When it comes to advertising, Seventh Generation is no Clorox or Colgate-Palmolive, but the 21-year-old green home and personal care products maker has stepped up its marketing efforts as of late. The bulk of it started earlier this month with the launch of "Protect Planet Home," the brand’s first national ad campaign. Spots, via Carmichael Lynch in Minneapolis, tout a chemical-free world where "the five-second rule is extended" and "where no one holds their breath while they’re cleaning." The campaign is part of the company’s mission to raise awareness of environmentally responsible products, said Seventh Generation co-founder Jeffrey Hollender (pictured left). With the market for green cleaning products growing—and even influencing larger competitors—the company is looking to up the ante on marketing, new product innovation and brand awareness, to the point where 45 percent of U.S. households will have heard of—or tried—the brand, added CEO Chuck Maniscalco (pictured right below), who hails from PepsiCo. Hollender and Maniscalco chatted with Brandweek about Seventh Generation’s marketing aspirations, and what its new campaign—coinciding with the launch of the first EPA-approved disinfectant product—means for the category. Excerpts from that conversation are below.


Brandweek: You’ve moved beyond PR and digital efforts to launch the brand’s first national ad campaign, 'Protect Planet Home,' this month. Why so?
Jeffrey Hollender: In the larger context, we are in the midst of moving from a niche player to a much more mainstream player with the same values and the same issues and commitment [to doing business] that we already have. The market for green products even during the economic downturn has continued to grow substantially, has attracted a lot of competitors, and we need to be more aggressive in letting people know that we exist, and to tell them our story, so that we can continue to grow the business.
Chuck Maniscalco: This is very much about furthering our mission. We’re telling consumers our story about protecting planet home and protecting a broader planet. Secondly . . . we plan on competing with the big consumer packaged goods companies, but not like them. We will continue to [grow] and build the business our way.

BW: How are you getting the word out about the new campaign?
CM: We’re using all of the tools that we already use—grassroots, our dialogue with national [Seventh Generation brand advocate] members, social media, digital, and PR, which have always been the bread and butter of our consumer outreach. We’re doing all those on a higher level and layering on top of it broader reach like TV and print in order to get the word out and increase awareness. We’re eager to quickly [increase our awareness] and there’s nothing like broad reach to allow us to get there on an ongoing basis.

BW: Chuck, you were hired from PepsiCo to be Seventh Generation’s CEO, a post you’ve held since June. What’s surprised you about the company thus far and how does your background at one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies come into play?
CM: Nothing really surprised me because of the diligence with which we went through the interview process. Jeff was very clear on what the company was all about, and the character and nature of our community. [At Seventh Generation], we call ourselves a community, not employees or associates.

What surprised me, though, was the fact that we didn’t have in place the kind of monitoring, or analytics, around the business that we really needed for a company of our size. That, frankly, was the very first thing I was able to bring to this new company, which was the discipline I’d learned [from my previous position], so we could have our finger on the pulse of our business and mission.

BW: What’s the biggest marketing challenge facing Seventh Generation?
CM: Almost nine out of 10 consumers haven’t really heard of us. Even fewer have actually picked up and bought our products. We are really a new product for most of the population. The small percentage that do buy us, the turnout is big, but we believe there is opportunity for close to half of the population—that is, we think about 45 percent of households in the U.S. that have an attitude and mindset that should make them interested in our products—and [help close] the gap between our current household penetration of 10 percent. That opportunity is huge and that’s what we’re going for.

BW: The marketplace for green cleaning products, as you point out, has continued to grow in a recession. But aren’t consumers cautious about greenwashing?
JH: At the end of the day, we live in a world where there is a profusion of green products. But there really are only a handful of green companies. Unfortunately, at this stage of the evolution, many companies who want a piece of this consumer marketplace will make a product that is positioned for this kind of consumer . . . but then sell another that isn’t so kind or gentle or environmentally responsible. If you want to be authentic and to have real credibility, you have to look at your business as a whole, not just one single product.



BW: On the one hand, there are the big competitors like Colgate-Palmolive and Clorox. But how do you perceive smaller competitors like Method?
CM: It’s difficult to talk about the other green competitors as one entity because they are all so different. Everyone is trying to figure out what their place is in tomorrow’s world. And they’re going about it in different ways. What Method does is different from what Ecos, for instance, does. Method focuses a lot on design, to the point where they are almost being fashionable, as a product. Others are dropping their price points and pretty much doing nothing other than getting to a better value proposition. We’re respectful of all our competitors, but we’re spending less time on them and more focused on our consumers, our customers (retailers) and what we do. We are in the front of this race and will run it as fast as we can and not really look back.

BW: What else should we expect from Seventh Generation this year?
CM: What you should expect is periodic, really big news like right now, like the campaign and the disinfectant product we just launched in Whole Foods. It’s the first ever, natural disinfectant. People complain about disinfectants’ safety and toxicity, and they basically have to make a choice between one or the other, but this is the first [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency]-approved disinfectant that’s been tested to be safe and effective. That’s the biggest product news, and in the meantime, we’re focused on making product that is efficacious and authentic all the time.
JH: If you were to go back 10 years and look at interviews we’ve done, you would consistently find that we talked about disinfectants as the most dangerous products in people’s homes. They are effectively registered pesticides. If you read the label, you find instructions that range from ensuring you use in a well-ventilated place to washing your hands after you use this product. The level of caution because of toxicity is extremely high…There are times when a product is a marginal improvement to an existing one, but this one is profound, relative to the safety that allows consumers [to get their cleaning done] without worrying about the side effects.

BW: How’s the economic downturn affected Seventh Generation’s sales?
CM:  Unlike a lot of other green companies, I’d say we held up really well in this recessionary environment. Our business growth was not like it was in 2007 and 2008, but it’s not declining, either. That’s evidence of the loyalty of our consumer, but we aspire to grow a lot faster than we are right now, in addition to all the investment we’re putting behind to support the brand.

BW: Does the brand have a value message? Isn’t that something that’s necessary to have—to move sales—in this type of economy?
JH: Seventh Generation has a very different value message that not all consumers understand. If you think about it, spending 10 or 25 cents more on a spray cleaner that doesn’t have VOCs in it [isn’t a lot when you compare it to] the cost for a family member who has a [cleaning products triggered-] asthma attack to go to the doctor, take time off from work and spend the co-pay money to buy medication. You might save 5 or 10 cents here, but it might cost you a few hundred dollars there.  As consumers think about how they manage and maintain their health, I think they will increasingly understand the significant role that Seventh Generation can play in their lives, in terms of ensuring their wellness, rather than exposing themselves to products that may have harsh effects and huge costs associated with [unwanted side effects]. Unfortunately, we as consumers make the assumption that there is someone out there screening out the chemicals. They think that someone out there has made sure every product they bring into their homes is safe and that’s not true. It’s up to us as individuals to make sure that what we bring into our homes is safe. That’s why the campaign, 'Protect Planet Home,' sends a subtle message that this is a responsibility that we have to take, and an opportunity that we have by using products like Seventh Generation.

BW: Do you have an anecdote to illustrate how safe Seventh Generation’s products really are?
CM: There was a woman who called 9-1-1 in Oakland, Calif. She was frantic because her toddler had gotten under the sink, pulled out the powdered dishwasher detergent, and she saw evidence that the child had eaten some, and she frantically called 9-1-1. The operator asked what brand the child had eaten and she said, 'Seventh Generation.' 'Not to worry, nothing is harmful in that product. Just give him plenty of water and he’ll be fine,' the operator said. Think of what that call could’ve been like.

BW: What’s the best campaign you’ve ever rolled forth?
JH: One of my favorite campaigns is one that is not well-known. It’s called 'Tamponification.' When we entered the fem care business, we had a campaign that we spent zero money on. We ran a campaign on our Web site, giving consumers the opportunity to make a virtual donation of fem care products to their local women’s shelter. [Consumers clicked on the virtual donation, and Seventh Generation donated organic cotton tampons and chlorine-free pads to the shelters.] At first, all was quiet on the site, and all of a sudden in one week, we had half a million people visit the site, and it was purely viral. I love it because it goes against the [notion] that you have to spend a lot of money on a campaign to get people to notice. We proved that not to be the case.