Nootouch.com Sustainability Advertising Network

[FabianPattberg]

Hi members,

This is the first ever sustainability and green advertising network:

http://www.nootouch.com/inclick/client.php?referral_id=2013

Our forum is also a member.

[coop]

could be useful - taking a look at that - cheers

[Corey]

Whats wrong with word of mouth surely with the level of population we have now that it would be more effective than in the past. Having an internet based advertising is energy intensive in that you have all those servers and computers talking. this is about "convenience" not being green.

If a product needed heavy advertising then it is not that great of product in the first place, we don't need it.

If it was a great product All it would need is word of mouth in that people would tell their friends that they needed it too and that it does a great job. thus snow ball effect.

[coop]

Originally Posted by Corey

Whats wrong with word of mouth surely with the level of population we have now that it would be more effective than in the past. Having an internet based advertising is energy intensive in that you have all those servers and computers talking. this is about "convenience" not being green.

If a product needed heavy advertising then it is not that great of product in the first place, we don't need it.

If it was a great product All it would need is word of mouth in that people would tell their friends that they needed it too and that it does a great job. thus snow ball effect.

I agree with you in that the 'green' credentials of this might be second to 'convenience' - although i'm sure the people there could argue that the impact of telling people about websites (e.g this one) and environmentally useful products outweighs the energy used in the servers/computers but maybe they would need an effective environmental accounting procedure to demonstrate that...

I'm not sure what you mean by 'heavy' advertising? And although i think the point about advertising and word of mouth throws up some interesting issues about the perils of advertising, i'd have concerns about your faith in the 'viral' or 'snow ball effect'. If i'm a rich lady living in Hampstead in London say, or the Upper East Side in New York and I have a great new 'green' product/idea - i tell my wealthy and connected friends at dinner parties and charity events i go to, and my husband tells all his friends at the office and those nice Venture Capital people accross the way and they all find 'it does a great job' and we've not even done any formal advertising but hey presto word gets out - then you would say all is well. If i'm living in Dagenham in London or Bed Sty in New York, or Nairobi or somewhere less rich, and i have a great new 'green' product/idea, it may be (but not necessarily) a hell of a lot harder to create a 'snowball' effect through word of mouth. In other words, it sounds all too much like the "all things being equal" world of conventional economics and great product or not, i disagree that all it would need is word of mouth, because of the geography of social justice, equality and economics.

[Corey]

I see the point your trying to make but the truth is usually those great ideas from rich are usually expensive anyway and thus unfordable by poor to begin with.

Advertising on the net is the benifit of global rade and the truth is going global is going backwards in that the energy to make even green things is not spent on the population that needs those green thing the most.

For example If I was to design a great green product but was only concerned for making a profit, I would turn to advertising and market it to those who have money . I would completely ignore the mass in that the masses could not pay that much for an item. By going global I would not have to focus on making the product cheaper or making it more "simplified" cheaper to make it affordable by masses, for I could reach a larger rich audiences on a global level. thus defeating the purpose of the product being green in that it has to travel great distances just to be used.

By relying on only word of mouth you have to make the product appeal to a larger local populace, thus you remove the status barrier, for the product is not made for one class of citizens it is made for everybody.

By making it easier to appeal to the locals vs making it harder to appeal to a very narrow select group of people via the internet you will discourage maker of product from only catering to a select group. I found this out the hard way when going to the local good food store. I am from the poor community I find i can't even afford to eat the bulk of organic in that the organic here is from all over the world thus prices are higher for it is catering to a specific class of people or higher. If the organics were required to only sell locally they would be forced to find away to be more efficient to bring cost down so as to appeal to a larger audience.

I want the green product. Yet I can't afford them in that the ones making the products have no incentive to make their products more cost effective in that they can use the internet to appeal to a larger audience.

I also no longer consider a product green if it has to travel great distances when I can get a similar product that is not green locally. like shirts.

Being green goes beyond just cutting emission of the products them selves being green has to be calculated from "dust to dust" that includes the level of advertising as well the more you advertise something the more energy and resources wasted just to sell a product that people don't want. that s the difference from word of mouth vs advertising in that advertising is forcing a product down peoples throat were word of mouth

Recently doing these forms of calculations they discovered that the jeep wrangler was greener than the Prius! OUCH!