As a girl, I feel like I’m almost always in the market for some good facial wipes. Recently, I read an article about Neutrogena ditching their traditional TV advertising for social media heavy exposure. How does this relate to the environment you ask? Well, the campaign they have decided to run solely based on social media is none other than their annual Earth Month campaign, which involves the hashtag ‘WipeForWater’ this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4ScVY-hZJ4
Neutrogena has made the lovable Kristen Bell their spokeswoman for this campaign and in addition to this have also employed several influential Youtube stars to endorse the product. According to Neutrogena, the average person wastes up to 5 gallons of water a day just by washing his/her face. In efforts to conserve the water on our planet, Neutrogena has encouraged users to not wash their faces for seven days, and instead to just use their ‘Naturals Purifying Makeup Remover Cleansing Towels‘ for that time period. If users complete this challenge for the full seven days, they are encouraged to share a post on their social media platforms stating that they saved 35 gallons of water, and to tag it with ‘#WipeForWater’. Furthermore, Neutrogena has vowed to donate $1 for every pledge made by its users to The Nature Conservancy to support water conservation (up to ($50,000).
Having gotten slightly addicted to using the Good Guide after our last lecture, I decided to take a look at Neutrogena’s overall score. It seems that the company overall is quite socially and environmentally responsible. It has a number of certifications under its belt and seems to offer lots of transparency in its operations. Furthermore, a quick look into their partner for this campaign, The Nature Conservancy, does accredit it as an organization that is quite well run and tackles a large number of important environmental issues. Although seeing Neutrogena’s past records does slightly quell my suspicions of it just promoting this initiative as a pure marketing gimmick, I still wonder why a big corporation like Neutrogena is capping their donations at $50,000.
Regardless of the reasons, I feel that this initiative is an engaging way to educate the general public about how much water they consumer on a daily basis and points their attention towards the conservation of resources.
Their campaign has definitely worked on me to some extent. I just so happen to be in the market for some moisturizers and wipes, so when I go for my weekly groceries run in a few hours I’ll most likely be keeping an eye out for these ‘Neutrogena Naturals’ products.
Read (a little) more about their Wipe For Water campaign HERE.
Hi Sarah!
Thanks for your post! I find it interesting that Neutrogena is promoting that people do not use water, while they sell a lot of products under cleansers and bath and body. While watching the video, I could not help but feel like this was more of a marketing scheme, rather than a for a social cause. But nonetheless, water will be saved!
The campaign focuses on how much water can be saved if you just use the makeup wipes instead of washing, but I would like to see what initiatives Neutrogena is doing in-house. If consumers follow the campaign, use the wipes, and decrease water consumption, how about the company? Did Neutrogena use zero toxins in producing the product? Did they use less energy and water in manufacturing?
Just some thoughts 😮
Szascha
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for the article! I wasn’t aware Neutrogena had done something like this. I actually was pretty surprised it did this because of how “grass roots” the marketing campaign seemed. Of course, I believe they used it as purely a marketing move in order to increase brand equity and association with charitable causes. They are owned by Johnson & Johnson after all!
Best,
Sammie
I’m thinking it’s great to save water…..but what about wipes and disposing of them. Rubbish and breaking down of those wipes is also a concern.
I believe in face cloths, and turning the tape off between rinses.