Research company ComScore recently launched an initiative to encourage panelists to join and stay active in its research that caught my attention. It partnered with Trees for the Future and donated enough money to plant 1 million trees in developing communities worldwide. ComScore has also pledged to continue to make donations when new panel members join and remain active in the panel.

DMNews recently looked at the difficulty in providing incentives to participate in market and demographic research. It will be interesting to see how the market researcher’s green efforts work toward this goal. Is your company considering an environmentally friendly way to get attention or response? Tell us about it!

Haagen-Dazs has launched a viral video on YouTube designed to bring awareness to the honey bee cause and to give viewers a look at the “unique hive dance” of the honey bee. After launching on July 15, the video–aptly named “Bee-Boy dance crew drops dead”–already has more than 50,000 views on the video sharing site.

“Bee pollination is essential for ingredients in nearly 40 percent of our super-premium flavors,” says the company on its Help the Honeybees Web site. Visitors to the site can purchase merchandise to help fund honey bee research. You can also design your own animated honey bee and e-mail it to your friends.

Earlier this week, the FCC announced that it would be reviewing rules on how TV shows inform viewers of in-show advertising practices. IE: that Gossip Girl episode that was pretty much an hour-long (and delightfully drama-filled!) Victoria’s Secret commercial may be the sort of thing that comes with a disclaimer in the future.
The Washington Post quoted FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin explaining, “We want to make sure consumers understand and are aware that they are being advertised to. We ask how we should update our rules to reflect current trends in the industry.”
In a way, he’s right: it’s probably better to be safe than sorry when it comes to transparency.
On the other hand, I’m a little bit offended that they feel the need to warn us of these things. How many people really don’t think that Victoria’s Secret paid to be mentioned 9 bajillion times during a much-talked-about primetime show? And if they don’t realize it, is it really hurting them?
If a marketer is clever enough to organically integrate their product into a show, kudos to them: I think it makes the show more believable because, yes, real people do shop at chain stores and drink Coca-Cola and eat at McDonald’s…though maybe not the people on Gossip Girl. If you’re getting your brand name out there without annoying consumers and maybe even adding to their favorite shows, I would call that great marketing, and not a threat.

If you trust the fine folks at Continental, it’s official: the airline industry is in a (*ahem*) tailspin. With the announcement that Continental will cut 3,000 jobs and reduce capcity by 11% in the fourth quarter, the company’s chief executive, Larry Kellner, and president, Jeff Smisek, sent out this message to employees:
“The airline industry is in a crisis. Its business model doesn’t work with the current price of fuel and the existing level of capacity in the marketplace. We need to make changes in response.”
Reductions at Continental are just the latest in a steady stream of cutbacks (Continental, Spirit, United), groundings (Silverjet) and shutdowns (Aloha) that is plaguing the industry — and its customers.

Obviously, the economy has played a role here — pulling up fuel prices and making people less keen to travel. But it still seems odd to me that, after so many years of being on the forefront of customer service and loyalty programs (how many of us have some sort of “–miles” credit card?), airlines now cannot seem to get people into the air. What is it going to take, DM-ers? Please, leave some comments on what you think airlines can do to re-gain consumer trust, convince travelers to help pay for rising fuel costs, and just generally bring the industry back on some steady footing.

I was struck today by some recent CNN coverage of a growing consumer segment dubbed YAWNS - young and wealthy but normal – that is people in generation X and Y who live below their means for ecological or sociological benefit.
At first, the idea of a growing segment of the population actively seeking to trade goods with online community members, adopt a DIY attitude towards furniture, clothing and appliances and reduce luxury spending overall may seem a scary prospect for a marketer. If consumers don’t want to consume new products how are companies going to grow their profits and invest in large-scale marketing campaigns?
This is where the economy of direct marketing is so fundamental to good business. Many marketers already provide YAWNS with what they are looking for: good experiences rather than pure product and true relevance rather than excess. In fact good direct marketing is just that – understanding the need of each consumer and making the products conveniently available to them when and where they want them.
The green marketing talk that has been flooding the advertising industry is more than just labeling a product as eco-friendly. It is about the growing sentiment that consumption for consumption’s sake in developed countries carries unsavory ethical implications. As “spray and pray” tactics continue to fail, today’s market requires an understanding of this new population and it is direct marketing tactics such as customer database segmentation and Web analytics that will lead the way to reaching these “nonbuyers” on issues where they are still willing to spend.

Here’s some news worth considering: An all-time high of 56% of the paper consumed in America was recovered for recycling in 2007, according to the American Forest & Paper Association

The news reflects that not only are consumers demonstrating a commitment to environmental sustainability, but increasingly industry is also doing more than just paying lip service to these issues.

In our neck of the woods, the Direct Marketing Association launched a major new initiative last summer to encourage consumers to recycle catalogs and mixed paper by encouraging member companies to add the “Recycle Please” logos to their catalogs and direct mail pieces. Williams-Sonoma, L.L. Bean and American Girl are among the many direct mailers supporting the program.

This weeks news about paper recovery was made at the Annual Paper Week Conference, which brings together representatives of the paper industry and was held in New York March 30-April. In making the announcement, AF&PA said a significant industry goal for recovery had been achieved five years ahead of schedule. The AF&PA also set a new goal of 60% recovery by 2012.

“In 2007, the US recycled over 25 million tons more paper than was recycled in 1990. This increase in paper recycling reduced emissions by more than 97 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, comparable to the annual emissions of nearly 18 million cars,” said Maria Vickers, deputy director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Solid Waste, in a statement.

McDonald’s is under fire for sponsoring a program in which an ad for the fast-food chain was printed on report card envelopes that went home with 27,000 elementary school students in Seminole County, FL, promising a free Happy Meal if the student met certain academic, behavioral or attendance benchmarks.

At issue is the appropriateness of a school selling report card space, whether this violates a McDonald’s pledge to not market unhealthy food to kids under age 12 and why no one seemed to notice that Pizza Hut had been sponsoring a similar program for about 10 years previous.

While I see the moral dilemmas inherent in including branding on materials that kids so young (age five to 11) will be exposed to, the sponsorship meant that McDonald’s paid out the $17,000 cost of printing the report cards and envelopes. This $17,000 — though a modest sum — can be used to buy any amount of other materials that the students can use year-round or into next year. An entire computer lab could be had for that cost.

Parents are up in arms, alleging that the program contradicts their attempts to keep their children eating healthy. The Orlando Sentinel printed that a parent “resented ‘being the bad guy’ who had to deny her daughter the meal.” But, telling your child “no” is part of being a parent. If the child had got wind of the program through television or a bus ad, she still would’ve been upset at the parents’ denial.

However, does this violate the agreement that McDonald’s and other manufacturers announced last month? At first glance, it would appear so: The New York Times said that “companies agreed not to advertise food or beverages in elementary schools” when they signed on to what is called the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative. Though, it should be noted that this is a regional campaign and not a national one — it’s likely it was set in place before the corporate announcement on November 15 of the Initiative.

Perhaps the corporate bosses should’ve checked with their franchises to make sure they weren’t doing anything in violation of the letter of the agreement and extinguished it. $17,000 is nothing to the multibillion dollar fast-food giant, which has absorbed plenty of PR hits in the past few years, to avoid another.

Unfortunately $17,000, as noted above, is a tidy sum for American public school districts, who would be hard-pressed to give up a simple insert program that paid off that amount. Branding and advertising in schools will continue to be a hotly debated topic, as long as corporations continue to be flush with cash while schools are stretched thin.

—Nathan Golia