Remarkable

Remarkable by name, remarkable by nature

Here's the output from an interview I did recently with the lovely Edward Douglas Miller, owner of Remarkable. It just goes to show that good design and green products clearly can go hand in hand if we put our minds to it.


'It seems to me that the environmental movement of the 1980s and 1990s has finally been fulfilled. Consumers are actually realising that what was being discussed about the earth’s finite resources, climate change and deforestation is coming into fruition. The biggest change is that has become a mainstream proposition rather than something a load of crusties or eco-warriors we’re chatting about. For the first time you have TV shows with David Atenborough openly talking about the irreversible changes taking place.

In the past few people were addressing the issues as they did not know what they could do about anything. Recycled products were associated with inferior products, that were a rip off price wise and that did not perform as well as existing products in the market place. For my part in all of this, I thought that I would try to develop and initiate a series of tools to disprove this theory and prove what could actually be done.

This way of thinking has turned into a business operation and into a business solution. What Remarkable does is give finite materials a second life and get them back into the market. If you take our pencils as an example, we are now manufacturing 60,000 of them every day that are recycled out of plastic cups and CD cases. If you think about it, this is stopping 60,000 new bits of wood being for used. And by alerting people to the fact that this is exactly what has happened on the product, it makes people feel great about their purchase and educates them about a problem they might not really understand. It is a solution and one that does not come with the burden of guilt. The concept of ‘This used to be …’ really engages with a consumer who used to think that recycling was a ghost of consumerism. We wanted to turn it into something fun. The idea that waste can be turned into something useful can be a fun principle if packaged in a good way. We wanted to show people that it is not something that you have to think long and hard about but recycling in this way is just common sense. Our philosophy at Remarkable is to create recycled items that are well-designed, great quality and a joy to own.

As well as their environmental credentials - all our products are made using only UK recycled materials - we want people to choose Remarkable because they like what we are doing; making products that instil a sense of fun and intrigue, and because all our products evoke a feeling of purpose, passion and excitement.

By highlighting what an item was in its previous life, we feel we are showing what can be made with UK waste - that we are generating a positive interest in recycling and environmental issues. Using the fascination of what an item once was is a new and fun way of communicating the recycled message. In brief, we don't want people to think that recycling is dull. It can actually be very cool!

Everyone always talks about packaging being a big issue for the environment but the trade off is that they always want nice packaging. We are trying to meet this consumer demand half way. We are certainly not saying that we have the solution 100 percent solved but we are showing people how a little bit of common sense can make a big difference. There’s no point saying to consumers that they have to do something, it’s about asking them to think about how they can do something.

We are not trying to say that we are the cheapest product on the market. But if you were going spend twenty pence on a pencil, would you rather have one that cost twenty pence and was made from recycled stuff from the UK and made in the UK, or one that came all the way from China, was not recycled, and cost the same. It’s a no brainer, and it is the challenge we have set ourselves.

We are showing that our products can be fun, they can be recycled, they can look good. These are mass-market products, and people want them in a mass market way rather than something niche, and overly expensive.

And as a result of us doing this, we have just set up Remarkableoffice.co.uk. Customers of ours kept ring us and asking us where they could get other green and environmentally sound products, so we thought we’d better help them out. We now have over 1,500 products from organic tea right through to aluminium foil. We’ve sort of become a green version of Viking Direct.

If people start doing what they say they want to do when it comes to environmental concerns, it has to be a good thing and better than not doing anything at all. We are concerned about the environment but we are a business too. There is no reason why the two concepts cannot go hand in hand. I am not a revolutionary but there is a whiff of revolution in the air. We don’t want to turn into a business like M&S, Walls or Ben & Jerry – we just want to be Remarkablke and be known for being remarkable.'

Omlet

When the guys from Omlet were at the RCA, their lecturers thought that they were bonkers when they showed them their designs for the Eglu - a chicken run for urban environments. The colourful plastic chicken house has been designed for the small to medium sized garden as well as the first time chicken owner. With people increasingly questioning where their food comes from, this is the perfect and fun way to recycle any leftover scraps from the kitchen and know exactly what goes into your eggs. This is not a venture based on pointing green guilt fingers - this is about having fun in the garden, and enjoying fresh food, well eggs anyway.

Johannes Paul, co-founder Omlet

'It has long been held as a convention that people who live in the country have much more access to fresh food, that there is much more of a sense of traceability about what they eat and that keeping chickens is something that you cannot begin to think about doing in an urban environment. When I was researching developing the Eglus, I would ask people in urban pubs what they thought about the idea of keeping chickens in an urban environment and they would ask if I grew up on a farm. Others would say that you couldn’t possibly have the space to look after chickens in urban environments. This is completely wrong. Just because you live in the countryside does not mean that you have the god given right to have animals or that because you live in the country you will know more about animals.

But with people increasingly concerned about where their food comes from, a growing interest from consumers to turn over more of their gardens to growing herbs and vegetables, we knew that there would be a great demand for creating an urban styled chicken run that could break down the barriers about what looking after animals in a town or city could be about. We didn’t want it to be perceived as being about ‘urban farming’ we wanted it to be about having fun. If we could get people think differently about animals in cities we could probably get them to change other behaviours subconsciously too.

We’ve done pretty well to, as we have now sold in excess of 15,000 Eglus throughout the UK. If you think about it that is 30,000 chickens sold and about 9 million eggs laid. When we first started we tried to get Waitrose to sponsor us to put Eglus in schools but I think that they realised just how much business they could lose. People did realise that having eggs was more than they could have ever imagined. Not only are they really friendly and amusing to watch in the garden but you also get the freshest possible eggs every day.

What happened is that people began to understand the problems associated with supermarkets. They began to see past all the wrapping and packaging and even through the price. What we were doing was educating people about the benefits of fresh produce without them actually realising it. They were taking waste from the kitchen – such as peelings from vegetables, leftovers, things that might have passed their sell by date in the fridge – and instead of bunging them in the bin they would feed it to their chickens. It became a form of guilt free recycling. People would begin to see what was going on in their back garden and then see how it applied to the bigger picture. For me what we are doing is not about having an organic life but about having fun in the garden and knowing how the food process works and taking a bit of time away from the pressure of the commercial world.

And this has led to our customers getting allotments, some have even rented fields and bought a pig or a couple of lambs so that they can have a greater understanding of where there food comes from. We couldn’t have hope for a much better response than that. I wish that we could get local councils to change their behaviour too and start planting fruit trees so people could have access to other natural products.

And who we consider our competition to be? We think that it is any other company that is trying to entertain people. This might be TV, cinema, food, satellite TV, sport, products design, anything leisure related. Who’s to say that having chickens in your garden is not more entertaining that watching an episode of 24 or Lost.

I know what I would rather do. All we want to do is change people’s behaviour. Let’s face it the government is not really taking a lead. They talk about sustainability and green issues and then drive around in massive Jaguar cars. We have taken chicken ownership and turned it into something that make make a change for the better and make people feel good about where they get food from. One of clients started off with just two chickens and has now taken on a further six. She takes all of the eggs she produces and sells them at the school her kids go to and boast how she is ‘undercutting Tesco’. It doesn’t get much better than that.'

Method Home

Here's what Tom Fishburne from Method Home had to say about the concept of green marketing. It seems to me that Method Home places most emphasis on being stylish, fun and guilt free first - you discover its stance on green issues if you look a bit harder. A billiant company with brilliant products.

'We like to consider ourselves to be hip and not hippy. Our mission is to inspire a healthy, happy, home revolution. First and foremost we want to be perceived as being a brand that has both style and substance. The old view of green products, particularly in the 1980s and early 1990s was far too much associated with treehuggers but thankfully this has changed. To get people on board today you have to appeal much more in the mainstream. It’s about making progress, not being perfect. It used to be that if you were not perfect (i.e.100% green) then you were bad. But now it is possible to be good before you are considered to be great. Green issues and initiatives simply have to take away the guilt associations and shake off the holier than thou image. Products and services should look nice whilst not sacrificing on their principles.

With some of the more ethical cleaning products of the market you don’t necessarily want to put them out on display in the home environment. The substance is on the inside, but it is not really making a statement. Eric Ryan, one of our founders kept asking: ‘Why do people always hide their household products under the sink?’ But at Method we are shame free, so we use design to take the product out of the cupboard and onto the surfaces – for one think it makes cleaning more convenient. When we started Method Home we wanted to get people to get into green concerns but we didn’t want to shout about it. What they were getting, without knowing it, were highly designed products with ethical substance both inside and out. If we had shouted about the ethical side to the products early on I think that people would have been much more cynical about what we were doing.

Our premium homecare range is highly effective, safe and packages with respect for the environment as well as people’s design sensibilities. The thing is the green and environmental side of things is not always the easiest hook for people to understand. Instead we are trying to be Innocent of the home care market. We are the challenger brand. We are the David in the David versus Goliath situation. Our obsessions are the long-term strategies that deliver a big competitive advantage, and it’s hard for a company such as P+G to do this. We don’t really don’t care if the big companies copy our products, our fragrances, our claims, our advertising, they will never have our culture or be able to react with the speed that we are doing things. We think that rules and conventions are there to be broken to we will always be faster and fresher.

In the past green products were generally deemed ineffective. Thankfully all of that has changed. At Method we call ourselves ‘people against dirty’. But for us being ‘dirty’ does not just mean the stuff that gets in between the tiles on your floor. It means the toxic chemicals that make up many of the household products out there on the market, it means polluting our land with non-recyclable materials, these are things we are completely against. We develop non-toxic, healthy alternative products for use around children, pets and people. This is for people who want to do the right thing but don’t want to have to wear a pair of Birkenstocks to do it. Whereas you might consider crunchy granolas dark green, we are appealing to the mass consumer – the light greens.

But we cant pretend to be perfect, but we are moving in the right direction. Although we are based in the US we are now starting to manufacture in the UK. We are looking at responsible sourcing, using renewable energy, building collaborative partnerships with other companies that are trying to take on the power of the multi-nationals. We also want to become known as one of the leading companies for producing the healthiest products with all ingredients clearly stated. Some companies might think that ammonia or bleach are the smell of clean. We don’t. We think smells like the smell of flowers, of different fruit, herbs such as lavender or Magnolia, are much better. Just because it smells strong, does not mean it will clean any better. Instead it is probably really damaging to the environment.

We are also looking at new solutions for refilling bottles and other improvements to the design process. It is all about looking for opportunities and capitalising on them – particularly as consumers are starting to think about things end to end. We are looking at what the next refill model will be, the future of mix and math fragrances could be, what kinds of triggers could be used on products and how they could be reused on subsequent purchases.

Ultimately we are really inspired by personal care products rather than cleaning products. I really love the product ranges of companies such as Molton Brown. The key is to get the consumers to trade up from the Good (private label small brand), to the Better (more a mass market proposition) to the Best (companies like Green & Blacks).

If products are well designed, fun and guilt free our Method will win over the consumers without having to preach. Nobody wants to feel bad about their product choices regardless of what they are.'

Quite right too.

Welcome to the diary of a conflicted marketer

I have just uploaded the contents of my diary from last week. I have never really kept one before, but after a conversation I had with my wife last weekend, about what I do for a living, I thought it was about time I started. I would love to hear you feedback.





Monday

The wife’s buggered off to see her parents for a week. But on Friday night, after a few glasses of Tesco’s organic vino tinto, we have a ding-dong about human consumption and my job.

Here’s the deal. She’s convinced if consumers want to be ‘greener’ and behave more ethically, in my role as a marketer I should be taking an active stance to make it easier for them.

Her point is that consumers are constantly being told about the impact of climate change, and the impact they are having on it through over consumption. Yet she thinks the marketing industry is guilty for making things worse for encouraging this over-consumption, and making consumers confused about what they can do to make a difference.

After a prolonged lecture she goes to bed, then vanishes to the Midlands early Saturday. I hate it when she consumes so much wine.

But she’s got my attention. If everything consumers do in their daily lives impacts on the environment, perhaps we should be helping them out to make better choices either consciously, or subconsciously.


After a troubled Sunday night’s sleep, I head into the office early on Monday morning and print off a full colour, 46-page PDF entitled: Tipping Point or Turning Point: Social Marketing & Climate Change.


The newspaper headlines in the exec summary have got me thinking long and hard, not least why did I not print this document in black and white (maybe I shouldn’t have printed it at all):

‘Extreme weather: forecasters warn of more to come’ (Independent, 01 July 2007); ‘Climate change blamed for the rise in asthma and hay fever’ (Times, 13 May 2007); ‘Pay up … or the planet gets it’ (Sun, 30 October 2006); ‘British armies must ready for global warming’ (Mirror, 25 June 2007).

Crikey! If this report is anything to go by, if we don’t start making some big changes we are all gonna be fu**ed.

I feel that working in marketing has more than likely contributed to its part of the problem of the consumers’ increased consumption levels, and in turn should feel a degree of responsibility for climate change. Perhaps we should now be thinking about how we can contribute to becoming part of the solution.

I’m convinced (the wife is rarely wrong) that we’ve got to do something, but what can feasibly be done in an industry that exists to sell ‘stuff’ to people? If we are honest with ourselves about the damage we’re inflicting on the planet internally, and face up to the challenges of responsible (or irresponsible) consumption of consumers externally, maybe we can really do something to turn the climate change clock back?

Before I leave work, I asked IT how to print double sided. It is very easy.







Tuesday

Now the wife has planted this seed in my head (and is in a mood with me, plus not talking to me after our bun fight), I thought I should do a little straw poll down at the pub to see what my ‘media type’ mates think about this little conundrum.

In the purposes of research, I suggest that the beers are ‘on me’ quite forgetting Dave and Mark’s appetite for booze after a gruelling day at the office. We end up getting hammered … on a school night.

I ask them if, as marketers, we should be looking at green marketing as an opportunity to do good business, in both senses of the word? Does it offer us a chance to be more creative product-wise or even create a better environment for future generations?

As usual, Dave is straight in there. ‘The media has created a culture of ‘green guilt’. At the end of the day it comes down to cash. Most consumers will still opt for value over ethics when it comes to buying their groceries or anything else. It will be a long time before green becomes part of the norm in business language’.

Andy agrees. He says: ‘Ethics and CSR come much further down the pecking order. But times are changing. Now that green and organic products are no longer associated with inferior quality and beardy weirdy types (with dogs on bits of string), people are beginning to see the value of paying something more for a product. You only have to look at the rise of organic foods.’


I wonder if going green doesn’t have to involve an all-out change in philosophy. There’s a lot to be said for taking baby steps and observing how they affect a business, its customers, and even the employees. With words such as trust (and distrust), transparency, openness and even authenticity being bandied around in everyday conversation, any company that does consider green marketing would surely be foolish?

‘You just have to be careful not to be seen to be ‘greenwashing’ your company’, explains Charlie. ‘Consumers are a cynical bunch and can smell a rat a mile off. You are better off building green into your business at its core. If your consumer finds out that it is green without you telling them that they have to do something to prevent climate change, all the better.’

‘Small changes for consumers and brands will be the most important ones,’ says Dave. ‘Make people feel better about themselves for making the right choices, not guilty for making the wrong ones. I do think we could cut down the amount of stuff we use in the office – paper, plastics, energy, that sort of thing. I’ve been on about 10 long haul flights to see clients in the last six months. That can’t be good?’

Mark who is drunk, and has been quiet to this point, slurs: ‘I still don’t think most people give a shit. If I was living on a council estate in Stockport and was given the choice of an expensive ethical product or an own brand, I would go for the own brand every day of the week’. Everyone tells him to shut up, but he might have a point. I ask them why they are not doing more in their own businesses.

‘We simply can’t afford it’. Rubbish. It doesn’t cost anything to recycle, print less, or use less in the office.

‘It is not relevant to our consumers’. Nonsense. Consumers are showing an overwhelming desire for us to do something better for the planet

‘We will try and do something soon’. But why not today? As the old Chinese proverb points out: ‘Even the longest journey starts with one small step’.

‘It’s far too complicated to make all the necessary changes’. You don’t have to change everything you do. Why not cut down on a few of those flights. Surely more business can be done over the telephone or by email?

‘There are more important things for our company to focus on?’ Like what, making more money? You can still make a lot of money and be greener.

‘How do we do it?’ There are loads of companies out there, like the Carbon Trust, that can give businesses help to go greener. Why not start having a look on the Internet?

‘How can a single company make a difference to the future of the planet?’ You can but you won’t know until you try.

‘The government should do more?’ Maybe so, but if businesses show that being greener is a big issue for them perhaps they will do more to help?

‘What’s in it for me?’ Consumers will probably love you for it, and in turn you’ll probably feel better about yourself.

These sound like a load of pointless excuses to me. I am going to try to talk some other people about it, perhaps companies that have won by embracing green marketing.

How can we expect consumers to live in a sustainable way if we do not take any action ourselves? Surely it is better to do something than do nothing at all. I am convinced that companies that show leadership will rewarded, if not in heaven, but in consumer loyalty and profit margins.

Companies such as E.ON, Waitrose, Virgin and Levi’s are all offering their customers some green(er) product ranges. None of them have promised that they have got everything 100% sorted, but all demonstrate a willingness to change for the better.

I knew I could rely on my mates to confuse me more than I already was. I am going to put a few questions forward to a BMRB Omnibus survey, to find out what Joe Public thinks, I should get the results back on Thursday.

Asked kitchen facilities if we could stop using disposable plastic cups in the canteen. They said yes! We will now be using mugs like everyone else.





Wednesday

I have spent the day trawling the Internet, having a look at some interesting stuff that people are doing in marketing. I have also been lucky enough to chat to a few key industry leaders in ethical product development and marketing – I will upload what they said onto my blog.

What is clear to me is to succeed in the green space is not about stopping people buying stuff, but replacing conventional buying habits with something equally, or more satisfying and attractive. It seems quite old skool thinking, almost like a return to the values of the 1950s and ‘60s. I think we could learn a lot from some of these guys.

Take my favourite clothing brand as an example. Howies clothes are hard wearing, brilliantly designed and address environmental issues at the same time (not that you would know it from looking at them). Everything is produced in ‘happy’ factories and made from organic cotton, and where possible the clothes are made in the UK to cut down on air miles and pollution. Howies is a fan of neither. Unlike a lot of fast fashions out there, they don’t end up in landfill after you wear them four or five times.

Or what about Omlet? These guys created the Eglu, an urban style chicken run, in the knowledge that people were increasingly questioning where their food comes from. Rather than being about ‘urban farming’, they thought that having chickens in an urban environment would help consumers understand the benefits of fresh produce, and get them recycle household food leftovers subconsciously and guilt free. It’s about having fun in the garden, getting a few eggs in the process, rather than leading a purist organic lifestyle.

Why is it that so many companies that succeed in this area are small? Maybe speed and agility are key to making green marketing work?

Perhaps you just need to be more stylish?


I was wandering around Tesco and came across Method – an all natural, biodegradable and stylish-lookinghousehold cleaning range. Instead of shouting about its green and ethical stance, Method just offers highly designed products for people who want to do the right thing but don’t want to have to wear a pair of Birkenstocks to do so. In a very bland supermarket aisle, it stands out a mile.

And it smells good too. While most cleaning product companies believe that ammonia or bleach are the smell of clean, Method doesn’t. It thinks smells like the smell of flowers, of different fruit, herbs such as lavender or Magnolia, are much better. Just because it smells strong, does not mean it will clean any better. No wonder it is one of the fastest growing companies in the US.

Another brand that works by turning conventional thinking on its head is Remarkable. On the whole stationery is a really boring thing to buy, but Remarkable succeeds by making stylish products out of recycled objects. The guy who set it up began by experimenting with plastic cups with the aim of trying to turn one plastic cup into a pencil. Why? Because it had never been done before and it would prove to the world that you could take one everyday, throwaway item that would usually just go straight to landfill and, instead, turn it into a new product which was fun, functional and had a long second life.

Using the fascination of what an item once was is a brilliant and fun way of communicating the recycled message. Even better, Remarkable’s stuff doesn’t cost much more than something from Viking Direct!

From a marketing point of view, Green Thing is an internet-based marketing initiative which aims to tap into the consumer desire for change but by taking it away from being a chore and an obligation, and turning it into more of a pleasure. This is a not-for-profit, monthly ‘thing’ that is meant to be simple and fun - encouraging a social movement by doing small things that might lead to bigger behavioural changes among its consumers. I love the idea that it congratulates peoples for doing good things, not saying it is bad that you have not done anything.

There’s many other examples of people doing good stuff out there – even Tesco has done a range of Ethical clothing called Choose Love with eco queen Katherine Hamnett. Why do they work? Well, there’s no finger pointing, no guilt, no images of polar bears drowning. Instead they are all based on fantastically designed products that are easy to understand, aspirational and better for peoples’ lives whether they know it or not. Bigger businesses should take notice.

I have managed to get work to use Remarkable stationery in all of our meeting rooms. I will see if I can get the bigwigs to go further and buy into its products wholesale. Fingers crossed.





Thursday

I have just had the results of my BMRB Omnibus survey and I am delighted to say that it shows that there really is an appetite for change among the consumers polled (despite what my mates thought). There are some clear lessons to be learnt.

Initially, over half of the poll suggested that companies and brands need to make it easier for them to buy ‘green’ products. For this thing to work we need to make it clear which products are better for the environment, and also why. With over 50% of the consumers spoken to suggesting that the media is consistently making them feel guilty about climate change, there is an overwhelming feeling that if we made things simpler to understand, and placedless emphasis on them to make a difference, they would consider changing what they bought for products with a greener stance.

An incredible 86% of the people we spoke to said that if they did not need to compromise on price or quality, they would be willing to change their purchasing habits to buy products that could help save the planet. This shot up to a massive 96% among these aged under 45 years of age. This figure dropped down to 67% among those consumers over 65 years old. Maybe all the media hype that green is a young person’s market is, after all, correct.

Interestingly, 57% said that they would be willing to compromise on quality to buy products that helped save the planet. This rises to 71% for those people spoken to under the age of 24.

Despite the fact that many consumers suggest that they are always looking for the cheapest brands and products to buy, 67% of respondents agreed that they would be willing to pay more for products that could help save the planet. (I knew my mates were wrong). People don’t just want to buy products, they seem to want solutions to what they increasingly see as problem.

On a slightly more worrying note, 62% of consumers currently think that brands and companies don’t actually care about climate change. With a further 64% saying that the companies and brands that refuse to help save the planet will become less successful, it’s clear that the buck stops with us in business and marketing.

We need to take extra steps to prove that we do care, that we do want to make a difference, that we understand what needs to done to sort out a problem people think that they are stuck with. Let’s work with consumers to sort this out together – they certainly seem to want to.

Facilities have agreed to change all the existing light bulbs with energy efficient ones. IT has agreed to switch off all computers left on standby at 10pm.







Friday

The wife’s back tonight. If she’s still talking to me, I think she’ll be impressed. I feel better as a person as the penny has properly dropped.

In my opinion, working in marketing, my primary responsibility is to help consumers make sustainable choices, not to tell them what to do. There are many conflicted consumers out there – who continue to buy products while doubting their ethical reputation – but it is becoming increasingly clear that if people were aware of ‘better’ alternatives then they would probably buy them, or even recommend them to others, over their existing choices.

I have come up with a few questions that I will be asking myself when I am thinking about green marketing, and my job on the whole. I am going to run them past the wife, before I mention them to any one at work. If she thinks they work, then I’m bound to be on a winner. Here we go:

1. Is it good? We should be creating products that are better than the ones that already exist out there. We should be thinking about creating things that are longer lasting, harder wearing and more user friendly.

2. Are we being fun? This does not have to be serious. Forget the finger pointing blame game, let us bring a little bit of joy to people’s lives.

3. Does it look good? Just because it is green does not mean that it has to look crap. Let’s try and make these things sexy, mainstream and cool. Basically, forget the images of wildlife and polar bears.

4. Is it simple? Let’s keep it relevant and simple for consumers to understand. The simpler it is the more likely it is that consumers will engage with it.

5. Is it green(er)? We should be highlighting the direct benefits of buying greener stuff to the consumer. We do not have to say that we are perfect. We are just trying to help consumers make better choices in the least patronising way possible.

6. Are we being honest and open? We have to instil a sense of trust with the consumer. Do this and they will pass it on to friends, family and beyond.

7. Is it populist? If fashion and interior design can be democratised, why can’t ethics? The more people that get on board the better it will be for the planet and sales alike.


Our job as creative marketing people is to make choosing green intuitive, second nature, and good old common sense. Everyone – brands and consumers alike – can become winners if we all just take a small leap of the imagination into believing that change for the better is possible.

Have convinced work to get a load of speakers in to talk about best business practice when it comes to engaging with consumers on green issues. Let’s hope people start listening.