Green Advertising

It's become a stylish trend in America to go green. In order to appeal to the green consumer, many companies have used advertising techniques to persuade people that they've also jumped on the green bandwagon.They use ambiguous words and images in order to uphold a certain image. Mass media scholar, Dennis Hayes identified four techniques that marketers use to appeal to the green consumer:

1. Ecopornography - A big fat lie

2. Narrow truth - Used to mislead

3. Donations to a specific environmental cause for every purchase made

4. Honesty

I've incorporated products that use each technique. If you see these items on shelves at the store, BEWARE!


Ecopornography

F

Fiji water was actually sued for greenwashing their product and claiming it was carbon negative. What's even worse is that most Fiji citizens don't have access to clean drinking water and typhoid outbreaks occur often there.







Narrow Truth

Yoplait Yogurt has a 99% Fat Free Light yogurt, but it also has 26 grams of sugar!! Not to mention it contains aspartame, which is an ARTIFICIAL sugar and it says "other sweetener" on the label, what exactly is the name of this other sweetener and what is it made of? Yoplait tries to market their yogurt as a healthy snack or meal replacement. When choosing yogurts, go for products that are sweetened with just fruit or try greek yogurt.

Donating to a Cause


Although Newman's does use organic ingredients in some of its products, you have to be hesitant before buying into this advertising penumbra. You can never really know exactly how much of what is going to these charities.

Honesty

Because kombucha is natural, organic, and raw, it's easy to see why companies who sell the drink use words like "honest" and "wonder drink" on their labels. Kombucha is an amazing drink that makes you feel revitalized. You can actually make your own! All it's made of is tea that is fermented with a mushroom culture called SCOBY, which stands for symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast. To learn more on how to make your own Kombucha check out this website: Kombucha