Happy Birthday to my nephew and to the greening of the earth. I wonder sometimes, just how bad things are seriously and how much have we been damaged due to pollutants et al.
As corporate America gets greener, Earth Day is following the path of Valentine’s Day, Easter and Christmas, and turning into a corporate marketing opportunity. But instead of advertising chocolates or toys, companies are selling themselves and their greenness — and often, the biggest marketers are those with sizable carbon footprints.
This week, for instance, Anheuser-Busch is airing four new television ads as well as print ads featuring employees “discussing the company’s commitment to the environment,” according to a news release. Anheuser-Busch, whose beer cans often end up littering roadsides, has operated a large aluminum-can recycler for 30 years and has other environmental programs.
Then there is MB Food Processing, a poultry processor in South Fallsburg, N.Y., which announced last week that it now will use “electrolyzed water” — created by combining salt and water with an electrical charge — to clean chickens when they are processed. The water helps kill food-borne bacteria and offers an environmentally friendly alternative to the chlorine-based disinfectants used at most plants, fulfilling the chicken processor’s goal of supplying “the healthiest safest poultry while maintaining an eye on social responsibility,” according to a news release. Steve Gold, vice president of sales and marketing, says the company also is eliminating foam trays from its packaging.
On Tuesday, it is launching a program in grocery chains with which it does business to educate consumers and store staff about its packaging and cutting down on use of plastic bags.
The eco-friendly push has created a surge in the number of green-related trademark applications, according to an annual study of trends in trademarks done by Dechert, a Philadelphia law firm. Last year, more than 2,400 applications were filed for logos or phrases that used the word “green,” and about 100 applications sought to trademark “Go Green.” The word “green” was joined by others with an environmental slant: About 900 applications were filed for the word “clean,” and the prefix “eco” also was hot. The popularity of “eco” doubled in 2007 from the year earlier to 900 new applications, such as Ecoroof and Ecomattress. Dechert’s study says the applications helped to lift the total number of trademark applications in the U.S. 10% to 300,000 last year.
It is “green gridlock with multiple companies filing for almost-identical marks at nearly the same time,” says Glenn A. Gundersen, chairman of Dechert’s trademark practice.
It just makes you wonder…..what the hell were we eating, drinking, breathing???
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