Is Clorox Greenwashing perhaps??

Advertisement:
So, in this advertisement from Clorox, you see their product, Clorox wipes, in a woodland field surrounded by innocent white flowers with some dreamlike sunbeams emanating from some light source in the background. The advertisement uses the whole green, happy environment surrounding the designated product. As for persuasive techniques used, they utilized symbols and warm fuzzies. The symbols would be the green environment and the pure white flowers that represent just all around eco-goodness. And the healthy environment surrounding the product is meant to just bring some kind of warm fuzzy to the consumer and make them feel like by buying this product everything will be green and good, and no one will have to worry. And, what I find interesting about this is that they tell you its 99% natural and biodegradable and Clorox will gladly put all of the ingredients on their green works products, but not on their regular products. Also, the Clorox logo is prominently displayed on the green works product. I believe Clorox is trying to get people to associate their name with environmentally friendly even if it’s not really. And the advertisement says that its still has the cleaning power of Clorox. So, why don’t they change all of their products to work like green works if they aren’t losing any efficiency? If it’s better for the environment and works just as good, what is keeping them from switching all of their products over to this formula that apparently the world needs? I mean, good for Clorox, making a step in the right direction, but if its as good as they say it is, why not go all the way?

http://tinyurl.com/y827euy


Activist Websites:

To start, I looked through all of the websites, and I was slightly disappointed. They were more flashy and more over the top than I expected. I was a little put off by the amount of ads on some of them and the big Facebook and Twitter logos everywhere. Also, some of the sites seemed so left wing that they made me a little skeptical about the actual content of the site. How do I know these articles weren’t put on by some other form of PR? I was also a little put off by all of the big logos and unprofessional nature of the sites. I feel that if these sites want to reach a larger audience, they might benefit from toning it down a little bit without losing the value of their content. Also, Yes Magazine, which said they were ad-free definitely had the Facebook and Twitter logos on their site which technically is some form of advertising for those two sites. In addition, they certainly didn’t skimp on ads for the magazine or the site.
The site I chose to focus on was Grist. I thought it seemed to be slightly better than some of the others. Although it did have a rather large logo and some advertisements, I found the content of the site to be more uplifting and a little more hopeful than some of the other websites. Also, even though it’s labeled as an advertisement, the site provides you with a way, on first glance of the website to be active and sign a petition to prevent the bringing back of commercial whaling. There was also something about how to talk to a global warming skeptic. So instead of telling people they are wrong and the world is going to heat up and explode, you can use educated conversation to reason with them. There is also a neat feature that I haven’t noticed on many other sites where you can click on the authors name and find out sort of who they are and what they stand for. I feel as though this provides a little more comfort when reading things because you know it was written by for example a man who has been an investigative journalist for 25 years, versus some PR idiot. And the advertisements that is does contain are positive ones about clean canteens and conflict free diamonds. And the page is not littered with them like many other sites. It is embracing the media without over doing it, which I feel is important. The media exists; advertisements exist. Sometimes they can be helpful, as annoying as they usually seem. So claiming something is ad free, even though that particular site was not, is just not reasonable. I do think this organization fulfills its mission to social and environmental change. It is not as crazy left wing and I feel that this makes it easier to reach a wider audience. I do believe that online activism sometimes works. I think it’s a useful tool that should be supplemented with other non-online activities. I once signed an online petition to get Trader Joes to remove red-listed sea-food from their shelves, and work towards more sustainable sea-food policies, and it worked. They removed the red-listed fish and are actually trying to make improvements. So in this instance, online activism did work and was quite effective. It’s different for different issues, but I do believe it has some value. A lot of people can be reached very quickly (which could be considered good or bad depending on what light its seen in.) Participation in this form only feels really meaningful when you see definite results, although I do feel some brief hint of possible accomplishment when I sign online petitions etc... because there is always that possibility that it will amount to something and be effective in its intentions.


PSA:
Straight up done… We’ve had a few people watch it, and so far so good. I’m really excited to watch everyone’s!!