Greening of the Advertising

I admit it. I am a Marketplace junkie. Hearing the gong announcing the beginning of the show and Kai Rissdol's voice introducing the first tantalizing story makes my day. Or makes my time with dirty dishes something other than just time with dirty dishes (though seeing them all cleaned up also makes my day). One of the stories on today's program featured a journalist who admits to buying organic apple juice because it tastes good and is probably better for her daughter. She goes on to interview her yoga teacher who says that she is green because it is good for her and her family's health. If it helps the environment, all the better, but it is not her real concern (or motivator to pay more for green products). Not surprisingly, the ad industry has picked up on this and now even 7th Generation, a company whose advertising consisted of its products sitting, often lonely for competition, on the shelves of Whole Paycheck, is launching a TV campaign aimed at showing how mom's can best take care of their family -- by using their chemical-free products. Some environmentalists are disappointed, but the one interviewed for the show said that as long as it was getting people to treat the environment better, so be it.

And for the most part, I agree. If my reasons for being green stem from being a good steward of the environment, what does a little advertising hurt to draw in those who would otherwise be spending their money on chemicals that harm the environment? Of course there is the question of why do we need another ad campaign aimed at moms (hello, Proctor and Gamble during the Olympics?). After all, it is far more likely that moms will start buying products that do no harm to their loved ones than it is we'll see an ad campaign about the relationship between fertilizing lawns and farms and their effervescent neighboring lakes.

Ironically, I trace my green streak back to working on a golf course, one of the more chemically induced play fields of modern time. I had always enjoyed being outside, but when I began working with grass, dirt, tree limbs, leaves, and sticks, day in and day out, at ridiculous hours for a teenager, my relationship with the environment changed. It is true that my western sky watching was largely a search for a half day off of work (we couldn't work in lightening, though a steady rain in any temperature range was fair game). But I learned to appreciate how the clouds shifted as the day wore on. How the clouds of spring and those of fall spoke different languages. Walls of cloud scared me back to the maintenance shop on a slow-moving vehicle where we would wait out a storm, trying to believe there was a blazing sun just minutes ago. Grateful we were at least covered by metal roof and walls. Sticks and low-cutting mowers to not work well together, so every storm required meticulous clean up -- every limb, every stick needed to be cleared from tees and greens before they could be mowed.

And then there was the grass. It just kept growing. Granted, it had some help, but my dad tried to minimize the chemicals he used -- and exposed his two kids to -- on the golf course he managed. One co-worker mowed the longer grass that lined each fairway and curled around the empty spaces between holes. She started on Monday, and by Thursday afternoon, she could have mowed again where she had started. Her routine took countless miles each week on a diesel riding rotary mower with five blades. And each week, it started again. The environment, even this relatively tamed one, was relentless in its pursuit for life.

And somehow that pursuit of life, and working with my dad, and watching how his work was indebted to weather, impressed on me that the environment is something we care for, admire, and even fear. There is no way to advertise that. Any advertising asserts that we are in control. And if there is one thing that working outdoors taught me, it was that we are hardly in control of the sun, the rain, the wind, the all of it.