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During a recent browse through London Drugs, I spotted this interesting packaging for a laundry detergent (please excuse the quality of my cell phone\u2019s photography).<\/p>\n

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What caught my eye was the down-to-earth packaging. There were no \u2018shout-out-loud\u2019 colours with a gloss finish, just a drab, \u2018whole wheat\u2019 cardboard look. A closer examination of the packaging made me realise what was going on. Here\u2019s what I perceived in the first few moments of noticing the bottles:<\/p>\n

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• The green leaf and oddly placed asterisk\/sun icon made me want to find and read some kind of disclaimer, in other words, my cynicism meter started twitching.<\/li>\n
• The packaging is obviously made from, or supposed to resemble, recycled cardboard. Embossed in the indentation were the barely-discernible words \u2018eco logic\u2019.<\/li>\n
• The word \u2018Natural\u2019 on the label\u00a0 made me think \u2018Enviro-friendly or greenwashing?\u2019.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  My perceptions coalesced into this assessment:<\/p>\n

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  • The Seventh Generation brand is all about natural, environmentally friendly cleaning products and recycled packaging.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Interest piqued, I\u2019m off to the website for more info.<\/p>\n

    A quick search on Bing (Google\u2019s new privacy infractions have caused me to switch search engines) brought up this home page:<\/p>\n

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    Nicely laid out, clean and crisp as you expect your shirts would be after using a 4x natural detergent. I browsed the website quickly to get a feel for what was going on, and my cynicism meter dropped to zero. These guys appear to be the real deal.<\/p>\n

    So why did I doubt them?<\/p>\n

    Well, there has been a lot of greenwashing going on. Greenwashing is the practice of \u2018pretending\u2019 to be environmentally friendly. It\u2019s just plain old bad marketing. So when I see someone claiming to be natural, eco-friendly, and green, I go looking to make sure they\u2019re walking the talk. And you can bet your last penny many other consumers do the same. If I\u00a0believe<\/strong>\u00a0the company is exaggerating or lying to me, I won\u2019t go near its products.<\/p>\n

    Why would I? They\u2019re liars. And my doubt can only be eliminated by providing the right information \u2013 the information that builds my trust.<\/p>\n

    So, what eliminated my scepticism?<\/p>\n

    The company\u2019s website provides so much information, it\u2019s scary. BUT, they do it using short videos. And where they use text, it\u2019s in relatively small, easily understood bites. It all speaks with a consistent theme, in a coherent manner to support the brand concept.<\/p>\n

    Look at the little yellow box in the bottom right corner of the website home page. It says:<\/p>\n

    \u201cWe have saved 489,645 trees or 1,509,383 barrels of petroleum. Learn how.\u201d<\/p>\n

    In short, they make it easy to see the proof that they walk the talk. The brand promise is delivered \u2013 no greenwashing, no need for caution. So now, every time I see the Seventh Generation brand, I trust it.<\/p>\n

    And trust is one thing your brand and marketing communications should always build.<\/p>\n

    (Not sure about the Lorax promo though!)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    During a recent browse through London Drugs, I spotted this interesting packaging for a laundry detergent (please excuse the quality of my cell phone\u2019s photography). What caught…(read post)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n