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Positioning a Brand: The Clever Marketing Art of Greenwashing ... Thanx to Graeme Newell
This posting will be for the "Global War'n'ing", "Advertisement Saturation" & "American Exceptionalism" series of this journal/ blog. What inspires this posting partly, is a Guardian news link below, that I had linked in also to the previous posting concerning neoliberalism, and also because, although I talk about the phony "going green" thing in various parts of the "Global War'n'ing" series, I did not have a posting strictly on that subject. I havent done a posting for "Advertisement Saturation" in 8 years, so I just seen this as fitting. It's in the "American Exceptionalism" series, because no one on the globe, can manufacture, market, sell, and implement bullshit through such, as well as America ... we are the best of the best at it, and inspiration, especially with our neoliberalism influence, for all others around the globe. Some may wonder what "greenwashing" is?, such as those who may not keep up with environmental news/ info ... so a quick video above to open with a little run down on it. Some good reads below in the links to broaden the picture and enlighten, and a CBC video below from some folks that done a little investigative leg work, with ecoholic, Adria Vasil ... and uncovered some interesting facts. Even though this is a VERY serious subject, some of these reads/ vidz, had me laughing, because some is so ridiculously obvious, and brazenly dumb even by some folks selling this trash, it's almost unbelievable they actually get away with some, but do. Yet on a positive note, all this green ads/ marketing, brings so much more public awareness to the mainstream, and inspires consumers to question and make their demands heard, and makes manufacturers more aware of what they are selling. This green marketing is one of the top marketing trends exploding right now in 2018, everyone from dentists to petrol companies, banks, home products, vehicles/ cars, toys, cosmetics/ hygiene, diapers, pet care, agriculture to pharma companies, are designing and selling the "green pitch", and in much case, over 90% of it is bunk and unclean too ... and alot of greenbacks ($$$$) are being made off it. At the bottom of the posting, I will add some of my views.
***** CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY: Seeing through the corporate greenwashing of Earth Day ... (newsread)
***** HUFFPOST: Greenwashing Companies ... (newsread)
***** THE GUARDIAN | MARTIN LUKACS: Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals | Environment ... (newsread)
Greenwashing: Busting "eco" labels (CBC Marketplace) ... Thanx to CBC News
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***** PD/ RCJ: "GLOBAL WAR'N'ING" ... PART'S 53 THRU 1
***** PD/ RCJ: "ADVERTISEMENT SATURATION" ... PART 1
***** PD/ RCJ: "AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM" ... PART'S 11 THRU 1
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Thomas Hudson Pickering/ Ranch Chimp
One that does not personally know me, or read this blog before, may easily look at this 54 part global warming series, and think that I must be some hardcore environmentalist fanatic. I actually am far from it, to be honest. I myself dont try all these tips for going green that I read, or get emailed. I prefer to drive smaller cars, because of fuel efficiency and costs, and sometimes I use the rail/ transit, because of costs, parking fees and traffic. I been using fluorescent lights for years, not because I think I'm being more green, but because they work better and longer. I dont go shopping for the top green products, but try to be responsible in how I discard trash/ waste, concerned for my community ... nothing special. I like buying groceries at Trader Joe's, and they use paper bags, but even if they used plastic, or I had to use my pillow cases to sack my groceries, I would use them, because they have decent products, competitive prices with all the large chains, and good service, and even Trader Joe's uses the green marketing, and I'm sure some greenwashing too {:-) Like millions of other working class people, I live on a modest income, so I have to watch what I buy and spend. I post/ write so much concerning global warming, because I see it as such a serious issue, as we are all now witnessing from the intensified weather events all over the globe. When has been the last time that you havent heard about extreme weather from flooding, to fires burning thousands of acres of forests, to extreme winters and summers for a couple weeks at most? ... it dont happen, just turn on any major tele network, and the daily news is saturated with it, and no talk in any of it about global warming. The property, eco, health and financial damage is at all time highs ... and it impacts even so many of our major cities and industries, and everyone regardless of class, race or gender. What is it this week? (and this is an ongoing thing), 10's of millions being affected on the east coast due to flooding (NBC News) ... fires raging through the western U.S. currently, again (NY Times) ... the people being killed by wildfires outside Athens, Greece (NY Times) ... and week to week, coast to coast, country to country, this is repeating. Even the Antarctic Ice is melting at an accelerating rate, not anticipated (UNFCCC). Even scientists who been predicting this for years, are seeing that their assessments were not just accurate, but even modest, since it is even worse and accelerating faster than the experts thought.
The reason I questioned so much as far as how green we are truly going?, since the beginning of this journal/ blog in 2008 (and even before I started this blog), is because all I been seeing is a saturation of ads and greenwashing being done. While we are busting each other's chops and pocketbooks/ wallets over how green we can be on an individual basis over the years, the industries themselves that are most environmentally damaging, have done very little to clean their act up. Just in that last decade, the increased production, promotion, and dependency of fossil fuels has exploded as well because of these industries, as well as our government actually giving tax incentives for fossil fuel investing ... while these industries give us the trade off of how they are concerned and becoming green. While we spend out the ass as consumers to be as eco- conscious as possible in America, some other country allows for these industries to trash it more than ours ... we could all ride bicycles in America, yet the damage would still be tremendous all over the rest of the globe, because of what these industries are doing, and getting away with. The investments on the other hand into renewables has also exploded, and the reason why, is because they ALL know, that this is the future of energy, and even the big current fossil fuel investors in time, are going to pour billions into renewables ... yet in the meantime, they will extract through drilling and mining everything they can regardless if it's for energy or not, simply because of the value of these resources, and how much wealth can be made. And we now know, that we even have technologies to not only go full renewable transition much quicker ... but we even have the technology to do existing fossil fuels production and resource/ minerals mining extraction much cleaner. Even though production and profits are at all time highs, they are just being too cheap, while pinching and ratholing every dollar they can, and trying to lay the whole responsibility on the people/ consumer, for consuming the only thing they allow us to consume through pre- paid legislation. While they pay/ lobby the politicians to play along and do business as usual. When shit hits the fan, like the gulf oil spill, they created legislation through their lawyers/ lobbyists, so that we have to pay for most out of our tax revenues ... in BP's $20 billion settlement, the taxpayers had to pay $15.3 billion of that (Forbes), which is disgusting. All they had to do was replace some faulty valve for a few million, along with some general periodic maintenance and repairs ... and it would not have happened, this shows the depth of just how cheap they can be.
Like with pharma drugs, healthcare, banking or whatever they control, they ONLY allow us to purchase and choose what they want, by paying off our Congress, clear bribery ... this is why we need to change Washington, and we actually can, we have the tools. Look at the positives in this greenwashing for example, it is consumer outrage and demand, that actually made these people put forth an effort, to try to make things more environmentally friendly, I mean, they spent millions to try to promote green products as companies individually ... kind of odd to invest so much, if you're as tight fisted as they are, right? ... that is because they get frightened when the public makes demands too, because they know, that the power of the consumer can shut them down. Collectively, these industries, if they just used a little common sense and basic math, could save from wasting billions in trying to create schemes, and do a better job than they do, have less disasters and accidents because of their actions and neglect ... if they took the money they waste, and used it to improve their industries, update equipment and infrastructure. But they become intoxicated by the almighty dollar as well, and brainwash themselves to the point, where they miss the simple solutions, that many cant even stop and think straight, while depending on us to fix everything and pay for everything they fuck up. This is why they need stricter regulation and oversight, because they too, are capable of being destructive on a large scale ... the consumer/ public, can push that as well. It was consumer demand that pushed for renewables to be expanded, for emissions to be slashed, for products to be more under watch and scrutinized. Even though these industries take whatever the consumer wants into consideration and figures out a way to make a buck off it, like in greenwashing ... the bottom line, is that they listen to the consumer, because that is their bread and butter, and even their pre- paid politicians cant change that. Bottom line, we have more power and influence to bring change more than we may realize, it's just a matter of informing people, and organizing mass movements with solidarity and applying pressure. It is the consumer, the scientists, and engineers, that is the cornerstone in making innovation work ... the investors, boards and CEO's just simply manage what consumers, scientists, and engineers could manage better themselves. Stop praising those who do not deserve so much praise, and demand what we want and need! ... what in Hell do we need them for? ... and we call them "elite"?
Word Out ....
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***** RANCH CHIMP JOURNAL "WELCOME" POST
***** RCJ MUSIC/ ART'S HONOUR ROLL SOCIETY (my hand- selected music/ arts picks)
***** "THE RESISTANCE | PERILS OF THE POWER POSSE" ... ( a 2 part futuristic Ranch Chimp Journal dream to dream on )
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