AND WHY GREEN MARKETERS SHOULD STOP GIVING THEM AWAY
About six years ago, I was a marketing director for a large natural grocer. This meant that I participated in a lot of green-lifestyle events. To promote our business, we gave away tote bags with our logo on them. At the time, this was a new marketing idea. People attending the events were thrilled to get a sturdy canvas tote bag—free. Free? Yes, we'd say, a $20 value, Free!
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Who wouldn't want to bring re-usable totes to the grocery store instead of using bags made from dwindling natural resources?
Not that many people, as it turns out. But that didn't stop us, as well as every other company at every imaginable kind of event, from giving away totes with logos on them.
It has continued to the point that we are now (here it comes) tote-ally saturated. We don't need any more totes. But because of some less-than-flattering human impulse, We Keep Taking Them Because They're Free. I'm not immune to this impulse. I used to have a coat closet. Now I have a tote closet.
It's time for companies whose mission is to help us live less wasteful, more sustainable lifestyles to break the tote habit. Here's why:
1. They Aren't Very Practical
Have you ever noticed that most totes don't work very well? Take the paper grocery bag re-interpreted in canvas. Put a couple of bottles of fruit juice in it and it sags inconveniently under the weight, sending the bottles clanking toward each other instead of standing neatly at attention the way they do in a doubled paper bag. The only way to make these kinds of totes work better is to line them with—you guessed it—a doubled paper grocery bag.
There are now stiff recycled plastic totes that solve this problem. Until quite soon their handles become brittle and break, and then you retire them to your tote closet because to throw them away would be wasteful.
2. They Make You a Walking Billboard
Do you really want your personage to be plastered with yet one more logo? And do companies think this works? (Hey, I'm going to buy that product because I saw it on someone's tote bag!) Besides, people who go to out-of-town conventions and walk downtown city streets all carrying the same tote emblazoned with the name of the seminar, looking like they don't know where they're going (because they don't), are prime targets for pickpocketers.
3. They Aren't Very Sustainable
I realize that this is a controversial statement. Yes, if you remember to take your totes to the store, and yes, if by using them you are keeping virgin paper and plastic out of the waste stream, totes are sustainable. No argument there. But how many of us really do that? Or what if you've done it so faithuflly that you've worn your totes out? Look at your pile of tote bags. (I know you have one.) Canvas. Recycled plastic. Recyclable plastic. Nylon. Neoprene. If you actually did want to recycle them, where would you take them? Nowhere I know of, unless you consider Goodwill a recycling company.
I'm Not a Tote-Hater
I actually like totes. I've bought totes. And that's the key. Because the totes I use are the ones I've bought. I bought each of them for some uniquely practical attribute. Like the stiff-bottomed recycled-plastic tote with six compartments I bought from my neighborhood liquor store. It reminds me to take advantage of the discount I get when I buy six bottles at a time, and I no longer come home with brown paper bags whose useful life was the 5 minutes it took me to drive home from the store. Or like the crocheted cotton bag I use for produce at the grocery store. It helps me eliminate the countless individual plastic bags I used to waste just to transport my produce from store to refrigerator. Or like the canvas tote with the long sturdy handles that's perfect for carrying my library books.
I'm a Tee-Tote-aler
All I'm saying is that as green marketers, let's be mindful of what we do to promote our values. If there is a uniquely practical, environmentally friendly, sustainable tote you'd like to give away, I'm all for it. If not, I propose that when we host an event or have a booth at a convention, we include a blurb on the invitation that there will be free samples of cool products, so bring a tote from home. If you forget, sure, we'll happily give you one. But we won't be automatically handing you something you really don't want but can't resist.
Now that we're used to hearing "Paper or plastic?", it's time for us to say, "Did you bring your own tote?" I guarantee you that your prospective customer will remember that interaction with your business long after she's forgotten the tote at the bottom of the pile.
Tote Fail
I recently tested a newly acquired free tote bag on a trip to Dunn Bros. coffee. Trying to make as little impact on the environment as possible, I walked the mile to the store instead of driving, bought a re-useable jug of coffee, and carried it home in this tote. I knew that the 64-ounce jug of Infinite Black would test the tote to its limits. This nylon tote holds up to 40 pounds. True to its claim, it held up to the weight of the jug. But the fabric was so slippery that no matter what I did, the straps kept sliding off my shoulders. I ended up holding both straps with one hand and cradling the bottom of the tote with the other just in case it slipped. It was awkward and uncomfortable and attracted strange looks from passers-by.
I'm not about to give up my Dunn Bros. Infinite Black (insert shameless plug here), so I'll report back when I find a tote that's up to the challenge.
Comments