Earth Day Advertising and Marketing

Well, it's Earth Day. So here's a quickie post of some promotions, marketing initiatives and advertising going on in honor of the day.

Starbucks in Canada will be giving away free coffee if you bring in your own mug today.

Owens Corning, makers of insulation products, promotes their mascot, the Pink Panther, to CEO and gives him a blog about engery efficiency. (funny bit at the end of the press release-"The color PINK is a registered trademark of Owens Corning".)

The International Fund for Animal Welfare is launching a new campaign to protect endangered whales, that will include TV spots and billboards.

GM is running special advertising to drive people to the Live Green Go Yellow site to promote their E85 alternative fuel campaign, as well as participating in events and activities around the US.

MTV is running PSAs aimed to get its viewers to "break their addiction" to habits that harm the environment. The campaign will launch with a channel takeover on today including an on-air, online and wireless messaging campaign driving viewers to Think.MTV.com.

Apple announced, in time for Earth Day, that in June they will be starting a free computer take-back program in the US for customers who by a new Mac through the Apple Store or Apple retail store. Also Apple has a free iPod recycling program- take your old iPod to an Apple retail store and they'll dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way, and you'll get a 10% discount on the purchase of a new iPod.

In Canada, Pizza Pizza at all traditional restaurants across Ontario and Quebec is offering a free slice to customers who drop off an old cell phone.

Organic Valley Farms has created "The Earth Dinner(TM)". The group's director of marketing Carrie Branovan says,"What's wrong with Earth Day is it doesn't have a meal attached to it. Every holiday has to have a meal." In addition, print ads created by their inhouse team promote the idea of an Earth Dinner as well as Earth Cards, created by the Lindsay, Stone and Briggs agency, which is a deck of 49 cards that can be used as a free-form dinner table "game" to keep Earth Dinner guests focused on the theme of the meal.

Not an event but an article on marketing green, which focuses on the fact that there has been a shift when advertising green products and services to focus more on their effectiveness rather than on the fact that they are green, partly due to the fact that many still equate green with ineffective.