G&B managed to "infect" Cadbury and got it to incorporate a lot of their ethical smarts into their own brand. Now with Cadbury being purchased by Kraft, many are questioning if the American company has what it takes to maintain the progress made by these two brands.
In a recent article in The Guardian, one of the founder's of Green & Black's was somewhat optimistic about the prospects. On a side note, it's interesting, he points his finger at consumers for not demanding organic and Fair Trade from brands, of course, this is a little chicken and egg because it often takes a company to lead consumers, as we've seen with Wal-Mart.
"A brand is like a child. It is born into this world, fragile and in great need of parental care and attention. Eventually you send it off to school and university, entrusting it to the care of others. Then it embarks on its career. Green & Black's, to follow the analogy, was nurtured to maturity and eventually got a good job at a big multinational.
It's still our baby. The fact that it can now look forward to continuing its career development with another multinational with a different name (and most of the same shareholders) is not a great cause for concern.
If Kraft screwed up with Green & Black's it would damage their reputation and cast a shadow over their competence. But there is no reason to expect them to goof. They have converted US household names like Oreos and Ritz crackers to organic and even do an organic macaroni-and-cheese dinner.
Every successful organic product represents another welcome step forward in the vital process, whereby the GM dependent climate-destructive industrial farming model gives way to sustainable, organic and fair ways of producing food. Successful corporations identify and follow these deeper underlying trends and would be betraying their shareholders' interest in trying to reverse them.
Frankly, it's the consumers who don't buy organic and fair products that upset me the most. Consumers have a choice, companies don't, they only sell what customers buy. Kraft and Cadbury are on the right track and I am confident the new entity will continue to pursue this.
I have no idea if Kraft will ask me to stay on as president, but if they don't that could be your canary in the coal mine."
Kraft's indirect purchase of Green & Black's follows a familiar pattern of ethical companies falling into their hands of giant corporations- Ben and Jerry's at Unilever, Howies at Timberland and The Body Shop at L'Oreal.
Many of the ethical companies start out with the belief that it's possible to change the world and when purchased may still harbor idealistic notions of this dream because of scale. However, for the acquring company to radically change it's operations, brands etc to all be in-line with the ethical company, is highly unlikely because it's just simply too hard to do.
What's more likely is a token response where the ethical brands sit in limbo and nothing really changes. They can grow because they can distribution muscle, but beyond that, they can't do much.
Posted by Ed Cotton
You might remember Glass and a Half productions as a concept that held together Fallon's famous work for the company, including the drumming gorilla. Perhaps, it seemed something of an after thought that would never be truly realized. However, that doesn't seem to be the case as the production company has been given a new lease of life in a very smart strategic play.
Cadbury wants to announce it's brand Dairy Milk's move into the Fair Trade arena, it could have done this with a CSR type blog or print effort that would have ticked several boxes, but generated no real interest, instead, they've gone out and found entertainment talent from Ghana, (the cocoa producers and Fair Trade country of origin), given them exposure and used this effort to help raise money for farmer's causes in the country.
I think the idea of laddering up a serious concept into something appealing and entertaining makes a lot of sense. It's so easy to get lost in all the noise around CSR, that it's very smart to to make a serious idea entertaining.
Posted by Ed Cotton