“This is a one-of-a-kind promotion that lets everyone who gets the magazine take part in an environmental program ... Target shoppers will recycle their shopping bags and, in return, get a practical bag that can be used all the time.”
- Newsweek President Greg Osberg
While much of the mainstream press in the United States and around the world does at least a competent job reporting on environmental issues, especially global warming, Newsweek magazine set the bar very high in its special April 14, 2008 issue, Environment & Leadership: Who’s the Greenest of Them All? How? Newsweek magazine collaborated with Target Corporation and TerraCycle Inc. to help promote Target Corporation’s Retote recycled plastic shopping bag in a unique way.
You see, in order to put an end to the era of the plastic shopping bag, we must show people a better way which also is easier than what they do today. That’s no small task. The bold collaboration between Target Corporation, TerraCycle Inc . and Newsweek magazine is an ingenious way to begin, though. Target offers a coupon for a free Retote recycled plastic shopping bag which is boldly branded with the store’s icon.
TerraCycle obtains a great deal of earned media coverage as the exclusive manufacturer of the environmentally sound Retote bag and Newsweek can claim with full justification that it is fulfilling its role as a good corporate citizen and member of the fourth estate by not just covering but being a full partner in an initiative to spread the word by hosting an annual conference on the subject of the environment and providing its two partners with the inside cover and first page of its April 14 issue as a makeshift mailer for Target customers to claim their coupon.
Intrepid!
" We’re very excited to be responsible for helping Newsweek reinvent the idea of magazine advertising as well as Target reinvent how we use plastic bags.”
- Tom Szaky, Cofounder and CEO, TerraCycle Inc.
The collaboration described here is a praiseworthy undertaking which exemplifies the fact that the business community need not be at odds with tree huggers such as this author. Now, let’s encourage the companies involved to keep up the good work by reaching out to them with phone calls and email messages. Then, let’s go one step further. When we have a choice between patronizing them or a competitor, let’s pause and think twice before shopping elsewhere. It’s the least any of us can do and we’ll enable them to offer us further environmental innovations in the future.
Sustainable Justice For All!
Corbett Kroehler
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