100,000 Ford Hybrid SUVs

Detroit is struggling. That’s what’s in the news.

What isn’t in the news, is this. Ford recently shipped its 100,000th hybrid SUV. Wait a second, I thought they weren’t selling any cars?

God bless America. We’re doing good stuff. But "what we have here, is a failure to communicate."

Read all about it, HERE.

Honda Insight TV Spot: Green Car, Green Production?

From Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam comes this spot for the Insight hybrid. Here’s the “making of” video, with the spot itself at the end.

Initial response is mixed, with many folks thinking a 1,000-car commercial is a big waste of gas and electricity in itself.

AdRants says, "After doing the work to see what was possible W+K and Honda made the decision to look at a more environmentally friendly alternative. The result was a mix of Houdini 3-D modeling software for animation precision, a small number of Insight vehicles for scale and a few hundred Insight headlights." (Full article, HERE.)

As for my thoughts, I’ll refer back to an earlier post.

Being Good vs. Doing Good

I was looking at a company called Innocent today. They make fruit smoothies, and other foodstuffs. The products are all-natural, and their corporate ethics are squeaky clean. They’re doing “good” simply by being good.

It’s an interesting distinction. Some companies operationally ARE good (i.e. have a conscience), and then there are companies that go out and DO good.

Companies that ARE good: Tom’s of Maine, Innocent (drinks), Method (soap), Icelandic Glacial water, Starbucks fair trade coffees, Kashi and other organic foods, etc. A Hybrid car may fall into this category. They make internal decisions about how they run their business with one eye on profits, the other on impacting the world. The sustainability movement pushes for this sort of thing, and it’s a huge part of “good” marketing. Their customers are fans because of the way they do business.

Then there are companies that DO good. Many of those are featured in this blog. Pedigree helping shelter dogs, Quaker feeding the hungry, Diet Coke advocating heart health, Tropicana saving the rainforest, etc. These companies aren’t necessarily “green” or operationally “good” at all. But they see the value in helping society – not just for the world, but for their brand.

Ideally a company will do both. They’ll BE good, and they’ll DO good as well. But heck, I’ll settle for either.
They’re both very real reasons to choose one brand over another, especially in a parity category. (“Would you like to buy the soda that’s two cents cheaper, or the one that saves babies, ma’am?”)

So while WalMart keeps tweaking it’s operations to become more “green” (thanks in part to the efforts of SaatchiS), shoppers will be looking for ways that part of their consumer buck can go toward making the world a better place in the regular course of buying dog food.

Hey, lazy people can save the world too.

Steal This Idea: Why Don’t Green Products Use Greener Marketing?

Companies keep developing products that are easier on the earth. And that’s fantastic. Then they start the marketing, and it’s the same old plan, same old techniques.

My question is, if a product can have Goodness designed into it, why can’t a marketing plan?

The same innovation that makes that Hybrid get 45mph, apply that end-goal thinking to the marketing. It makes sense: if a customer wants to save the earth, they’re interested in this product. So how about structuring the marketing plan so that the very purchase of a Hybrid does even more to help the earth?

One way to do this is incentives. “Buy a Hybrid from our dealership, and we’ll pay to carbon-offset the rest of your life as well.” If I were a Hybrid shopper, I’d think that was pretty cool. I may even put a bumper sticker on my car about it. But it would definitely give me a reason to check out that dealer instead of buying a used car from my neighbor on Craig’s List. The dealer wins with a sale, a customer that may tell their friends about it, and there’s another Hybrid on the road.

It sure beats “Saved By Zero.”