Firm Exercises Its Social Consciousness

Stephen Garey is still haunted by one ad campaign that he wrote.

The Los Angeles ad man received a phone call from a buddy at General Electric’s nuclear systems division back in the mid-70s. GE wanted an aggressive campaign aimed at shortening the 8-year waiting period that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission required before approving new nuclear power plants.

Garey, who was just beginning to build his career, jumped at the chance to make a lot of money. So he wrote a series of pro-nuclear print ads, including one that pointedly said, “It shouldn’t take eight years to boil water.”

A few years after he created the ad for GE, the safety of nuclear power was called into question by the incident at Three Mile Island in 1979. Shortly after that, Garey’s second child was born. “Suddenly, things were changing from my perspective,” said Garey, who may be best known for writing a number of Great Western Savings ads featuring actor John Wayne. “The frailty of life on Earth was becoming more apparent to me,” said Garey. “I looked at my daughter, Noel, and thought about her future. I even became uncomfortable working on ads for products that were high in sugar or were highly processed.”

Those feelings became so strong that while working at a Los Angeles agency on a campaign for a fruit drink, he found himself unable to create a single ad. When one of the agency’s top executives flew to Los Angeles, he took Garey aside and asked him why. “I told him that I wouldn’t serve that crap to my own children,” said Garey. “So, how did he expect me to write an ad for it?”

Last week, those feelings became the founding principles of his new Santa Monica ad firm, Stephen Garey & Associates. The firm placed a full-page ad in the New York Times that said, “We’re people now determined to create for better, not worse.” The agency, which has several top Los Angeles ad executives on board, is limiting its client roster to what Garey calls “Earth-conscious” alternative products, services and organizations.

The firm wouldn’t do ads for McDonald’s or Burger King, but it will be creating ads for a soon-to-open fast-food company whose line of entirely natural products is wrapped in biodegradable packaging. It wouldn’t do ads for Exxon or Arco, but it has already signed on to do ads for one of the nation’s largest wind-power companies. Nor would the agency create ads for Merrill Lynch or PaineWebber. But it says it would be happy to create ads for Working Assets, which it considers a socially responsible investor in money market funds.

“It so happens I’m in the advertising business,” said Garey. “We ad people have to be aware of the influence we have on other people’s thoughts and habits.”

As a growing number of consumers continue to show more concern for the environment, it just may be that Garey has opened his agency at an opportune time. In a recent survey commissioned by the Michael Peters Group, a New York new-product consulting firm, 89% of the 1,000 adults surveyed said they are concerned about the impact on the environment of the products that they purchase. These days, with acid rain and holes in the ozone layer continuing to frighten consumers, marketing experts at major corporations are quickly cozying-up to environmental issues.

Wal-Mart is putting special signs by products that the company thinks have become less harmful to the environment. Arco gasoline says in its advertisements that those who use its new brand of gasoline are helping to clear the air. Colgate-Palmolive is test marketing dish-washing liquid in special containers that carry the message “Protect our planet.” And even as “Earth Day 1990” organizers are planning a massive April event--and concert--in Washington, they are looking for “environmentally sensitive” corporate sponsors to help underwrite it.

The lastest buzzword for this new-found environmental sensitivity is “greening.” And to all of this corporate greening, some top environmentalists remain skeptics, at best. “I have to take a pretty cynical view of it,” said Peter Bahouth, executive director of Greenpeace, the Washington-based environmental group. “Unfortunately, a lot of this has more to do with greenbacks than any ‘green’ consciousness.”

Some skeptics call such environmental marketing “green washing.” And they say it has been taking place for several years. Chevron, for example, has been broadcasting “People Do” TV commercials that depict the oil giant as personally concerned about environmental issues such as hibernating bears.

“Any company can point to something good they’re doing for the environment,” said Dan Noble, executive vice president at EnviroQuest, a San Diego-based environmental research and consulting firm. “But whether Chevron represents a pro-active environmental company is certainly debatable.” Like it or not, said Noble, “you’ll see more and more of this. And it will become increasingly difficult for the consumer to sort out who is being sincere.”

In fact, a number of corporations have unexpectedly contacted the promoters of Earth Day 1990 about sponsoring the event. “Obviously, Exxon hasn’t called us,” said Earth Day’s Christina Desser. “We don’t want to embarrass companies by naming those we can’t take money from.” But she said the event has received inquiries from other oil companies, chemical companies and car makers. So far, the only corporate sponsor named is Shaklee Corp., a maker of vitamins and biodegradable soaps and detergents. Shaklee will spend up to $100,000 to use the Earth Day logo in its product catalogue.

Meanwhile, the publisher of one of the nation’s most influential alternative press journals says green marketing is probably a good idea for many businesses. “A lot of companies have a worthy environmental message to convey,” said Eric Utne, editor and publisher of the Minneapolis-based Utne Reader. “I don’t know that it’s wrong unless they’re creating a complete fiction.”

One of the few companies to admit that profit is a big part of the motive behind its new environmental marketing venture is Arco.

Shortly after the company introduced a form of less-polluting gasoline this summer, it unleashed a massive ad campaign that seemed to indicate that the company had all but joined the Sierra Club. “Let’s Drive Away Smog,” was the bold rallying cry--and headline--of a recent Arco ad in Western editions of Time magazine.

But in an interview, a company executive conceded that Arco is hardly being altruistic. “It wasn’t so much a case of Arco suddenly becoming more green,” said Ken Dickerson, senior vice president of government affairs at Arco. “The AQMD (South Coast Air Quality Management District) could decide that the pollution problem is so bad that everyone in Southern California has to drive electric-power vehicles by the year 2004. Well, we decided if we want to stay in business, we’d better help solve some of the problems.”

Arco is now pouring millions of dollars into a facility that will eventually make its unleaded gasoline less polluting, too. But environmentalists complain that Arco is still focusing virtually all of its efforts on hydrocarbons. Arco, after all, is in the process of selling its solar division to a German firm.

“Arco is part of an inherently polluting industry,” said Greenpeace’s Bahouth. “Its latest advertising is a ploy to get some good will. There’s nothing that company can do short of completely changing its product that will really turn things around.”

Colgate-Palmolive Co. hasn’t changed its dish-washing detergent. But in New Haven, Conn., it is test marketing the detergent in soft plastic pouches that are considered to be far less damaging to the environment than the plastic bottles that detergent usually comes in. These pouches, which are actually refill packets, all have the logo “Protect our planet” on them.

“I suppose you can debate if this is actually protecting the planet,” said Robert Murray, director of corporate communications at Colgate-Palmolive. “But the packaging minimizes the waste that becomes part of the environment. So that way, it becomes more environmentally friendly.”

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart, the huge discount chain, has clearly hopped on the environmental bandwagon. At many of its stores, Wal-Mart is putting signs by products that its corporate executives believe have environmentally improved their content or packaging. And it has heavily advertised this fact.

Wal-Mart’s Austin ad agency--which also created the “Don’t Mess With Texas” anti-litter campaign--had a lot to do with it. “This is not a promotion, it’s a cause,” said Roy Spence, president of the agency GSD&M.; “The environment is no longer a fringe issue. It’s a family issue,” said Spence. In fact, his agency has taken this greening so much to heart that it recently began to eliminate all toxic chemicals from its darkroom and has even stopped sending agencywide memos to save paper.

Executives at Wal-Mart insist that their latest efforts are not marketing ploys. “There are right reasons and wrong reasons to do things,” said Brenda Lockhart, coordinator of public relations for Wal-Mart Stores. “We feel our environmental efforts are being done for the right reason--our customers have asked us to.”

At his new ad agency, Garey said he isn’t interested in creating ads for suddenly green companies such as Wal-Mart or Colgate-Palmolive. He is only interested in promoting products and companies that are truly improving the environment. And to this cause, the 48-year-old copywriter expects to dedicate the remainder of his ad career.

Skeptics say a career with those aims may be short-lived. “It’s hard enough for most ad agencies to attract business on any basis,” said Leonard Pearlstein, president of Keye/Donna/Pearlstein. “It will be a very tough sell.”

But the agency already has two clients. One is Zond Systems Inc., the nation’s largest wind-power company. The other is Piezo, a new company based in Malibu that calls itself “the world’s first socially conscious fast food company.” In February, Piezo is scheduled to begin selling its chemical-free food wrapped in recyclable containers at Lucky stores. “We believe in exactly the same things as Stephen Garey’s agency,” said Lynda Bagley Doye, chairman of Piezo.

It is this shared desire to improve the environment--even in some small way--that executives hope will draw more clients to the agency. “Something like this should have happened a long, long time ago,” said Si Lam, an art director with the agency. Years ago, while at the agency Doyle Dane Bernbach, Lam helped to create some of Volkswagen’s most famous billboard ads. Now, about the only VW that he’d be interested in creating an ad for would be one with an electric motor. Says Lam of his agency’s lofty mission, “Maybe it’s not too late.”

As far as Garey is concerned, it’s not really a matter of being too late or too early. It’s simply a matter of doing it.

“It crossed my mind to just leave the advertising business,” said Garey. “But this seems to be the best way to evolve my career without tossing it away. I love writing good ads. This seems to be the right thing to do.”

Hughes Hopes Change Will Foster New Image

With peace prospects dominating today’s headlines--and U.S. defense spending already on the skids--Hughes Aircraft switched ad agencies on Monday in a bid to change its image from that of a defense contractor to something more akin to a diversified, high-tech company.

The new Los Angeles agency is Eisaman, Johns & Laws, which creates ads for such diverse clients as Giorgio perfume and Pennzoil Co. Although neither Hughes nor the agency would reveal the size of the business, advertising executives estimate that the annual ad budget will be about $4 million. “With the prospect of reduced defense spending, we are changing and diversifying,” said Alma Gonzalez, manager of corporate advertising at Hughes. In a statement, Gonzalez said Hughes feels “a need to communicate that change in a fresh, new way.”

The new agency replaces D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, which handled the business for about three years. The new print and broadcast ads, which won’t appear until spring, will probably talk more about Hughes’ sophisticated microchip technology and its advanced air-control systems, said Dennis Coe, president of the agency.

Has anyone at the new agency asked not to work on the Hughes business because of moral qualms about creating ads for a defense contractor? “Not anyone here that I know of,” answered Coe. “Our employees are aware that Hughes is not just building missiles.”

No ‘Phony Baloney’ for Suissa’s HMO Ads

David Suissa is tired of ads that try to make old people look young.

That may be the very reason that his Santa Monica ad agency, Suissa & Associates, last week won the $4-million account for Pacific Secure Horizons, one of the largest health maintenance organizations in the nation.

Next month, when his agency begins to create ads for the HMO, he promises that none of them will show scenes of elderly people prancing around on a tennis court, or for that matter, dancing off of diving boards. “Elderly people all see through these ads,” said Suissa, who is president of the firm. “I can promise you, our ads won’t have that phony baloney.”