A Wider Net

Sony has a really cool-looking mobile exhibit rolling around the country at >$4/gallon. I have to admit - it looks like a giant toy that I want to pick up and play with. It comes completely loaded with lots playable product demos in individually themed environments.

My only criticism, having not experienced it firsthand yet, is: In these days of ridiculous gas prices, thanks to the ultra-rich who continue to line their portfolios with speculated gluttony, and our fear of environmental Armageddon only surpassed by our fear of four more years of bush-alikes, why would you roll out an 18-wheeler the size of Delaware and drive around the country with a bunch of PlayStation’s? Compare that to Nintendo, who chose to associate themselves with a Smart Car in their launch campaign.

Having JUST co-written an article with Turtle Transit’s General Manager, Joe Doyon, in the May/June issue of Exhibit Builder Magazine about the use of smaller vehicles for mobile marketing, I’m a little sensitive to this sort of thing.

Compare:

Having just written about the gas price visualization, I thought I should get this one in front of you, too: An Australian advertisement that helps you visualize CO2 emissions from every day tasks and devices by portraying the emissions as filling up black balloons and releasing them skyward. Very good storytelling.

The advertisement is part of a “black balloon” campaign which states that each balloon can hold 50 grams of greenhouse gas. You can even download a desktop widget so you can tally up the emission equivalents of leaving your computer running. It’s not a true “widget” because you have to install it as an applications, but it’s a great idea nonetheless.

Loved finding this at Infosthetics.

In a recent issue of Lighting Dimensions magazine, Chauvet Lighting took out two consecutive full-page ads promoting their new campaign “Green Thinking” as a method of driving traffic to their exhibit at Lighting Dimensions International (LDI) 2007, the premiere lighting trade show in the United States. It resulted in a two-sided page with mostly images of green leaves and white space. In fact, one side featured no product shots at all - just green, white, and this sentence:
“Chauvet is a leader in eco-illumination for the entertainment industry with the wides range of innovative, earth-friendly LED luminaires.”
I’m sure the folks at Philips Solid State Lighting (formerly Color Kinetics) would have some issue with that claim, especially since some of the Chauvet technology is licensed from Philips, but that’s not what this article is about.

Surprisingly, there aren’t many LED-based lighting manufacturers jumping heaving onto the “green” marketing bandwagon. You certainly hear about big stage shows talking about their switch to LED as a way to save energy, but not the lighting makers themselves, at least not in the entertainment space. I was very pleased to see the ad and decided to take a look at Chauvet to see what else they were doing with their “Green Thinking” campaign.

Unfortunately, they have not done much with their new campaign on their website. I was expecting (hoping, actually) that they had integrated it thoroughly into their corporate marketing and even their strategy. “Green Thinking” was only exposed on the website as a small element of a graphic promoting their tiny LED-powered moving spotlight called the MiN Spot. Also, their corporate mission has nothing in it about green values whatsoever. I am close to calling this a greenwashing campaign, but the LED lighting is a very green technology and I will simply suggest that they should try harder to highlight that.

There was a nice article on their site about an outdoor holiday tree lighting project they did for St. Paul, Minnesota. In it, they claim that the switch to LED lights dropped the power bills from $1,300.00 to approximately $130.00, and carbon emissions from 18.7 tons to about 4 tons, according to an estimate from the Minnesota State Energy Office. Pretty impressive! LED Lighting has become a highly effective and technically viable solution for events and while it does cost a bit more to specify, is a reasonable way to reduce energy costs on your events and exhibits.

Chauvet, a company best known in the nightclub market, really made it’s presence known at LDI by winning Best Big Booth. They captured that booth experience on video and delivered it through their website. While the video was way too long at 45 minutes, I heartily applaud the use of video to extend the reach and value of their booth. The also have their own YouTube video channel but the LDI booth tour is not on there (length issue, maybe?).

In summary, I give high marks to Chauvet for playing the green card in their LDI booth promotions, but low marks for not integrating it onto their website and corporate mission. Also, I love their use of video and their channel on YouTube - they just need to package the booth tour better. If you’re considering the impact of lighting on your next event, talk to a good lighting designer. Most professional lighting designers are now well-versed in the ins-and-outs of LED and other low energy lighting solutions. If you have set goals to make your events or exhibits more green, then LED lighting should be part of your plan.

Exhibitor Magazine published “An Inconvenient Booth” - a trend report covering the “economic impact of the Green movement on the trade show industry.” It’s a very good read that highlights some positive trends, some less-than positive trends, and good details of the obstacles facing exhibitors and suppliers as they attempt to incorporate Green practices. Note: It feels very weird to me to capitalize Green in this context so bear with me if I miss one or two.

A positive highlight of the report is the amount of interest in green exhibiting by exhibitors and suppliers. 62% of exhibitors and 81% of suppliers said their interest in Green exhibiting options is high or very high. Another highlight: “51% of exhibitors believe that adopting Greener practices will enhance their companies’ brand or image.” These numbers are expected to increase in 2008. Despite only about two-thirds of the exhibitors expressing high or very high interest in Green practices, 86% of them anticipate setting aside budget dollars in 2008 for Green options. That’s significant, and that’s part of the reason that the report highlights a $9.24 billion untapped market for Green exhibiting options. That’s the upside of the report.

One of the most disheartening aspects of the report was the fact that, despite the clear interest in Green exhibiting options, there is a shocking lack of interest in paying extra for it. People want their Green, but not if it costs more and not if it limits their options. Once the cost of incorporating Green practices adds a 5% premium to their total exhibit costs, the number of exhibitors willing to go that route drops to 73%. If they incur a 10% premium, then the number of willing participants drops to 45%. And if they have to pay 15% more to use Green options, only 14% said they would pay the difference. So - that should tell us how much they value the impact going Green on their brand and corporate image.

This is the toughest part of the Inconvenient Truth that we all face. We want to save the planet, but we’re often not willing to make sacrifices to do it - especially in business. That’s why we see so much greenwashing - it’s far cheaper to pretend to be green than to actually do it. The report indicated that one of the major obstacles facing exhibitors who want to go Green is the lack of interest and support from the leadership within their company. What I hope will follow, in Trend Report #2, is the research to show executives how valuable a Green strategy can be, and how little it can cost to make a big impact. Give exhibitors ammunition to fight the fight all the way up the ladder/chain.

The report is available as a PDF. Download it. Don’t print it. The hard copy that was inserted in every issue of Exhibitor Magazine was printed on only 10% post-consumer waste paper. 10%. Great report - not a great delivery. Similarly, the US Post Office, in an attempt to promote printed direct marketing, keeps sending me thick printed brochures-disguised-as-magazines about how green direct marketing can be, when targetted properly. Here’s a suggestion: Send me a postcard and put the thick document on the web.

I applaud Exhibitor Magazine for taking the initiative to perform this research. It’s a great step and I hope they continue to identify and share ways for exhibitors to incorporate Greener practices.

Does anyone else find it ironic that our government is planning to scrutinize marketers for making false Green marketing claims? Is this the same organization that has been trying to market Global Warming as a hoax? Regardless of which theory you believe, the FTC is planning to update their “Green Guides,” guidelines to help marketers avoid over-bending any laws, which are now almost a decade out of date old.

According to this Business Week article, they plan to pay special attention to carbon offsets. These are environmentally positive activities that are used in conjunction with environmentally negative activities in an effort to claim that a product or service is “carbon neutral.” For example, a company selling pesticides may, in turn, plant trees and recycle and so on. It’s sort of like eating a Snickers bar with a Diet Coke. You can drink all the Diet Coke you want but it won’t take away the fat and calories in that candy bar. It doesn’t work that way. It is easy to see how these claims can get out of hand.

Marketers are often accused of spinning and distorting the truth to sell products and create artificial demand. Lawyers are accused of the same thing and they’re universally despised for it. (They obviously need better marketing.) For us, it makes sense to pay attention to this FTC investigation. We’re better off keeping our act clean, while we proudly highlight the clean acts of our clients.

Image courtesy of this guy.

At the Mobile Internet World show today, I saw a company that made a really cool electronic coupon device. Ecrio is offering Mobeam, a keychain device that connects to your computer and downloads all the virtual coupons you can eat. You take it to the store and point it at the cash register barcode scanner and press a button to beam all your coupons into the register. Whatever coupons are “valid” (you bought the item(s)) will ring up on the register. Cool. Much better than clipping and sorting, saving and lugging.

I’m still trying to come up with a way to use this technology at a trade show or museum exhibit. And I’m also wonder what they were doing at a mobile internet show. Regardless, it was a claim on their brochure that made me write this post:

“…a Chance to go ‘Green’”
“Approximately 340 billion coupons were distributed in the US in 2006- most via free-standing inserts in daily newspapers. That translates to about 2.5 million trees - including the ~40% use of recycled paper in newsprint! Since MoBeam coupons are distributed digitally - and redeemed digitally as well - coupon providers can save money and the environment at the same time.”

Notice how they didn’t mention what those little metal, plastic, and battery-filled devices will do on our landfills (sit there for a gazillion years and poison our groundwater). This is a great device and if they get it off the ground, I’m in for two. But when it comes to marketing copy, I’m a big fan of green marketing only where the “green” is real.

Scott Walker, CTS-D, LEED AP, wrote a terrific article in Systems Contractor magazine about finding our green inner selves and applying to our jobs. He included a wise and witty top 10 ways to tell if you are a Greeny. I love this list at a personal level, and I may make a new one later this week tailored more for businesses.

From the article:

“You Could Be A Greeny If…

10. You believe global warming is the largest threat facing mankind, and we need to do all we can to solve it.

9. You believe the current model we’ve built for our civilization is unsustainable as the global population zooms past six billion people.

8. You’re alarmed by the increased asthma rates in today’s children, perhaps even within your own family.

7. You’re an avid outdoorsman or sportsman whose soul is replenished by spending time in nature; and from your exposure to it, you understand nature’s delicate balance.

6. Your spiritual beliefs have led you to an understanding that we have a moral obligation to be good stewards of this wonderful creation we call Earth.

5. Your family budget has been repeatedly and negatively impacted by high prices at the pump, and you’ve begun to consider alternate or public transportation.

4. You’re a businessperson who can see a money-making opportunity in this whole green thing.

3. You believe the nation’s security interests are paramount and dependency on foreign oil from the Middle East makes us less safe.

2. You don’t like Hugo Chavez and believe we can stick it to him if we were truly energy independent.

1. Or, like me at age eight, you just think it’s stupid to needlessly waste our finite resources when we have all the tools necessary to conserve energy and improve efficiency with little or no sacrifice in our quality of life. “

A post from the DemoBlog talks about a solar-powered web hosting company called Greenest Host.

A great story, and an interesting alternative if you have any non-mission-critical sites you’d like to host. I suppose your site could feature a little badge like the “made with recycled paper” badge found on almost all printed materials these days, but used to mean something.

Apparently the founder sold his SAAB convertible to buy servers - not save gas - but I still think this company has a cool idea.

I’m thinking I could make a killing with an environmentally-conscious solar-powered tanning booth

EcoBranders offers a whole line of environmentally-friendly products. Some are great - they include plastic things made out of corn plastic, things made out of cork, things made out of hemp, and clothing made of cotton and bamboo (like the picture to the left which also features their most expensive product: a premium recycled slacker).

Some things are weird, like the recycled stone made from pulverized… er… stone. Not sure what the environmental need is there, but for the sake of Mother Earth we should stop buying virgin rocks and get the recycled kind. I guess.

I’m also not sure the recycled paper pens will pass muster with the shirt pocket. It just seems like a recipe for disaster.

It’s worth a look - there are a LOT of products made from all kinds of recycled and recyclable stuff. It will make you feel better. And it may help you satisfy your next event’s green requirements

I’ve always been concerned about the environment, interested in environmental issues, and wildly cynical of big oil and the politicians who pander to it. So, I’m surprised that I haven’t spent more time and energy researching environmentally conscious events. Until recently, talking about environmental issues relating to events tended to make me feel as out of place as a vegan at Arbys. But at a few trade shows recently I noticed an increase in conversations around environmental issues and a few outstanding vendors devoted to green exhibits and practices.

So I’m going to spend a few posts sharing some research I’ll be doing into green event operation and marketing practices. For today, since I’m short on time, I’ll share a few interesting sites I found today that are related to the topic of green events.

Here’s a good article from MPI’s The Meeting Professional, that includes excerpts from a report indicating that green events saves money, plus a checklist of easy to execute tips.

ecosystems offers the first ever modular exhibit system that uses LEED certified materials.

CERC offers a huge list of resources and tips.

The Green Meeting Industry Council has some interesting, although somewhat dated, statistics.
This one I love - a post about how fancy restaurants are replacing bottled water (very bad for the environment) with well-filtered tap water. It’s about time!
BlueGreen meetings has this list of tips for greener meetings.

On a personal level, LifeHacker highlights two sites to calculate your carbon emissions based on your lifestyle and ways to offset them.

This PDF from Duke University offers a ton of actionable tips to lower the environmental impact of any event. One of my favorites: “If handouts must be used, print on both sides”. Who saves handouts, anyway?
Ecospeakers offers a list of very helpful links into the topic of green events, plus they act as a bureau for environmental-themed speakers

EADEnvironmental offers Environmental Action Certificates that illustrate how your event is reducing it’s green house gas emissions - suitable for framing.