Ultra Super Green

Green Marketing and Green Hype

There’s a lot of opportunistic positioning going on with the use of the term ‘green’.  Do you think ? Global warming is a serious issue. Running out of energy is a serious issue. The people who are concerned about these issues aren’t fooling around. And neither should be marketing industry. If you’ve got a compelling story to tell, and the tools and methodologies to back it up, the more than merrier. No one person or company is going to have a lock on solving this problem. But if you’re just looking for another way to spin your latest feature, let’s do everyone a favor and show a bit of restraint.

In recent months we’ve seen a wave of corporate announcements about green data center technology and environmentally-friendly IT. Some are genuinely substantive and progressive, and others less so. Chuck Hollis, the VP of technology alliances at EMC, is concerned that it’s becoming harder to tell the difference:

I’m watching with mixed emotions as more and more vendors start to describe their products as addressing challenges associated with reducing power and cooling in the data center. On one hand, clearly it’s a monumental challenge — and opportunity. On the other hand, I’m starting to see vendors with thinner and thinner claims start to add this message to their marketing drumbeat. That’s not a good thing.

We call on the marketing community to offer substantive ways for customers to evaluate environmental marketing claims, arguing that the issue is “too important to be messing around.”  ‘Nuff Said !

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