Metro Vancouver launched the “Create Memories, not Garbage” campaign for the 2011 Christmas season to encourage the gifting of services, such as opera tickets, instead of material goods. The target market is consumers of all age groups who celebrate the Christmas season.  The website is user-friendly and easy to navigate, which is helpful for older users. It features e-cards, a forum for contributing green ideas, and “Garbage Issues” videos.

Metro Vancouver attempted to interact on a deeper level online with consumers, but failed, due to the overly broad target market and the ineffective use of generational marketing. There was a lack of advertisement exposure to children and seniors. Youth and young adults spend the most time online. In addition, the placement of advertisements was mainly in skytrain stations. Youth and the younger working class are more frequent transit users than are seniors and children. Also, each ad targets a specific age group, instead of their lifestyle. An advertisement featuring the line “Ryan’s giving Grandma square dance lessons- with Ryan.” seems tacky and irrelevant to the target market. Most young adults do not enjoy square dancing.

On the website, Metro Vancouver was not creating a two-way conversation with the website’s visitors. On January 10, 2012, there were no Twitter results for the hashtag “#GreenAngel” on Twitter. Most videos have one to three tweets or one share. When I viewed the video on the state of landfills after Christmas last week, I felt guilty after seeing piles and piles of garbage. If I had taken the time to watch these videos earlier, I would’ve tried to be more environmentally friendly in the types of gifts that I bought. Like many others, I was too busy trying to finish my Christmas shopping and did not have strong incentives to change my current shopping behaviour. Boxing Day sales also started early this year and many of the suggested gifts, such as bungee jumping tickets, are too expensive. Now that the Christmas shopping rush is over, many are no longer concerned with the idea of giving and will most likely forget the campaign by next year. Therefore, customers have little incentive to abandon the usual tradition of buying tangible goods.

I believe that the marketing tactic is unsustainable because it is short-term and focuses only on the Christmas shopping season. Perhaps the campaign would’ve been more effective if it had featured disturbing images similar to the “Garbage Issue” videos, which would’ve stirred up stronger feelings, such as guilt. This could’ve been more effective in changing consumer behaviour to a more sustainable one for the long-run.