Green, clean and being seen

Of course, it wasn't always this way. But the success of marketing campaigns like Plan A has been plain to see. Meanwhile the likes of the Co-op, which was touting an ethical message long before it became fashionable, watches as its approach is borrowed.

Household cleaning brand Ecover, which is about to launch its latest marketing campaign, is in a similar position. The product, originally launched in Belgium in the 1980s, does not claim to be good for the environment but does lack a number of environmentally harmful chemicals used by competitors.

Marketing-wise, Ecover is in an interesting place. On the one hand, now seems like a great time to be an ethical brand. On the other, it has to contend not only with bigger and louder competitors but also with the confusion of consumers who want to be ethical but don't think they can be for products such as washing-up liquid.

This is the challenge that Ecover marketing director Clare Allman has to wrestle with. The route she has decided to take is to immerse consumers in the brand, tell its story and hopefully create brand advocates. Such actions required bold moves. "When I joined four years ago," she says. "I decided we must not have sampling. A product in a goodie bag won't do anything. So when we were looking at agencies, we wanted someone that could give to Ecover the equivalent of what tasting did for food."

Product interaction

The challenge to sell Ecover as an ethos as well as a brand fell to experiential agency iD, which chose to use events as a way of informing customers about the brand. It targeted county shows at first, then moved on to festivals, and over the past two years has run at music festivals such as the Big Chill and Glastonbury (through a tie-in with Greenpeace). The campaign has worked so well, it has been adopted in the brand's home nation of Belgium.

Nicola Jordan, client service director with iD, said the first task was to understand how consumers would interact with a product like Ecover and create an experience to fit that. "The creation of a brand experience campaign was an enormous step forward for them," she says.

Allman says the strategy was sold in "from the top down" and was governed by a set of guidelines that Ecover presented to iD initially. "We wanted consumers to interact with the brand," she adds. The staff wore recycled clothing and the display was not allowed to use water. "It had to support the whole ethos of the brand. Something like press advertising still has its place, but we need to create advocates."

This year Ecover is seeking to revamp the experiential campaign and take it further. This will happen in two principle areas. Whereas previous experiential campaigns stuck to telling the product's story, the 2008 version will be linked to new brand positioning developed by agency Brave.

New positioning

An "it's ecological" tagline will run on the packaging and across its communications - and, rather than simply introducing consumers to the product, the campaign will set out to educate consumers who are aware of ethical food shopping but aren't sure how this can be extended to home cleaning. The new positioning makes it clear where Ecover stands from an ecological point of view.

"There's too much to say about it," says Allman, so a lot of effort is put into training brand advocates about product benefits and what harm some cleaning chemicals can do. "The knowledge of the staff is fundamental. It doesn't matter what kind of product you have, if staff aren't up to it, it won't work. We've invested in training so they understand."

According to Jordan, the campaign runs on a number of levels. "The campaign is based around four routes," she says. "Firstly, we've got brand ambassadors. Secondly, the trike, which goes out to refill bottles at the festivals. Thirdly, we've three screens next to each other showing what happens to the product when it's used. Our fourth and most immersive execution is Ecover's bottle-shaped trailer, with a kitchen and an interactive touch-screen plasma inside and a fun new 'sink maze game' alongside - don't let the bad bubbles go down the sink!" There will also be money-off coupons distributed at stores and festivals.

In keeping with the "green" ethos, much of the material from previous campaigns has been used to create the displays. Jordan adds that the campaign has stretched the agency's resources to the full, from the creative end to those unsung heroes in production responsible for sourcing ethical products.

Noise reduction

Product support includes a tie-in allowing Ecover to supply accessories for Greenpeace's showers at Glastonbury, making Ecover one of the few brands to have a presence at the event. There will also be retail work.

Another aspect of the campaign has been to move away from larger festivals and extend into smaller events, allowing the brand to target its activity more effectively. Jordan says the aim is to concentrate on events where there will be less noise from other brands. Festivals to be visited will be far more niche and include the Cheltenham Science Festival, The Camping Festival and Surf Relief.

There is a groundswell movement towards ethical products and a lot of noise in the market, but Ecover appears to have good standout. The challenge will be to keep that up if other brands attempt to move in. Allman questions the motivation of these brands but is optimistic. She says: "People have jumped on the bandwagon, but consumers are savvy about that."

FACT FILE
Brand: Ecover
Campaign: "It's ecological"
Agency: iD
Brief: to show consumers how "green" household shopping can be extended
to cleaning products.

IN MY VIEW

We have Ecover products in the office toilets, as do many of our clients, but considering that Ecover does everything from hand soap to dishwasher tablets, we're only really dipping into their range. Therefore seeking out and making advocates of upwardly mobile consumers who care about the environment seems a wise move.

Using experiential activity to do this is a brave step. Getting people excited about a multi-purpose cleaner won't be easy and so I'd have liked to have seen something a little more edgy and fun. The "how eco are you?" does seem a little patronising, especially as the campaign is being taken to "eco events".

However, it's a good time to have an ethical message. The brand integrity is being retained through carefully sourced and recycled campaign materials, the kitchen inside the bottle trailer is a nice visual flip and, having delivered the educational message, coupons provide that additional incentive for our audience to purchase.

The construction of this campaign is pretty sound, if a little over-simplified in its targeting, but it niggles me that an ethical brand that's been around since the 80s now feels it has to piggyback the success of sectors that have only recently jumped on the bandwagon, like saving energy and buying organic. A pioneering brand does not throw the towel in with "if you already do this, you should be buying our products".

Consumers are as concerned about their quality of life and their bank balance as they are about the environment and success lies in making the ethical choice easy. When I'm switching off a light I'm saving money as well as energy, when I buy organic I get ethically farmed food that tastes great.

Like it or not, it's only when the consumer benefits are as clear as the ecological ones that we start to see change on the scale we need. I hope brand ambassadors don't simply focus on the anti-pollution message, especially on the supermarket concourse. Consumers need to be convinced Ecover products are as effective as non-ecological ones and so offer good value for money, that they make the home environment safer for their families and "they're even kinder to our skin". Benefits like this, presented with an engaging creative execution, will make it easier for consumers to switch.

VERDICT: 4/10

- Tony O'Brien is creative director of the Pulse Group.