In the past couple of weeks, two seemingly opposite articles about packaging have piqued my interest.
First it was this one from Fast Company: “Will ‘Active Packaging’ Undermine Apple’s Quest for Sustainability?”
Then it was this week’s Marketing: Green column from MediaPost: “When It Comes To Packaging, Less Is More.”
360 Vodka—eco-packaging, strong rebate and tastes great!
OK, I admit it: I like vodka. I’m also on a budget. In fact, I live my life on a budget. Nothing too extreme (though times are a little tougher than usual), but I do pay attention to what I spend. And while I like nice things, I realize that top-shelf items are not normally in my budget. Life is full of compromises.
For example, I like Ketel One. It’s smooth. But Smirnoff is a better fit for the budget, it’s totally drinkable, and the liquor store down at the Smith’s has it for a good price even when it’s not on sale.
But while in for a bottle recently I noticed some very “green” marketing on a boutique vodka I’ve eyed from time to time but never bought, and caved. The vodka is “360” and it bills itself as the “Eco Luxury Vodka.”
Toyota's Prius to become its own brand.
Yesterday Micheline Maynard of the New York Times’ “Green Inc.” blog wrote that Toyota is considering making the Prius its own brand. Apparently Toyota had previously tried to create a brand around the hybrid synergy drive, the technology behind the hybrid system, but that didn’t work out so well. But because of the Prius’ reported 75% of the hybrid market share, its pretty much become its own brand all by itself.
Green brands, or brands that aspire to be green, have a ways to go, according to the 2008 Brandjunkie Survey Results. When asked, “What brand do you think is truly (going) green? Why?” the number one answer was: none. By a strong 19.4% of the vote, most survey respondents felt there was no brand out there that was truly “green.” The top responses included:
“Companies will pretend they are environmentally aware except they still have, primarily, only their own interests in mind and are therefore never truly green.”
“All brands are out to please their stockholders.”
“There are attempts at establishing green credentials—but these attempts are happening in silos within brands and companies. Very often, the ‘green’ aspect of the business is far outweighed by the ‘non-green’ areas.”
