Because we successfully built a popular consumer packaged goods brand, now known the world over, we are often asked about packaging. Our audiences want to know, “What’s the latest in packaging?” and, “What are the new trends?” After all, the “P” in CPG is “package.” In the 1967 movie, “The Graduate,” a young man, recently graduated from college, is given advice from his dad’s best friend, “I’ve got one word for you, Benjamin: Plastics.” If we were giving advice to college grads today, we would add one more word, “alternatives,” making the best advice we have to give, “plastic alternatives.” The market According to the World Wildlife Fund, “world wildlife populations have fallen by 60 percent in just over four decades.” “In 1960, 5 percent of seabirds had plastics in their stomachs. Now that number is up to 90 percent,” the report adds. Rather than ignoring the elephant in the room (the filling of the oceans with single use plastics), true CPG leaders have an opportunity to educate their customers and thereby attract more customers. Our early support for the League to Save Lake Tahoe with their “Keep Tahoe Blue” campaign was seen as very risky. At the time, they were viewed as radicals, bent on stopping the development of the lake, hurting jobs and stifling the economy. In both cases we were on the right side of history. In both cases we dramatically improved our sales and gained loyal customers. Today, the early employers of plastics alternative packaging will be on the right side of history. They will distinguish themselves from their competition.
Finding alternatives to plastic packaging choking the oceans is good marketing and you’ll be proud of having done it.
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Because we successfully built a popular consumer packaged goods brand, now known the world over, we are often asked about packaging. Our audiences want to know, “What’s the latest in packaging?” and, “What are the new trends?” After all, the “P” in CPG is “package.”
In the 1967 movie, “The Graduate,” a young man, recently graduated from college, is given advice from his dad’s best friend, “I’ve got one word for you, Benjamin: Plastics.” If we were giving advice to college grads today, we would add one more word, “alternatives,” making the best advice we have to give, “plastic alternatives.”
The market
According to the World Wildlife Fund, “world wildlife populations have fallen by 60 percent in just over four decades.”
“In 1960, 5 percent of seabirds had plastics in their stomachs. Now that number is up to 90 percent,” the report adds.
Wildlife is not just nice to have, it turns out to be essential for our health and the economy. According to Tanya Steele of the World Wildlife Fund, “We are the first generation to know we are destroying our planet, and the last generation that can do anything about it.”
With more reports like this coming out weekly, YouTube videos graphically showing single use plastics in the stomachs of fish and seabirds, and a major uptick in social media on the subject, can CPG companies continue to whistle past the graveyard?
Leadership, not “followship”
Before this begins to sound like some tree hugger’s lament or gets classified as “political,” let’s explore the competitive advantage available to CPG companies that embrace biodegradable packaging and shun single-use plastics. This is really…
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