Enviromedia Social Marketing

Feds Crack Down on Leanwashing, But not Greenwashing

That’s the gist of what the FDA wrote in a February 22 letter to Schwan’s Consumer Brands North America, Inc., makers of Mrs. Smith’s Classic Coconut Custard Pie.

The FDA said the pie’s product packaging claim of “0 g Transfat Per Serving” was OK. However, since the pie contains 17 g of total fat, 9 g of saturated fat, and 65 mg of cholesterol per serving, Mrs. Smith’s should have included a disclosure statement “immediately adjacent to the claim.”

Ya think?

Bravo to the FDA, which sent letters to 17 food companies in February notifying them their product claims are in violation of federal laws for false or misleading claims. Apparently, Nestle’s Drumsticks and Dreyer’s Dibs Bite Sized Ice Cream Snacks aren’t totally fat-free either. Nor are Gorton’s Beer Batter Crispy Battered Fish Fillets, which claim “0 grams TRANS FAT SAME GREAT TASTE!” Maybe they have the same great taste because they contain 19 g total fat, 4.5 g saturated fat, and 680 mg sodium per serving. At least they make no bones about the fish being battered: Beer Batter Crispy Battered Fish Fillets.

Says FDA: “A food that bears a nutrient content claim that contains more than 13 g of total fat, 4 g of saturated fat, or 480 mg of sodium per labeled serving must bear a disclosure statement on the label (immediately adjacent to the claim) referring the consumer to nutrition information for those nutrients, e.g., ‘See nutrition information for fat, saturated fat, and sodium content.’”

I’m a big fan of walnuts, which I’ve seen called a “power food” by healthy eating enthusiasts (mind you, I like pie and ice cream too), so it’s a shame Diamond Food Inc. had to be called out by FDA for “unauthorized health claims” on its Web site and product packaging. Same goes for pomegranate juice, but unfortunately POM Wonderful got an FDA letter too.

On its Web site, Diamond cites the health benefits of the omega-3 fatty acids found in walnuts (“may help lower cholesterol; protect against heart disease, stroke and some cancers; ease arthritis and other inflammatory diseases; and even fight depression and other mental illnesses”). However, FDA says the nuts “may not be legally marketed with the above claims in the United States without an approved new drug application.”

Same goes for POM Wonderful, which cites on its Web site “Scientific Studies” showing positive health benefits of its pomegranate juice in the areas of atherosclerosis, blood flow/pressure, prostate cancer, and yes, even erectile function.

The FDA told POM, “when scientific publications are used commercially by the seller of a product to promote the product to consumers, such publications may become evidence of the product’s intended use.” FDA also cited “examples of publications that are used to market your product for disease treatment and prevention on your website and are thus evidence of your product’s intended use as a drug.”

Pies, ice cream and beer-battered fish fillets are one thing, but how can foods like walnuts and pomegranates fall into the same trap of misleading health claims?

Just like we say about “greenwashing,” sometimes it’s intentional and sometimes not, but regardless, the fallout is the same – misleading consumers, which causes real progress in the health and environmental areas to regress. Companies need to be careful not to jump too quickly on the green (or lean) bandwagon. As fellow EnviroMedian Katie Deinhammer blogged about our term “leanwashing” earlier this year, “sometimes a cookie is just a cookie.” And a walnut is just a walnut.

Read the FDA’s “warning letters” to all 17 companies.

Back in the greenwashing arena, the FTC began reviewing whether or not to update its Green Guides for marketers two years ago, and there’s yet to be any verdict there. The guides were introduced in 1992 and were last updated in 1998. Meanwhile, we’re still trying to educate consumers to judge real ad claims for themselves with our Greenwashing Index.

Today is primary election day in Texas. We’re working with Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade on a statewide public education campaign called VOTEXAS. You count. Texas makes sure. There are many important races in both the Republican and Democratic primaries. For Texans, see Votexas.org to confirm you are registered to vote, find your polling location, and find links to election returns.

Doug Irving, Steve Chandler and Ed Parsons

Most creative advertising staff spend hours behind a computer or white board. We send ours out to the wind farm to experience the awesome beauty of pollution-free wind power.  Several EnviroMedia creative staff have been “on location” in West Texas, shooting a TV commercial for a longtime client.

Filming is complete, and now being edited. Check back here in a few weeks to see the final spot.

Photo by Doug Irving, EnviroMedia Creative Director

President Obama signs official memorandum on childhood obesity as First Lady Michelle Obama looks on Feb. 9 in the Oval Office. Photo by official White House photographer Samantha Appleton

Ali vs. Frasier, King Kong vs. Godzilla, Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson, Ghostbusters vs. The Giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man — they’re all thumb wars compared to the fight First Lady Michelle Obama picked with childhood obesity last week when she announced the launch of the Let’s Move campaign. The announcement was in conjunction with President Obama signing a memorandum to create a task force that will devise a plan “to solve the problem of obesity among our nation’s children within a generation.” It’s a “fight” because so many facets of our society, from passive entertainment to high-calorie food, seem to be making obesity the norm instead of the exception.

With more than one-third of American children classified as overweight or obese and our nation spending some $147 billion on treatment for obesity-related illnesses, Michelle Obama and the task force have an epic fight ahead of them. However, from this health communication geek’s perspective, they seem to be starting something that is long overdue in this country.

Because there are many contributing factors to this obesity epidemic, a solution would need to involve more than putting kids in a room with Matt Foley and trying to teach, coerce, and/or scare them into eating healthier and exercising more.  The Let’s Move campaign and its partner foundation, Partnership for a Healthier America, are strategically tackling obesity on both the individual and environmental level by focusing on four target areas: healthy choices, healthier schools, physical activity, and access to affordable and healthy food. They are doing things like: creating educational tools for parents, increasing the number of schools that meet the Healthier U.S. Schools Challenge, improving access to healthy and affordable food by eliminating “food deserts,” and making labels on food packaging more consumer friendly.

In a similar fashion, EnviroMedia has been working in both Oregon and Texas to help encourage policy change while empowering individuals to make healthy decisions with regard to their diet and exercise habits.

For the Texas Department of State Health Services, we created a series of six videos focusing on environmental changes that can be initiated on the community level. These videos, which address the top predictors of obesity, are also spotlighted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on its Web site. For DSHS, we also created a tool kit and hosted a webinar to help school nurses facilitate conversations with students on topics such as: the food pyramid, BMI, food label reading, portion size, exercise, and diabetes. The kit, which was tested by teenagers, is progressive and relatable, with features like a portion reference tool that illustrates how 3 ounces of meat is about the size of an iPod.

For Oregon State University Extension Services we launched the Food Hero campaign to help low-income families find fun, affordable, and convenient ways to eat more fruits and vegetables. We created an interactive Web site featuring healthy recipes, shopping tips, and a chance to win a Food Hero Makeover. We also facilitated cooking demonstrations at local grocery stores.

Moving forward, our hope is that Mrs. Obama’s efforts will expand to include more environmental approaches to obesity prevention such as urban planning for healthy communities, policies to support breastfeeding, and legislation to regulate junk food advertisements targeted at children.

Safe routes to school are a good start, but children need safe routes to parks, and parents need safe routes to grocery stores offering affordable fruits and vegetables. Breastfeeding is one of the earliest, least expensive, and most effective obesity prevention tactics, yet it isn’t supported in most hospitals. And why don’t we have policies that regulate junk food advertising aimed at children like we do for tobacco? Obesity is proving to be just as deadly and expensive.

In the meantime, all of us at EnviroMedia would like to raise our glasses of skim milk and give mad props to our first lady for getting a comprehensive campaign off the ground at the national level. We’re right there with you working to eliminate childhood obesity. —Jonathan Lewis

Local and national news media aren’t covering the H1N1 swine flu outbreak as heavily as they once were, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone from the United States yet. It’s still out there, and there is finally a plentiful supply of H1N1 vaccine.

Just two weeks ago, EnviroMedia paid for an H1N1 clinic to come to our office and provide vaccines for all willing employees.

Shelly Beaird, EnviroMedia's senior media planner, gets her flu shot.

Vaccines aside, we hope you’ve learned some important behavior changes that will prevent the spread of regular flu and other illnesses. Behavior change media campaigns by the US Centers for Disease Control and state and local health departments are reinforcing the 3 C’s we developed for the State of Texas years ago: 1. Clean your hands often; 2. Cover your cough and sneeze (use your elbow, not your hands); and 3. Contain yourself at home until 24 hours after your fever breaks.

EnviroMedia’s experiential marketing department just completed a Flu Fighters tour at 50 schools in every major market in Texas. Check out our multi-media Kung Fu school assemblies, along with some of the news coverage. Kids loved the music and the moves, and they’ll never sneeze into their hands again.

Spanish language animated TV/web spot:

School assembly video:

Channel 4’s Valley Morning News really got into the Flu Fighter moves.

A recent poll from Harvard University revealed 59 percent of Americans said the response to the H1N1 swine flu pandemic was “good or “excellent.” There are a lot of areas for improvement related to vaccine manufacturing and distribution, but hopefully the public will keep the healthy habits going for a lifetime.

By Katie Deinhammer, Director of Accounts

Americans really want to be healthier. As a country, our favorite New Year’s resolution — year after year — is to lose weight. So, either we’re all high on success and just want to get skinnier and skinnier, or we’re failing miserably and have to start over every year.

Why is it so hard for us to make the right choices? Food marketers have caught on to the fact that we want to make the healthier choice, and every January they do their best to position their products in the healthiest light possible. They call out anything that sounds remotely nutritious — “now with antioxidants” or “made with only three all-natural ingredients” — on packaging, in commercials, on their Web sites and on your best friend’s Facebook page. So, we end up buying foods we convince ourselves are healthy because the labels suggest they are, even though we know deep down that an all-natural potato chip is still a greasy chip even if it only has three organic ingredients. And once we try these foods, we like them (because they’re much more sugary/fatty/calorie-rich than the pretty ads with amber waves of grain suggest), and we keep eating them until next January when we realize we’ve gained 10 pounds and resolve again to lose weight.

If food and beverage marketers were politicians, they’d almost all be busted for whitewashing. If we question the antioxidants in their sodas like we’d question an eco-friendly appliance delivered in a box filled with styrofoam, we’d write them off as greenwashers. So why not call them out for leanwashing? To be clear, we don’t necessarily have a problem with “responsible” junk food advertising, as long as a cookie is called a cookie, not an “all natural energy boost with protein” just because it has one walnut in it.

Two years ago, EnviroMedia launched a consumer discussion forum about the responsibility and authenticity of environmental marketing claims — the Greenwashing Index. Perhaps it’s time to take a similar look at leanwashing. In the meantime, make it your 2010 resolution to notice nutritional claims, and put them to the leanwashing test: Even though something about them sounds healthy, will you be resolving to hit the treadmill again in 2011 if you eat them all year?

If you’re looking for more information about how you can work toward making the healthy choice the default choice, take a look at this video series we produced for the Texas Department of State Health Services highlighting successful community-based efforts around Texas. Our work is currently being showcased by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a national foundation dedicated to improving the health and health care of all Americans.

Our award-winning TV spot “Phone Power” was strategically placed by EnviroMedia Buying Services to run repeatedly during broadcasts of the 2010 Bowl Championship Series football games. We’re confident these “Yes You Can” ads will again drive smokers and their families to call the American Cancer Society’s “Quit Line” (1-888-YES-QUIT) for free professional counseling on smoking cessation. Usually call volumes increase about 300 percent during these media campaigns. Online help is also available at yesquit.org.

EnviroMedia has been working on tobacco prevention and cessation for ten years now with the Texas Department of State Health Services, and research shows during that time, hundreds of thousands of smokers have taken action to quit their addiction to cigarettes.

Research reveals most smokers attempt quitting their habit several times, and that support from family, friends and others increases the chance of breaking their addiction.

How do Germans, Italians and French compare to US individuals when it comes to charitable giving. You may be surprised. Read on.

By making new donations this week to official (501c3) nonprofit charities in the US, you can deduct the same amount in federal income taxes from your 2008 return (due next April). With the economy still hurting so many, you should know there are so many charities to support, who would greatly appreciate your gift, and should be able to get you a receipt dated by 12/31/2008.

At EnviroMedia, we’re happy that our company contributions exceeded corporate social responsibility standards. For a list of the types of community nonprofits we’ve supported throughout our company history, click here. Many of us employees also contribute to EarthShare through monthly pay roll deductions. We also support the “I Live Here, I Give Here” campaign.

I’m impressed with these graphic stories about money, death & taxes from WallStats.com Check out this related graphic about charitable giving. I find it interesting how little money goes to environmental and animal issues groups.

budget planner – Mint.com

So surf the web and pull out your credit card to help a health or environmental charity. There’s a great site called Charity Navigator that helps you feel reasonably comfortable where your money is going and how it will be spent.