It takes two to tango (Episode Three)

Let’s go to the first barrier to be tackled, lack of awareness. Most of us don’t know about the eco-friendly options in products we use or consume every day. Of course I could go straight to how all of us should switch to more efficient vehicles -which is indeed important, because these emissions are the main cause for global warming-. But since changing a car is a pretty important decision and efficient technologies are still being developed, quite expensive and not even available in all countries, I prefer to focus on other products we all buy: consumer goods. I chose cases related to Unilever and Procter & Gamble because they are the two main players in the consumer goods market, and have been making efforts for a while to educate their customers on how they can make an impact by consuming their brands.

P&G’s Ariel is a brand of products for washing clothes, and a couple of years ago launched a campaign in the UK, for which the slogan was Turn to 30. The idea was to show people that they could wash their clothes at 30°C and still get great results by using Ariel Excel Gel. The numbers behind: 40% or more of the energy used in each load can be saved by washing at 30 degrees and that implies a double benefit, because consumers save on their energy bills and reduce their carbon footprint at the same time. I think this particular campaign should get bonus points for showing people how to get involved! You can check out the TV ad by going to http://www.tellyads.com/show_movie.php?filename=TA3446

In this same product category we have Unilever’s Surf Excel, which is sold in India. The brand changed their formulation and launched a campaign that aimed at tearing down the myth that more soap lather means cleaner clothes. More lather means more rinsing, and therefore unnecessary water wastes, which is particularly critical in dry states where the money people spent on the water was more than the money spent on the detergent. Although I can’t understand the words on the TV ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL62PHbKK4g), the promise the brand made was that consumers would save two buckets of water a day without compromising stain removal. We have a win-win situation again: consumers save money, and less water is wasted.

I think these examples are very accurate for the awareness stage that I told you about: both brands got into the consumer minds as possible options for washing clothes. Their offers of saving money -whether on energy or water- are actually related to interest stage of the process, but sometimes it’s difficult to separate the steps from one another. Anyway, I found the results of the Surf Excel’s campaign: sales increased by over 50% in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, two dry Southern Indian states. Not bad, uh?