Enviromedia Social Marketing

Two EnviroMedians, Chris Devidal and Jovana Kamenko, weigh in on the study that claimed their generation doesn’t care about conservation.



The Grass Is Greener on the Younger Side

There’s been a lot of debate recently about whether Millennials (individuals born after 1982) are as “green” as we’re reputed to be. Millennials have a reputation of being environmentally conscious do-gooders, but a study published in March by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests this generation is less interested in the environment and conservation than previous generations.

Although no single piece of research can accurately define a generation, one of the study’s main conclusions is that over the last four decades there has been a steady decline in concern about the environment and taking personal action to save it. This leads some to question whether Millennials really deserve the “green generation” title.

So which is it — do Millennials care about the environment or don’t they?
As two admittedly biased Millennials, we say yes — but with an asterisk. Millennials are concerned citizens, but we tend to let our actions speak louder than our words.
Behavior is usually a better indicator of core beliefs than self-reported attitudes, especially with surveys. The following are just several action-based indicators that point to greater “green” behaviors by Millennials than other generations:

• Alternative transportation: Between 2001 and 2009, the average yearly number of vehicle-miles traveled by 16- to-34-year-olds dropped 23 percent. Young Americans are driving less in favor of bicycling, carsharing, walking and using public transit.¹

• Volunteering: The Corporation for National and Community Service reported a 20 percent increase in college student volunteering between 2002 and 2005 as greater numbers of Millennials started college.²

• Civic Engagement: According to census data, approximately 50 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds voted in the 2008 presidential election. This was the second-highest youth participation in any presidential election since 1972.

We are also slower than previous generations to pat ourselves on the back for singlehandedly “saving the environment.” This is in part due to changing standards for what’s considered “environmentalism” and increased knowledge about the impact of individual actions. These factors have put the true problem in perspective, reducing our quickness to assume that a single action can save the planet — but not, necessarily, our commitment to doing our part.

At EnviroMedia, we pride ourselves on working with clients to create campaigns that change behaviors, not just attitudes and opinions. While today’s youth may not be the most vocal and outspoken generation of earth advocates, we stand by our belief that we’re ultimately headed steadily (and not completely silently) in the right direction.

¹ CalPIRG Education Fund, Transportation and the New Generation, April 5, 2012
²,³ Mike & Morley, Millennials Are a “We” Not “Me” Generation. Blog, March 15, 2012

Creative Director Doug Irving explains what he looks for in good creative pieces and the thinking behind some recent EnviroMedia work.

Start with a truth. A surprising number of women smoke during pregnancy or while around their small children. But no one wants to think about her child actually smoking.

Surprise me. There’s nothing inherently interesting about your standard headline + visual print ad. But what if you use the fact that you can pick up a magazine and flip it around to deliver your message in a more compelling way?

Play to your strengths. So many ads struggle to create interest where none exists. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Don’t Mess with Texas, we designed an online contest around the campaign’s much-loved, celebrity-driven TV commercials. This built-in fan base brought instant momentum and ultimately generated almost 600,000 votes over a seven-week contest.

Don’t talk it to death. I’m a writer and appreciate good copy. But pay attention next time you’re watching TV — simple and quiet actually stands out more.

We love cookies — but not when they are advertised as a nutrition-rich substitute for oatmeal, fruit and world peace. If it walks like a cookie, quacks like a cookie and has the same sugar, saturated fat and calories as a cookie, it’s still a cookie, not a health food.

EnviroMedia has a new word for exaggerated health claims: leanwashing. Today we’re asking you to help stop it by posting, watching and rating ads that make health claims on www.leanwashingindex.com.

The Leanwashing Index is a new public service movement we hope will keep advertising more honest and become a weapon in the war on obesity.

The Leanwashing Index is the follow-up to the hugely popular and influential Greenwashing Index, featured by The New York Times, Time and Newsweek. Consumers have posted more than 300 ads on the Greenwashing Index from 190 countries since EnviroMedia created it in 2008 to fight false environmental advertising. Now, we’re setting our sights on misleading health claims.

EnviroMedia created the Leanwashing Index site with input from a panel of advisers that includes: former food marketing insider Bruce Bradley; California Center for Public Health Advocacy Executive Director Dr. Harold Goldstein; Dr. Gretchen Nurse, assistant professor in the Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Arizona; and Dr. Stephen Pont, medical director of the Texas Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Childhood Obesity.

To get the site started, Dr. Nurse’s students have posted some 40 ads, and today we’re asking you to begin posting and rating more ads, then sharing them through social media.

Thank you for helping to keep advertising honest.

Are these leanwashing? Click on the image to see what others are saying and rate them yourself.

EnviroMedia’s Talley Summerlin is taking his kids to the movies. Read on to see if he’ll be stopping for pancakes on the way.

While grocery shopping a few weeks ago, I was pleased to see that some of my favorite natural cleaning and recycled paper products are now “Lorax Approved.” This seal arrived in anticipation of the Lorax’s new animated feature film that debuted last week, dominating at the box office. As a supporter of a sustainable approach to business and as a fan of Dr. Seuss’s eco-prophetic Lorax, it did my heart good to see this particular cleaning product company and the feisty, furry Truffula tree advocate teaming up.

Sure, at its basest level this is a crass co-marketing ploy designed to boost movie ticket sales among “green” consumers while also potentially introducing children (and their cleaning product-buying parents) to a brand that is produced far more mindfully than many others. But, it is a good fit. It makes sense and could do some good – because each time another person considers the impacts of his or her consumption habits, we are all one step closer to sustaining life here on earth.

So imagine my dismay when a short time later I saw a television commercial promoting a well-known, national breakfast chain restaurant (famous for pancakes) starring … the Lorax. Instant disconnect. Now, I love pancakes and everything that goes with them, but I can’t recall a pancake purveyor ever being on any “Top Ten Most Sustainable Companies” lists (free idea: there’s a new business opportunity in there somewhere for the right entrepreneur).

However, I’m no sustaina-snob. I truly want to see traditional companies move themselves and their customers forward along the sustainability continuum (heck, that’s one of the reasons why EnviroMedia launched Green Canary Sustainability Consulting in the first place – to foster this evolution). So I dug around. I wanted to see if maybe this breakfast chain was progressing in some way I didn’t know about. To its credit, the company is using the Lorax promotion as a way to plant 3 million trees. Sort of. Actually, they want you and me to plant 3 million trees. If you walk into one of their restaurants right now, you can pick up a seed-infused Lorax bookmark that they encourage you to stick in the dirt and nurture. It makes for a good, “let’s all do this together” kind of story. However, it does not guarantee that any trees will be planted, let alone reach maturity. Why aren’t they doing the planting and tree management themselves? They appear willing to educate customers on an environmental issue (albeit in a cursory way), but not interested in focusing resources on getting dirty and putting down roots themselves. I’ve worked on tree-planting programs, so I have a pretty good idea why: one action costs less and takes less commitment than the other.

Also, the seeds are for blue spruce and Canadian white pine. Do these species grow well in all the places where the pancake-flipper does business? Are they native or invasive species in those areas? Will they over-draw water in some regions? Maybe the company asked all these questions. If they did their due diligence, they should be putting that message up front. But maybe the tree program itself is a bit of a stretch, more inauthentic window-dressing than a responsible commitment.

The biggest disconnect for me, though, are the processed flour, sugar-packed, Seuss-themed meals the restaurant is pushing at children while the film is in theaters. Are their hash browns in the branded breakfast made from organic potatoes? Are the blueberries in the Barbaloot cone cake sourced from a local family farm? If so, they are not telling us, which would be a missed opportunity to tell a fantastic sourcing story. If not, are these really the dietary choices the Lorax would recommend to our kids? I could go on, but you get the idea. It’s the type of campaign we routinely ask our fellow citizens to put under our Greenwashing Index and Leanwashing Index microscopes – devices fueled by healthy skepticism and hopeful encouragement. The environment. Consumer habits. Healthy diet. These are not distinct, unconnected areas of concern. They are, in fact, intimately linked.

To pay lip-service to, or even authentically act on, one of these levers without paying attention to the others is tone-deaf at best and disruptive of our collective relationship to the planet at worst. Of course, a particular pancake house is not the only brand questionably leveraging the Lorax, it just happens to be the first one I saw doing it so awkwardly. For a full listing of the companies who have partnered with Universal Pictures on the film, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood would be happy to share them with you.

We tend to think of Dr. Seuss’s book as an “environmental” story – it is. But it is much more than that. Above all else it is a “consumer culture” tale, asking us, children of all ages, to consider the dangers of over-consumption, the pitfalls of blindly extractive pursuits, and the folly of built-in-obsolescence. At the end of the day, an all-natural cleaner can certainly be seen as “just another product” as easily as a national breakfast chain can be praised for “at least trying” on the sustainability front. I am not suggesting that companies do everything or do nothing. I am not suggesting companies tentatively entering this space won’t make some clumsy missteps.

I am suggesting, however, that organizations do their homework by asking a lot of questions of themselves, their customers and their critics. And that they balance any new “green” program with an honest nod to what they are not yet doing – while being clear about what their shortfalls are and how they plan to address them moving forward.

I am hopeful that the Lorax’s big-screen debut (and box office momentum) does not dilute his forty-one-year-old message and that we all leave the theater asking ourselves what we will do to speak (and act) for the trees – the trees that generate our oxygen, the paper for Dr. Seuss’s books, the fiber for recycled paper towels, and at least some of the syrup we pour on our pancakes.

For the past few years, EnviroMedia’s “Off the Chain” cycling team has been one of the top fundraisers for the Hill Country Ride for AIDS, raising $47,000.

This year, we’re adding our creative muscle to help support the ride.

We designed the 2012 Hill Country Ride for AIDS campaign (e.g., marketing posters, jersey, T-shirts) to capture the fun-loving spirit of this beloved community event (click on each poster in the gallery below). And yes, that’s a Porta-Potty you see on one of the posters because even those are special at this one-of-a-kind event.

The campaign seems to be working. Hill Country Ride for AIDS Executive Director David C. Smith reports there are double the number of participants registered than ever before at this point.

“Every day, someone tells me that these are the best posters and this is the best campaign we’ve ever had,” Smith said.

We’re proud to support this critically important fundraiser, which provides life-giving services to people living with HIV/AIDS.

Want to join the fun? Register for the April 28 ride at HillCountryRide.org.

A letter from EnviroMedia’s founders:

EnviroMedia Staff, 1997EnviroMedia Staff, 2012

Fifteen years ago, you were probably marveling that “The Simpsons” had just become the longest running animated show on TV and surely couldn’t last much longer. On February 10, 1997, we started a two-person PR company with the idea that we’d make a living doing good. It worked, and today we are a full-service, national marketing company promoting carsharing, preventing litter, helping smokers stop, conserving water and changing the way people eat — just to name a few ways we live up to our mission of changing people’s behavior to benefit their health and the environment.

We will celebrate at the end of this month in New York City, where PRWeek magazine is honoring EnviroMedia as an Agency of the Year finalist. Judges chose EnviroMedia because of four consecutive years of fiscal growth, our long-term client relationships, the work we do for those clients, and the EnviroMedia culture that includes a personal trainer, paid sabbaticals, volunteerism and seriously good karma.

The PRWeek honor is a huge industry recognition, but we also recently received accolades from a group dedicated to the same thing EnviroMedia is — helping people live healthier lives in healthier communities. The National Public Health Information Coalition (NPHIC) gave its Gold Award to the Surviving Disaster video series EnviroMedia produced for the Texas Department of State Health Services, along with a Gold Award for a health-care provider tobacco cessation online training, a Silver Award for the Rhythm Smoker radio ad and a Bronze Award for the “Yes You Can” billboard series.

Without the hard work of our current and former EnviroMedians, we wouldn’t be in business today. We look forward to 15 more years, and we’re glad EnviroMedia now has a staff of 60 in Austin and Portland to help us do well by doing good.

Kevin Tuerff and Valerie Davis
EnviroMedia Social Marketing

Just as big soda prepared to run ads costing $3.5 million each for airtime during Super Bowl XLVI, the California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA) launched its “Kick the Can” website designed to get Americans to drink fewer sugary beverages.

According to the Kick the Can website, “People who drink even one or two sugary drinks per day have a 27% higher risk for developing type 2 diabetes.”

Take a look at Pepsi’s Elton John ad, which ran during Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Coke’s polar bears were back in several Super Bowl commercials, including this one:

“With soda a prime contributor to the obesity and diabetes epidemics, it is a shame that Coke and Pepsi continue to spend millions of dollars a minute encouraging people – children! – to drink their sugary slop,” said Dr. Harold Goldstein, executive director of CCPHA. “At one time Pepsi said they would focus more on their healthier product line. Evidently they have gone back to the dark side.”

Kick the Can invites Americans to sign a petition urging the beverage industry to:

1. Stop all advertising and promotion of sugary drinks to children under the age of 16.
2. Print prominent warning notices stating the link between consumption and obesity, diabetes and tooth decay.
3. Stop selling sugary drinks in places frequented by children.
4. Put in large print the number of teaspoons of sugar on the front of each container.
5. Stop promoting sports drinks as a healthy beverage.
6. Charge more for sugary drinks than for equivalent no-calorie beverages.
7. Stop promoting the sale of sugary drinks at store entrances, in checkout aisles and on store windows.

You remember all the flap in November about how Congress had proclaimed pizza a vegetable when it comes to school lunches? The “eh” news first: Pizza is still a vegetable. The better news: Today, for the first time in 15 years, the USDA announced significant new nutrition standards, including a call for at least two veggies at lunch. That means the pizza needs to be paired with a side of “other” veggies, or fruit. You know. Peas, carrots, even tomato paste’s cousin, tomatoes. Those will work too.

Sarcasm aside, the new nutrition standards signal progress toward healthier options for our children in the lunchroom. More vegetables and fruits, more whole grains, skim chocolate milk and at least 1% regular milk, first-ever lower sodium levels and reduced calorie ranges according to age.

We know big change doesn’t come overnight — especially in the complex world of public health and the environment — so we welcome the new standards. Last week, it was big news from the CDC that adult obesity rates in the U.S. have leveled off (for the moment). Encouraging news, but not yet a trend. Based on our experience working in the world of obesity prevention, we know the ultimate deterrent is a combination of policy and education that leads to successful behavior change. And in the case of obesity prevention, that means better nutrition and exercise on an individual basis. This couldn’t be more important for any age range up to 100 as it is for kindergartners and students from first grade through high school graduation. It doesn’t take a scientific study to know what we were fed growing up has an influence on what we eat now. This is progress. Let’s hope a ripple effect continues.

By Zach Hyder, Chief Marketing Officer

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill

We’re approaching the end of another successful year at EnviroMedia. 2011 marked a number of achievements for our agency – including our selection as a finalist for PR Week 2012 Agency of the Year and launching an international pro bono campaign for the Pay It Forward Foundation on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

As we celebrate our successes and look ahead to new growth opportunities, it doesn’t go unnoticed that these are challenging times for many organizations addressing the very social challenges we have been working on since 1997.

With each year EnviroMedia is given opportunities comes an obligation to give back. More important, it’s a reminder that true social change can’t be left up to any one institution – private or public. Our annual charitable giving isn’t just about generosity. It’s about strengthening the critical partnership between business, nonprofits and government required to address global challenges – from climate change to chronic disease to civic engagement.

This month, EnviroMedia contributed more than $26,000 to nonprofit organizations as our way of giving back – and helping build the resources needed to enact meaningful social change.

The Symbolism of Bikes
Kevin Tuerff and Valerie Davis first pledged their support to buy 50 bikes for Central Texas children in 2009. In addition to knowing that children will wake up to find a new bicycle under the Christmas tree, bikes remain a symbol of our work on environmental and public health issues. Fitness for kids discourages childhood obesity, and riding bikes reduces air pollution from car trips.

This year, our donation of $6,000 to JB & Sandy’s Annual “Bikes for Kids” Drive is putting more bikes under the tree for kids and reminds Texans of the benefits of biking.

Supporting Issues Our Staff Care About Most
We’ve pledged $5,000 to both Marathon Kids and Well Aware – health organizations that are true passion projects for our staff. After stinking it up for one week by our staff for Shower Strike 2011, everyone wanted to help Well Aware grow in 2012 to build more water wells in East Africa.

More than 1 million kids have completed the running of 26.2 miles with Marathon Kids. With our help, the group will expand nutrition and fitness programs to new cities. These donations add to staff volunteer efforts and funds donated by staff in our Austin and Portland offices.

Homelessness & Self-Sufficiency
The National Alliance to End Homelessness reports that more than 650,000 Americans are currently homeless – a number that has been increasing at an alarming rate during this economic downturn. We are proud to support OutsideIn in Portland, helping Oregon’s homeless youth move toward improved health, and Austin’s Caritas to provide services and resources that help individuals achieve self-sufficiency.

Health Care Is a Right, Right?
In the wake of the political infighting over health-care reform, Americans continue to struggle with access to care. Many face challenges with chronic disease prevention and treatment. The Seton Fund, which helps the economic poor gain access to health-care services, will receive a donation to help deliver needed care to Texans without health-care coverage. If you’ve read about our Portland staff’s work on HIV/AIDS education, you’ll know why we continue to support our friends at the Cascade AIDS Project to help Oregonians infected and affected by HIV.

Protecting Our Environment

This is an issue we care a bit about. Environmental protection is about more than our work on complex global issues related to climate change. It’s about protecting the natural spaces that provide us with quality of life and create a sense of community. This year, we’re sponsoring the Austin Parks Foundation’s It’s My Park Day, an annual community service day focused on cleaning, trail building and playground installation in Austin’s parks. We are also supporting organizations working to protect the health and vitality of the Puget Sound national estuary, including People for Puget Sound and the Washington Environmental Council.

Empowering Change
As election season kicks off in January, we are committed to keeping critical issues out front for community leaders, candidates and elected officials. EnviroMedia is sponsoring the Oregon League of Conservation Voters to help make the environment in Oregon a legislative priority. As the national debate over education reform and investments continues, we’re helping Austin’s Girlstart empower girls in science, technology, engineering and math.

Each of these contributions are just part of the solution. None will be enough to fully address the challenges we will all face in 2012 and beyond. We hope you’ll consider how you can help support these groups – and join us in working toward meaningful, sustainable change at home and around the world.

Happy Holidays from everyone at EnviroMedia Social Marketing, and Happy New Year!

By Kevin Tuerff and Valerie Davis, co-founders of EnviroMedia and business delegates at COP17 representing the U.S. Business Council for Sustainable Development

This op-ed published in Sustainable Business Oregon

“We are in a world where nobody is in charge, and that is equally true in the United States.”  That’s a quote we heard from Brian Dames, CEO of the South African electric utility giant Eskom, at “Durban Business Day” at the recent 17^th Conference of the Parties (COP17) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Whether you believe the U.S. is the dominant world power or not, during our two weeks at COP17, we witnessed similar sentiments from people around the world who believe our country created most of the problem, yet have been blocking solutions.

Penny Urquhart summed up the quandary well in the South Africa Sunday Times COP17 review we read as we flew out of Durban on December 11: “We still have a massive disconnect between the science, which tells us what we need to do to avoid more dangerous climate change, and the politics.”

On the science side, as COP17 approached in November, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its report citing a “high confidence that both maximum and minimum daily temperatures have increased on a global scale due to the increase of greenhouse gases.” Meanwhile, on the political side, the U.S., China and India were at loggerheads for the entire two-week conference over committing to the same emissions cuts.

Surprisingly, as the beleaguered negotiations ran into record-breaking OT, the U.S. came out of COP17 a bit of the hero by suggesting the winning compromise language (“outcome with legal force” rather than “legally-binding”) and signing on to the “Durban Platform” with all major emitters agreeing by 2015 to commit to putting the same cuts into force by 2020. As for the Kyoto Protocol, which was signed but never ratified by the U.S., a second phase will continue in 2013 for 27 nations that were originally part of the 1997 climate treaty.

Let’s face it, climate change is just as political as it is complex — and it’s especially exacerbated by a flailing economy, headlines about “climategate,” powerful energy lobbyists and the pending 2012 election year. But no matter what your beliefs are about politics and climate change, extreme weather is a reality.

According to a new report from the National Resources Defense Council based on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in just the first 10 months of this year, every state in the U.S. had experienced record-breaking weather events — from drought and high temperatures to flooding and heavy snowfall. In fact, NOAA reports that in the same period, we broke records for the number of weather events in the U.S. that have cost more than $1 billion apiece in damage, with the grand total at more than $52 billion. Additionally, the report put a price tag on health costs related to weather events, citing, for example, a two-week heat wave in California in 2006 that caused 655 deaths, 1,620 hospitalizations, more than 16,000 emergency room visits and a cost of $5.4 billion.

As environmental marketing professionals, we believe it’s time to simplify the issue, starting with rebranding politically charged terms like “climate change” and “global warming.” It’s the same strategy tobacco giant Phillip Morris took rebranding itself as Altria after the multibillion-dollar settlements years ago, and AIG Financial Advisors took after the financial bailouts, changing its name to SagePoint Financial.

Let’s try the same tactic for the greater good by rebranding climate change to represent what it really means — extreme weather planning and cleaner energy practices. Whatever we do, let’s build a dialogue in this country to make this critical issue more relatable to all Americans.