A Direct Marketing Agency - Helping Brands Acquire and Retain Customers

Manufacturers, retailers and marketers will be further advancing their eco-friendly strategies in 2007.  Look what's just happened in the blink of an eye.

• This summer, after spending millions, Nike perfected a way to create and fill the air pockets in their shoes without the using the super-potent greenhouse gas called sulfur hexafluoride.
• Levi Strauss is unveiling their all-organic cotton Eco Jeans. You'll find no metal rivets, the waistband button is crafted from coconut shell, the dye is from all-natural compounds and the label is made - you guessed it - from recycled cardboard.
• Wal-Mart's new "Embrace the Earth" mission pushes sustainability on its vendors.
• Wal-Mart is now the earth's largest buyer of organic cotton, fair trade coffee, and energy-efficient light bulbs.
• Organic Exchange, a nonprofit advocacy group, reports that clothing manufacturers' demand for organic cotton by is rising at 93% annually.
• The beauty organics market has seen double digit sales growth every year over the past nine years.

Major brands and smaller brands, alike, are growing greener. Consumers are responding by opening their purses and wallets. It will be an upward spiral. Eco-friendly will become even more in demand. This green freight train (run on all-natural fuel by the way) isn't likely to slow down at the next station. As marketers, we should have plans in place to be leaders, not followers, in devising eco-friendly strategies. We need to understand what manufacturers and retailers are planning and push them if they are not aggressive enough. Then we need to help them get their eco-friendly messages to their customers . . . now.