worst oil tanker disaster in recent memory? What company was responsible? Exxon Mobil and Valdez are irrevocably linked, and the stain of that event will rightly stick to that company for as long as the oil fouls Alaska’s once-pristine coastline.

But because BP (perhaps wisely) did not attach their corporate name to the rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, they simply aren’t as front and center in this calamity. A scan of recent articles reveals just how weakly this major catastrophe has been branded. It has been called Gulf of Mexico oil spill (Washington Post), Deep Water Horizon oil spill (Wikipedia), Massive gulf spill (MSNBC), Louisiana oil spill (Huffington Post) and… well, you get the idea. Nothing that even sticks in the public mind, let alone attaches itself to the corporations responsible.  A decade from now, the culpable parties will have paid some penance and faded into obscurity, opening the door to more of the kind of lobbying that industry seemingly always undertakes to loosen regulations and increase profits.

If environmentalists, fishermen, heck, anyone living in the gulf region, wants this disaster to have any lasting positive effect, we had better give it a much more effective brand.

So, as your humble Green Briefs branding expert, may I suggest ‘BP Blowout’. This nicely frames the discussion both in terms of corporate ownership, as well as providing some nice visual cues for the explosive nature of the original event. All with, I would suggest, at least partially-accurate overtones of lax safety.

Join the Facebook Group!

I think I’ll start a Facebook Group for this idea. If you agree, please join ‘ReBrand the oil spill – BP Blowout – Tell the World’. Lets’ get some media attention.

Because who or whatever was ultimately responsible, we need to make the memory of this spill’s origins as sticky as the oil fouling the coast.

The irony was obvious. I was stopping for petrol at the Esso station in Hope BC as I glanced over to the parking area and saw a young couple self-fueling their Toyota Delica with a hose leading from a trailer fill of waste vegetable oil. I soon learned Tyson Jerry and Cloe Whittaker were on a journey called Drive to Sustain – breaking a world record for sustainable vehicle travel. [Read more →]

Hemlock Printers is one of North America’s most advanced print shops, having won numerous awards and being named The most Environmentally Progressive Printer in Canada. Yet when they launched  NameTag™ Print Response Marketing, we decided to make the message as simple as a whiteboard sketch.

Nametag™ combines the power of customized direct-mail with the sophistication and tracking of online response, working with mailing lists, customizing messaging and printing digital direct-mail with variable data almost anywhere on the material. A Nametag URL and password is then personalized for each recipient. When customers enter these online, they are welcomed with their own web page, branded with custom graphics. They can RSVP, order on-line, answer a survey… the possibilities are endless. (See what we mean about complex? Just watch the video…!)

If you use direct-mail, you should have a look at this service. Better response means less waste, and that’s always a good thing. Find out more at Hemlock.com.

Unicycle Creative came up with the NameTag™ handle and branding, and the video concept. Then shot the piece in-house with Lorne Craig’s steady marker hand at the controls. Sound design was provided by GGRP.

Spotted in the otherwise usually tasteful Vancouver Art Gallery giftshop. Buyer on crack?

How the whole event came together reads like an ad for Social Media. I saw a Twitter Tweet from Granville Online, (a Vancouver green living website), promoting a video profile of a local ‘band’ who was making music with instruments constructed from recycled Vantown scrap. It looked like such a fascinating prospect for an Earth Day evening, I decided to buy tickets on the spot for myself and one very discriminating 9-year old companion.

We were blown out of our seats. What I thought would be a somewhat quaint, eclectic local performance turned out to have more in common with the Blue Man Group, or even Cirque du Soleil without high-wires. From their opening piece, a surprisingly soft and musical number played on plastic hoses, to huge, sparkling stainless-steel kettle drums rolling around the stage like careening bumper cars and thundering like 747 engines backfiring, the show had us transfixed. If you are reading this before 8pm (PST) Friday April 23, 2010, get down to the Stanley Theatre (Granville St. & 12th ave) and get a ticket, or check online. If not, well, maybe watch their Facebook video with headphones turned to 11.

The event was sponsored by ABC Recycling. Talk about a brilliant tie-in for a local firm. (I hope they get their share of props for backing this) A the same time, ABC’s partnership with the Kidney Foundation’s Recycle For Life campaign was introduced. Their ‘Kidney Car’ recycle-your-vehicle program has been expanded to include ‘Kidney Metals’, a recycling program covering literally everything (kitchen sinks included). It was a feel-good marketing combination that deserves as much coverage as it can get.

As for my difficult-to-impress companion: He wouldn’t leave until he got his new CD autographed by every member of the ensemble. And their return of his enthusiasm was much appreciated.

The GreenBriefs Green marketing 2-bits: I wouldn’t be doing my blogger-best if I didn’t offer a bit of feedback. The product is top-notch. Loved ScrapArtMusic’s use of Twitter and Facebook (check their page). They could have spread the word a bit more with some postcard media, or other quick pocket-sized take-away at the event itself. As a marketer, I’d love to see their music used on a TV spot for Reynolds Recycled Aluminum, or the Encorp Return-It Program. Or even the new Honda hybrid. (They could send out some PR to the ad agencies in charge of these sorts of accounts) But I get a bit of a head-scratch from the name – ScrapArtsMusic sounds less sophisticated and powerful than the show itself plays. Perhaps as their following (and hopefully success) grows, they may evolve their identity. Or not. Like I said, the product is superb. The world may just beat a path to their door.

Not always. At least, that’s the message I’m trying to convey in this latest London Drugs video. I took a tour through my local store and helped the manager build a display of green products for Earth Day. These are products identified under the What’s the Green Deal program Unicycle Creative helped them launch more than a year ago. Have a look, and if you think you know anyone who likes to shop green, send them a link. The more, the greenier.