Be good for goodness sake.

I remember watching a comercial for the local eleven o'clock news promising, "News that could save your child's life. Next at eleven." While this seems like it is a great way to get people to tune into the news broadcast if this will save lives it should be told now. It seems we are trading marketing for common sense good citizenship.

This is the strategy implemented by Sun Chips (Frito Lay). Sun Chips will be introducing their new environmentally friendly chip bags that are the "first 100% compostable chip bag". Don't get me wrong this is great. However, if you look at the bottom of the screen during this commercial you'll see that, while they have these bags ready and in production, they will not be rolling them out until Earth Day 2010. Great for advertising but what does it say about the actual brand? They are so interested in the environment that they are willing to continue the use of packaging that they themselves are saying is not good.

I don't want to seem like I am unappreciative of the work that Frito Lay is doing. They have obviously been working on a new type of packaging will help the environment, but what upsets me about this is that Frito Lay does not think that it is important enough to put in place right away. Furthermore they are not interested in using these bags with all of their chips. So this seems more of a marketing gesture than an actual movement toward helping the environment.

So why am I being so tough on Frito Lay? I may be beating a dead horse on this topic but it is tough for me to understand why a company who is trying "keep (their) environmental promise" would want to wait to roll out a revolutionary packaging and introduce it only on one of their chips which is lowest in product sales. I will never say that this is not a positive step in the right direction, companies should do everything they can to help with any cause they believe strongly in. However, if they do embark on these large scale endeavors they should remember why they are doing it in the first place. In this example: is Frito Lay going green to save the environment or to increase profits?

This is doing good--> http://ow.ly/1qicN

Just be good.

Companies seem to have a hard time balancing being good and the cost of that good. We could useGoogle exiting China as an example of a company that is willing to lose a large market in order to make a point to that countries government. While there is much to be said about Google leaving China as a marketing effort in and of itself, yet, I think this effort, while it may be marketable, goes back to their original stance, "Don't Be Evil".

But lets localize this, Madcap Coffee is a downtown coffee shop which doesn't nearly have as much room in its budget for marketing as the other two giants which have been discussed. However, even with this smaller budget Madcap is still in the business of doing good. The biggest difference is that Madcap is more worried about the actual good. Madcap has a policy with their customers and their vendors that they will only buy their coffee beans directly from the farmer so that each bean can be traced back to the location they purchased it from. These sustainable relationships are not utilized because they have great marketing value. Madcap uses these practices because it is what they believe is right. They know that these relationships will lower overall costs and offer a much better coffee and expresso to their patrons. These ideals give them a distinct sustainable advantage over other coffee shops.

What I'm saying.

This is my first blog post...ever, so I may be just rambling at this point, but what I am trying to say is that companies, big or small, need to, in the famous words of Kris Kringle, be good for goodness sake. Don't change your bags, eventually and not fully, just because it will make a great Earth Day ad. Change those bags because you are sure that it is the right thing to do and you will go through with it, wholeheartedly, because it means that much to you.

I think a lot of companies understand that for the past few years there has been a change in the air. People seem to be more aware of their surroundings and truly want to do good. However, if those companies want to build a relationship with these people they have to look at what they want to do and ask if they are doing this for sales or for good. Things work better when you are just good.