Showing the
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Advertisements which promote an environmentally conscious corporate image or products that do not harm the environment have been a part of the advertising scene in the US and Europe since the 1970s, but are only now catching on in Asia.
"Green" advertising finally stood up in the Asian public arena last year. Industry analysts say the turning point was a Hongkong Government anti-pollution campaign with TV commercials that shocked the public into acknowledging the horrendous state of the colony’s environment. The commercials attracted huge public attention in Hongkong and won advertising awards in Hongkong, France and the US.
Currently, only 3% of regional print advertising can be classified as having an environmental slant. But the proportion is set to rise quickly as the guardians of corporate image (CI) are pulled head first into greener pastures. The green movement is gaining ground fast in Asia, making the public receptive to green sales pitches and demanding "corporate responsibility."
"Although environmental advertising is in its infancy here," says Leo Burnett (Hongkong) executive and creative director, Gary Conway, "people are receptive to it."
Green advertising has already captured a small but well-received part of the market in the Philippines. A recent three-page pullout in the Philippine Enquirer newspaper was a green CI promotion for Tiple-V, a food and restaurant business. The company is sponsoring a special Earth Care project involving children from every province in environmental education programmes. Shell (Philippines), the Philippine National Oil Co., Philippine National
Bank and Philippine Long Distance Telephone have all promoted their Cis with environmental issues. Javier J. Calero, chairman and CEO of J. Walter Thompson (Philippines), says that "because of our close relationship with the US, we are ahead of other Asian countries in environmental awareness. Within two or three years, we will lead Asia in environmental advertising."
In Japan true environmental advertising, such as for biodegradable packaging, takes less than 1% of the market. However, Gus lizuka, chief operating officer of J. Walter Thompson’s Tokyo office, says the time is ripe for it to take off in Japan.
In two recent sales presentations, one to a gas retailer and another to a giant trading firm importing large amounts of raw natural resources from tropical countries, Thompson suggested using green ads. For the gas retailer, they suggested a clean-air, ride-the-bus campaign with giveaway bus tickets, something that has worked in the US. For the trading company, they promoted a TV and print campaign based on the slogan "we care about the earth." Although the deals are not yet finalised, "the response was very positive," says Lizuka.
Manako Ooshima, of advertising agency Dentsu Inc.’s creative division, says small companies will follow the lead of the big firms. Dentsu client NEC has bought a series of TV and print ads to promote both its green CI and its green products, particularly pollution monitoring equipment. "Our creative director recommended this approach to show that NEC is a company that cares about the environment, and they bought it," says Ooshima.
Hongkong is the last place an environmental advertisement would be expected to win prizes. But as more residents have the opportunity to travel and live abroad, they have brought back a more enlightened environmental consciousness that is beginning to spread.
This is why the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) decided that the time was right to begin a hard-hitting antipollution advertising campaign. According to Anthony Armstrong, director of client services at J. Walter Thompson (Hongkong), the EPD asked them to come up with an ad that would have an impact on Chinese at all levels of society. "We chose to use a fish, which is the traditional piece de resistance of a Chinese banquet. Although the dockworker might attend a banquet once a year while the business executive goes twice a week, they can both relate."
In the commercial, diners surround a delicious-looking fish. When the fish is sliced open, sewage pours out while the voice-over delivers an anti-pollution message. The ad was considered so disgusting by some viewers that they petitioned the TV stations not to show it during meal times. Armstrong says the ad was extremely successful in generating public awareness.
In litter-conscious Singapore, the chlorofluorocarbons aerosol issue got a lot of media play recently. The Ball Partnership advertising firm and Body Shop, a health-care products retail chain, joined forces to create an award-winning print ad showing an aerosol can with the text reading, "kills bugs instantly, and children eventually." But Jamie Pfaff, creative director at Leo Burnett (Singapore), says it is mainly the multinational companies that have pushed green advertising in Singapore. "I could only recommend a green ad campaign for a local company in a tactical sense and for the secondary media. I would not put the majority of my advertising money into it," says Pfaff.
Recent environmental disasters in South Korea have generated intense media attention. But there is a large gap in environmental awareness among South Korean companies, as shown in recent magazine advertisements by the Samsung Group and Hyundai. The Samsung advertisement includes a picture of a whale and plugs the company’s care for the environment through its manufacture of double-hulled supertankers. In contrast, the Hyundai ad shows a petrochemical plant and a stack of freshly cut logs —both guaranteed to infuriate an environmentalist.
With green advertising in Asia about 15 years behind that in the West, companies have a chance to avoid the mistakes of their Western counterparts. US advertisers’ first attempts at green marketing involved labelling products as "organic." This evolved to "green" and "environmentally friendly." Eventually, so many products, from detergents to pesticides, were being marketed under these labels that consumers rebelled and legislation was passed to regulate the use of the terms. In some states companies now have to show evidence that their products will not harm the environment, a costly affair that Asian companies can avoid by keeping their claims realistic.
-Gregor Hodgson
Source : Far Eastern Economic Review, 19 Sept, 1991
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