This photo is almost a relic now. A year ago Yahoo announced its green cab program in New York City with its celebrities at the podium. While not the start of corporate and hi-fashion green promotions, it sure was a memorable moment. Green cars, celebrities, a major web giant, all staged in front of the press in New York Times Square; “green” hype at its best. Green had arrived, and right in the middle of America’s iconic media center.
In the last few years with the spawn of the “green rush” what has happened around us as a result? Awareness, sure. More green buildings, definitely. Increased investment in clean tech, absolutely. “Green fatigue” setting in because of various levels of Obsessive Compulsive Environmentalism? Possibly.
The Emergence of Green Fatigue
We definitely don’t lay claim to the term “green fatigue”, as mentioned recently on Newsweek’s essay “I’m so tired of being green”, in London last year, this past January in Outside Magazine, and from bloggers. The fact that the phrases such as “green fatigue” are becoming part of people’s conversations at events, in shopping markets, and on internet chat rooms, are a sign of what is just around the corner for the “green” sector. The fact is this, overload of green is fatiguing people to the point where green messages bounce off people and are deflected.
We’ve spoken about the positives and negatives of shallow green branding before in today’s market, and so have our colleagues. Green branding limitations will begin to (more…)
June 29th, 2008
With all of these leaves floating around, as mentioned in the last entry, it can be confusing to know what is trust worthy. It couldn’t be more true than for consumers of green products, who wish to know which is the trust worthy brand or label. While this is a conversation that has been taking place for a while, this is the furthest we’ve seen “green washing” education reach out to the general public.
May 14th, 2008
No. Don’t worry, it’s not another line about “it’s not easy being green.” But Kermit does have something right when it comes to messaging in a green saturated media market. Kermit is here for a different reason, he played an important role in bringing green back to the mainstream. Yes, that’s right, Kermit is to “green” as Justin Timberlake is to “sexy.”
Since Kermit went big at the Superbowl for Ford (seen here above), all we hear is green this, green that. You may ask, “how long will green last?” Is it a fad, a movement, or meme? (Read the definition of meme).
With biofuels coming under question, nuclear power being considered by environmental groups, farmers standing in front of wind turbines, and Oprah and Matt Lauer screaming “green is good” from the center of pop culture news, one has to wonder, how is meaning of “green” evolving in today’s society? And, will it stick, or, will we get sea-green sick?
Update on the Insider Conversation
When Madison Avenue resurrected Kermit from his coastal wetland to do a commercial Ford unknowingly re-introduced green to the masses. The Kermit ripple effect sparked conversations between little, and even big groups of creative people (including Ecofusion), sitting in fields, conference rooms, and/or creative spaces doctoring the DNA of the “green” message. For those of you who don’t follow the conversation happening inside the ad agencies and communications firms regarding this conversation, here is a little summary update from the folks at Ecofusion….
“Don’t Think of a Leaf”
(from our friends at egg)
Agencies cultivating green product messages early in the game moved on from “leaf and grass” branding a year or so ago, if not years ago. Those who just jumped on board the “green branding” bandwagon are planting trees, grass, and leaves on every website and magazine cover you can find, creating the equivalent of a smart mob looking for “green” on Getty and iStock. As our friends at egg wrote, “Don’t think of a leaf.” If you haven’t read this article, please read it. It says it all. Our response to this great article is this:
Tip #1, #2 and #3…. (more…)
May 7th, 2008
Organics were just starting to hit the main stream market in DC in the late 90’s when Ecofusion’s founders performed their first moon-lighting consulting projects to help market organic farms in the mid-Atlantic region of the US (Waterpenny Farm). Since our growth to a full-time operation, things have changed in the area. Recently in sustainability trade magazines and local media there have been more than just a few indications that the region, specifically the Washington DC metro region may just become a bright green shining city on the hill.
Sustainable Industries Journal, a primarily west coast centric publication, is a favorite at Ecofusion because of its focus on the regional green economy in the Pacific Northwest (where Ecofusion was officially started in 2005), and now on the entire West Coast, as SIJ just expanded to California over the last year.
When SIJ covered the LEED certified features of the Washington National’s new baseball stadium in its most recent print edition and on-line, we wondered if there wasn’t something of a Pacific Northwest-like trend in the greening of the DC Metro region.
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October 15th, 2007
In their August 2007 cover story, Sustainable Industries Journal gives an in-depth report on the major trends driving the explosion of Green Media 2.0: the creation of new “green”vertising budgets aimed at green buyers, the increasing competition for green audiences, the volatility in the space with big players like Yahoo jumping in and creating green brands. While accurately depicting the major trends, the article misses an opportunity to look at the broader landscape of what is happening at the intersection of green, advocacy, and business. At Ecofusion, we think the article and the industry haven’t quite realized the full potential of Green Media. Might we only be at Green Media 1.5 rather than 2.0? We have some ideas about what is missing and where you might find organic ingredients for a true Green Media 2.0 experience.
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August 21st, 2007
A 10 minute mini-documentary and Google Earth toolkit are part of SkyTruth’s first Google Earth package aimed at educating the public about the impacts of oil & gas exploration on the environment. The Upper Green River Valley: A View From Above was edited and directed by Ecofusion and is part of a new push for the non-profit organization SkyTruth to use new communications tools to spread the word about the impacts we humans have on the environment. As one YouTube comment has put it, “Outstanding! I wish this was required viewing for every politician, land owner, high school and college student in the state (of Wyoming).”
You can find the Director and President of SkyTruth, John Amos, featured this week on Grist as the InterActivist. In addition to the viral video being spread quickly around YouTube, Ecofusion developed the Google Earth file that features an indepth look at the issues surrounding this famous stuggle to find a balance between energy development and the local human and ecological communities.
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January 9th, 2007
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