Image credits: Denbompa and MedicMedia Selling Green Products vs Selling YOUR Green Products On the TV show, "Mad Men," ad man Don Draper saves Lucky Strike cigarette account by ignoring research about cigarettes causing disease (he literally throws it

Because

Image credit: The Change Transparency Means Openness About Everything - Warts and All The goal of sustainability is clear. The means are debatable. This creates challenges for marketers (my company, The Change, works on brand creation and design for

Green Without Greenwashing My posts about green branding and design have been generating some great discussion and traffic. But I recently had a complacency check courtesy of the folks at CSRWire, who raised concerns about the relevance of my content

Green Branding Brings Freedom to Act A "brand" is business-speak for your standing in the community. And that standing is based on the sum of who you are, not just what you say. If someone in your neighborhood leads protests against a new coal plant,

Sustainability Must Go Mainstream Punk rock wouldn't be very punk if everyone listened to it. This isn't the case with the sustainability movement — which, as we argued in our first guest post on why green branding and marketing is important, isn't

The essence of branding is developing a clear identity for the messenger -- as opposed to marketing, which merely focuses on the message. However, in the non-profit sector, branding frequently falls by the wayside. My theory is that when your messages

The number of companies that actually make their own products is dwindling. Manufacturing, especially as it pertains to consumer products like shoes and textiles, has been reduced to an exercise in outsourcing. It's not uncommon for competing products

Greenwashing is the corporate image version of money laundering − a way to maintain the status quo under a shiny thin veneer of change. One of greenwashing's negative effects is that it dissuades genuinely green companies from promoting their own far

Calling all green business people - if your company began as a way to enact your beliefs about sustainability, then your business is at odds with the status quo. This is a good thing. It gives you something to be true to -- something that's worth

The news that Coke's prototype store for its "Far Coast" ethical coffee chain concept is set to close comes as no surprise to those of us in the circle of good-for-the-world branding and marketing. But that doesn't mean we rooted for it to

[This is the last in a series of five guest posts looking at the importance of brand strategy and effective marketing for green and ethical businesses. For post one, click here, for post two, click here, for post three, click here, and you'll find

Being

People crave authenticity − but it's hard to

[This is the second in a series of five guest posts looking at the importance of brand strategy and effective marketing for green and ethical businesses. For post one, click here.]

Organic jeans look just like regular jeans. Fair Trade, Shade Grown coffee can taste just like

Jerry Stifelman is founder and creative director of The Change, a good-for-the-world brand strategy and design agency. Between 1993 and 2004, Jerry worked as a brand strategist, creative director and writer for leading brands, including MTV, Banana