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A Total 360
A Genuine Waste-Not-Want-Not Movement Toward Upscale Consumers
In
fielding marketing messages for everything from the week’s latest
premium vodka to this month’s latest pomegranate spirit, it is
refreshing to run across something that actually resonates with an
angle more authentic than merely parroting a buzzword.
It’s easy to find a way to put another organic product out there,
for example. But during an age where the proposition of truly going
green — and stepping fully into the future right now — strikes fear
into many a cost-conscious supplier, McCormick appears to authentically
have put its money where its mouth is.
360 Vodka is McCormick Distilling’s new premium vodka, with the
tagline “Vodka with a Green State of Mind.” Viewed even with the most
cynical eye, McCormick’s new green leaf is grounded in the
comprehensive way the company’s gone about it.
Green All Over
“This is a premium vodka; that is first and foremost.”
From that starting point, McCormick’s green thumb takes the baton and heads in a unique direction.
“Everything about this brand is eco-friendly,” says Vic Morrison,
vice president of marketing. “We created sustainable packaging that
leaves a small footprint on this earth,” Morrion says. “It was created
with as much recycled material as we could possibly get, with
reusability in mind.”
Examples include that the bottle itself is made with 85 percent
recycled glass, 70 percent of which is post-consumer. One interesting
by-product of this is that the bottle’s color is a teal-tinted color.
“This is nothing we designed,” Morrison says. “It’s the result of
recycled glass. It’s what you get when you put all kinds of glass
together.”
The label on the bottle is made of 100-percent post-consumer paper
with special water-based inks that won’t hurt the environment, and all
marketing materials are made with recycled paper.
Sealing the bottle is a swing-top, much like that on a bottle of
Grolsch beer. “That again promotes reusability of the bottle itself for
many things after you get done with the vodka,” Morrison says. “If you
decide you don’t want to reuse the bottle, we ask that you recycle the
glass. And each bottle comes with a postage-paid envelope. You can mail
the swing-top back to McCormick, and we will reuse the swing-top and
make a donation to an environmentally friendly group that we will soon
be associated with. It’s a way to complete the 360 circle.”
The reusability theme crops up more than once in the 360 plan.
“The outer case in which the bottles are shipped is 100 percent
recycled, but also recyclable and reusable if you don’t want to throw
it out in the street,” Morrison says. “It’s made like a banker’s box.
It will fit file folders, magazines and things like that.”
Even the production of the vodka — which is four times distilled and five times filtered — has gone green.
“It’s made in a plant that is the most efficient plant in the
country,” Morrison says. “It has a 200-percent more efficient
distillation process than some of the old pot stills that are still
being used. We recapture 100 percent of the CO2 glasses, and 99.9
percent of all the corn is used.
“We don’t throw anything away; there’s no waste. We’ve tried to be
as eco-efficient as we can with everything about this brand.”
Backing it Up
“We are marketing this brand to the upscale lifestyle drinker,”
Morrison says. “The hardest thing about marketing a brand like this is
that there’s so much good stuff here.”
Consumer marketing will include hitting the market with ads in The
Wall Street Journal and USA Today, as well as a number of magazines, in
the first quarter of 2008.
One factor that helps market 360 also demonstrates McCormick’s
genuineness and green credibility. The bottle label includes an
environmental benefit statement, which Morrison describes as an
eco-audit.
“Based on the amount of paper I bought to do these packages, I can
tell you how many trees I saved, how much energy I saved, how much
solid waste, how much in greenhouse gasses, how much water we saved by
using this paper,” he says.
“It is authentic; we’re not creating something strictly to market.
We truly believe that these things are important in this world. We hope
that other people will do the same. We hope the world will change a
little bit.”
In fact, Morrison says that he’s surprised more businesses aren’t
picking up on some of the greener ways of doing things. McCormick, for
example, gives preferential parking to any employee who drives a hybrid
car.
“It’s little things like that that really don’t cost you anything — simple things.”
Editor’s Note: Look for more on the influence of the green movement in
the on-premise beverage and food industry in upcoming issues.
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