‘Green Marketing’ Gets Buyers Where They Live : Thanks to TV and computers, planet- friendly products are becoming increasingly consumer-friendly.
Environmentally conscious consumers will have an easier time shopping in l994 because electronic media firms are now entering the “green marketing” arena. A local company, Patagonia, is involved, because it makes products environmentally savvy folks want to see along the so-called information highway.
Teleshopping, which has been around for a while, seems, like telecommuting (which has increased recently because of traffic jams on quake-damaged freeways) to be enjoying a growth spurt. According to recent business pages, QVC is so prosperous, they are in the market to buy a movie studio.
But Earthwatch isn’t concerned with the wares on shopping channel that have traditionally been sold, such as ceramic figurines or designer fashions for the masses.
Since 1994 began, existing cable channels devoted to home shopping, such as QVC and HSN, have been adding product lines that are planet-friendly. And entire new channels are being planned, such as Planet Central TV, which will be supported solely by advertising that promotes such goods.
Computer networks such as Prodigy and CompuServe are providing data about green goods and taking orders via modem.
And an interactive compact disc that carries entire catalogues, including Patagonia’s, has just been released by Apple Computer Inc.
At Patagonia, which makes a popular sweater out of recycled plastic soda bottles, Chief Financial Officer Allison May told me, “We’ve been fairly successful with this (teleshopping), but we haven’t been doing it long enough to track an entire season yet.”
She seems more certain about the green products themselves and why the electronic shopping media are adding these goods to their lineup.
This green-tinged thinking is definitely going on at QVC, the big TV shopping channel based in Pennsylvania and carried locally on several Ventura County cable channels.
Every Wednesday at QVC’s headquarters, would-be vendors troop in to show things they hope the channel will put on the air.
This has netted QVC what seems to be the first environmental TV pitchman. Jim Henry auditioned his Primo Metal Polish by exclaiming, “It’s so safe you can eat it.” This he proceeded to do one fateful Wednesday and now does so regularly, on-air, for QVC teleshoppers. They’ve even sent this foe of polluting cleansers on the road with a TV crew, Charles Kuralt-style, to demonstrate his wares, now expanded to seven different products. The first series of demonstrations was billed “Cleaning Up the South.”
Then Doug Briggs, a QVC vice president, caught a CNN item about “EcoSpun” fibre made from recycled pop bottles.
For those who would rather do their shopping through the electronic catalogue, there is Apple Computer’s CD. According to Apple spokeswoman Katy Boos, these discs allow shoppers to view twenty different mail-order catalogues--including those of Patagonia, Land’s End, Tiffany and Sonoma-Williams--thus saving fifty tons of paper, or a lot of trees.
Of course, all the shoppers interested in saving trees must write to all those companies urging them not to send the printed catalogues. And shoppers also need a computer equipped to view CD-ROM.
But while you’re waiting to upgrade your computer for green shopping purposes, you could watch QVC and phone in for some Primo Polish before Jim Henry eats it all.
Details
* SERVICES: You can shop electronically for your favorite environmentally friendly products as a subscriber to on-line computer services such as Prodigy, CompuServe or America Online. They wire you directly to the likes of Patagonia, Land’s End and Real Goods.
* CD-ROM: Apple Computer, Inc. publishes an interactive CD-ROM disc covering 20 mail order companies, many with appeal for Earthwatch readers--call (800) 437-4121.
* CONSUMER TIPS: “EcoLinking--Everyone’s Guide to Online Environmental Information,” a $19 book by Don Rittner, contains good environmental and electronic consumer tips--call (800) 548-4393.
