In marketing circles, the old cliché that everything old is new again is not without merit. Take green marketing. Once a hot buzzword (back in the early 1990s) it faded into obscurity as
marketers began to concern themselves with other topics, like digital communications. But now the trend is making something of a comeback as a wide range of advertisers are including environmental
messages in their advertising. The list includes Sun Microsystems, Owens-Corning, German appliance marketer Bosch, Mohawk Paper, and General Electric, and General Motors. "When there's a
proliferation like this, you have to try to understand what the motivation is," said Tod Martin, president of a strategic consulting company in Atlanta. "Sometimes the proliferation is more for
cosmetic effect and sometimes it comes from a deeper place." General Electric is running an ambitious campaign centered on Ecomagination, a coined word that combines "ecology" and "imagination," the
latter to echo "Imagination at work," the G.E. corporate ad theme. "It's far more than an advertising or marketing campaign," said Judy L. Hu, the company's global executive director for advertising
and branding. To back up the promise, she said GE is "increasing research and development, increasing the number of green products and services we sell and being more energy efficient."
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