There's good big business, and then not-so-good

At D2E we get über excited about the little things. We applaud printing on both sides, we love hearing that local restaurants are sourcing from local farms (I ate at Hungry Mother last night) and we love seeing people walking down the street with their reusable mugs. These little deeds go a long way. We also love to see big businesses strive to make a difference. These efforts need to happen and below are two examples; Timberland and Dunkin Donuts. One is great, the other, not-so-great.

Timberland
Yesterday I attended an Ad Club event that highlighted Timberland's 2007 Earth Keeper campaign. This was a great example of a big company making a big difference. I had seen their billboards and posters all over town last year, but I did not know about what they did on the back end. Below is a short list to give you an idea of how a media company (Mullen - Media Hub) and a big retail company can put their heads together and come up with some great sustainable marketing ideas.

- All billboards were re-purposed and made into reusable tote bags, sold at Timberland stores. (They raffled two off, but I wasn't so lucky.)

- The energy used to run their TV ads was offset, meaning that the money was invested into renewable energy.

- The Earth Keeper shoe was made with recycled materials (old tires and plastic bottles).

- Recycled materials and soy based inks were used in the packaging. (They put these requirements in their RFP's when looking for vendors.)

It was refreshing to hear a big business talk about the environmental impact and the social impact that their company makes. Timberland was completely honest and upfront with the audience, making no claims to be perfect. They are doing their best to treat the world, the way they would want to be treated.

Dunkin Donuts
On the not-so-warm-and-fuzzy note - our office is in the same building as a Dunkin Donuts store. The store is currently being remodeled, so there is a lot of construction going on outside. Yesterday as I was walking to work, I saw that the crew was disassembling the signs. So I asked if they would be recycling them or just throwing them out. The answer was that they would be trashed. So, since I am a quirky graphic designer and I collect old signs, I offered to take them. I wanted to put the big "715" sign on our office wall, since we are located at 715 Boylston Street and I love this sort of re-purposed/found art. How cool would that be? To have a big 715 sign on our wall? Pretty cool. And I figured I could take the old Dunkin Donuts sign and add it to my personal collection. I assured them that I would not have these signs in public, that they were for our office and my private collection. (I'm not yet able to begin an art collection, so I focus on old signs.)

Alas, I heard through the construction super that they feared there would be a liability issue. Does this seem like a knee jerk fear reaction from corporate America? The owner did not even call me to have a conversation. I think that is what bothered me the most. I had given my card to the construction crew supervisor and he passed it on to the owner with my request. I did not even get a courtesy call to say "Thanks for taking an interest in our brand, but..." And to boot - we have given them a key to our office so that they can access our utility closet during construction. We went out of our way to help them.

I should note that the construction crew and the store manager have been exceptionally nice throughout this whole process. I have not met or spoken with the owner, so I can't speak for him/her.

As a designer, I can understand if this is a branding issue. They may fear that I would hang the sign on a public street or in an adult book store. But if the owner had called me it would have accomplished much more for the brand. I would have felt like a person, not just a number that adds to their bottom line. And there would have been a slight chance that we could have found a better home than the land fill for these signs. Perhaps this franchise owner could have put me in touch with corporate to see if there was a better solution.