ali birston's blog

You don’t have to be ridiculous to be green.

This is the tagline from the latest Clorox GreenWorks marketing campaign aimed at making eco-friendly people friendly again. This campaign comes shortly after some research by the company was conducted that found that women in particular are drawn to the “trendiness” of being green with more women saying they felt pressure to be green (39%) than skinny (29%). In addition, it was found that 73% of Americans would choose a green product from a mainstream brand over a product from a lesser-known green company, yet the biggest barrier is price. With this in mind, Clorox has now made it their mission to make green accessible and practical for a wide range of consumers.

Having recently done a case study on Clorox and their growing green portfolio of brands, I was initially impressed at their effort to try and make green mainstream and thought that co-branding Green Works with the Clorox brand name was a strategic move. However, judging from this campaign, that strategy may have taken a turn for the worse. Take a sneak peak, if you haven’t already, at the Green Housewives.

While I personally did not take offense to this campaign, I understand why there has been so much outcry from consumers via social media. Instead of making green accessible, they seem to be alienating their biggest base of consumers, women who are into sustainability. While I do think it’s okay to poke fun at how ridiculous being “green” has become, shouldn’t those people be the ones being rewarded not ridiculed for their behavior which is surely having a much greater positive impact that those who are just switching cleaning products?

 

References: Clorox Green Works: What were they thinking?, Clorox Mocks ‘Ridiculous Green’ Consumers