Financial Times reports that companies are increasingly looking to make green claims in the face of heightened consumer scrutiny.
The heads of AMV BBDO, JWT, Ogilvy, RKCR/Y&R and Saatchi & Saatchi have told the FT they believe green advertising will grow in the next 12 months.
The agencies say environmental branding has risen up boards’ agendas, and point to the spate of recent rival green announcements in the grocery retail sector.
Lee Daley, chairman and chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi UK, said: “Brands will not be able to opt out of this. Companies which do not live by a green protocol will be financially damaged because consumers will punish them. In the longer term, I do not think they will survive.”
Alison Burns, chief executive of JWT London, said: “There is an underlying expectation that we are asking more questions about companies’ intentions. That is partly a phenomenon of the digital age where consumers are used to interviewing brands like they might be interviewing people for a job.”
Let’s hope that agencies do a bit of poking around before jumping feet first into this. There will be plenty of egg to remove from executive faces should companies and their agencies invent positive claims or hide the true impact of a company’s actions.