Sustainable products. Green brands. Alternative transportation. Clean tech.
You use adjectives to differentiate your sustainable/green/alternative/clean self from the greedy, community uprooting, planet devastating mainstream. You’re hearing detractors’ complaints about green or sustainable or alternative or clean being fads, buzzwords, or just plain greenwash. You’re stifling frustration because you realize that by using those adjectives you’re acknowledging the dominance of what you’re positioning yourself against.
As a proponent of sustainable marketing I’m with you. I’m in the business of helping organizations satisfy their stakeholders’ needs, and I’m trying to do so only for clients and only in ways that don’t compromise the ability of present and future humans to satisfy their needs. I’d love to get rid of the adjective because I believe all marketing should be sustainable.
(Not to mention that using adjectives to alter the meaning of nouns weakens content. “It is nouns and verbs, not their assistants, that give to good writing its toughness and color.” –Strunk and White in The Elements of Style. But I digress.)
Recently I saw an investment company’s ad that proclaimed: “One day, alternative energy will just be energy.” Similarly, one day, we’ll retire green or sustainable marketing by redefining marketing into a triple-bottom line discipline. In the meantime, we’re stuck with adjectives as our props. Or do we just invent a whole new adjectiveless terminology?
