Not a wine drinker
Are you a wine drinker?
While on YouTube, I was forced to watch an advertisement before the video could start playing. Usually I pay no attention to the ads; but this time I actually clicked into the link. The reason: of course, it was related to sustainability. I was immediately taken to a very visually appealing website of a wine producer, Santa Margherita. The page content explained that in the month of April, each time #SM_PinotGrigio is tweeted, the company will donate 50 cents to Tree Canada as an effort to maintain their corporate social responsibility. Tree Canada is a Canadian non-profit organization that partners up with various companies and programs to encourage tree planting and tree maintenance across Canada. For the past 22 years that Tree Canada has been established, the company has planted over 80 million trees!
At first, I thought this was just a PR stunt to increase their brand awareness and promote Santa Margherita’s wine, Pinot Grigio. There were two main reasons why I thought so. First, I am basically helping advertise their brand through twitter using the hashtag. Second, the beginning of the video that was on the webpage was basically promoting their own brand and quality of wine, instead of talking about their sustainable initiatives.
However, looking and thinking deeper, I believed that this was a genuine commitment to sustainability. First of all, the campaign did not trigger the audience to make actual monetary purchases; but instead, a hashtag that doesn’t cost the customer money to use. This is unlike some brands discussed in class where it encourages more consumption (and maybe creating more waste..) by having the company donate something with each purchase.
Second of all, Santa Margherita is actually an active supporter of sustainability in their business model – from production to sales. Some of the initiatives the company has already taken include using renewable energy from solar panels and biomass, recycling waste by-products, and manufacturing their own wine bottles. As a result, last year the company reduced emissions equivalent to 197 barrels of oil, diverted emissions equivalent to 46.3 tons of landfill waste, and minimized the emission from packaging and travel. Lastly, Santa Margherita is Carbonzero certified. Of course, we need to take into consideration what the certification actually means.
Seeing that the company is continuously making efforts to make its company more sustainable, I will probably hashtag to support the cause, even though I’m not a wine drinker. If you have read one of my previous posts, I thought that the BC Hydro renewable natural gas ‘product’ is a credence purchase. I was a bit skeptical because it costs me money for something I cannot directly evaluate the results of. However, I am not too skeptical this time because it doesn’t cost money – there’s nothing to lose!
One last thought though, why is this campaign only for the month of April?