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Gary Hirshberg wears his passion for green business practices on his sleeve. And there are certainly days when you might see some yogurt there, too.
Hirshberg is president and self-titled “CE-Yo” of Stonyfield Farm, the iconic manufacturer of organic yogurt. He’s also an outspoken advocate for unconventional marketing, his ideas first taking root back in the days when he personally handed out yogurt samples from a folding table at supermarkets.
Since then, Hirshberg has put Stonyfield Farm in the spotlight with various high-profile promotional efforts, from inflating drivers’ tires to delivering frozen manure to a radio personality who’d claimed he’d rather eat camel dung than Hirshberg’s yogurt. (Turns out he preferred the yogurt.) But he doesn’t rely merely on publicity stunts and word-of-mouth marketing. Hirshberg has also wisely used traditional advertising channels like direct mail, always mindful to calibrate his campaigns for maximum impact.
Now, he’s an author too. Hirshberg — who has overseen Stonyfield’s evolution from a tiny organic-farming school to a global yogurt producer with $320 million in sales — details his journey to success in his new book, Stirring it Up: How to Make Money and Save the World (Hyperion, 2008).
Hirshberg recently spoke with Deliver® about combining counterculture and yogurt culture, the role of green marketing and why, when it comes to connecting with consumers through marketing efforts, “You can’t fake this stuff.”
Deliver: Sustainability and environmental protection are literally written into Stonyfield’s mission statement. But what can direct marketers do if they work for a company that was not founded on such green values?
Hirshberg: Marketers should think of ways to save their company some money. If you can reduce costs and feed those dollars back into the product or put them toward something consumers believe in, you have the potential to not just drive customer loyalty but reduce turnover and build employee pride. The No. 1 thing people say they are looking for is meaningful work. But I’d caution that this isn’t a quick fix. You don’t just engage in social responsibility and get an immediate spike in sales. This is something you build over time.
You should also be aware that if the cause is only in the marketing, and doesn’t reflect a genuine commitment, you are highly vulnerable.
Just look at the big auto manufacturers. (In my opinion,) a few of them have been the darlings of environmentalists because of hybrid cars. But it turns out that those companies have also been lobbying against raising fuel-economy standards. So the environmental community has now made these companies public enemy No. 1 — because they’re breaching an emotional contract they had created. On the one hand they’re producing and marketing these hybrid cars, but their corporate commitment is clearly mixed, if not contradictory.
You see this happen a lot. I call it the talk/do ratio. You have to keep them in balance.
Deliver: In your book, you say that you drive your marketing people crazy. How so?
Hirshberg: The main thing I ask my marketing folks to be sure they ask before they present me with something is “What would the big yogurt manufacturers not do?” If they show me something that could be done by the others, then it’s not good enough for us.
Deliver: So do you use traditional media?
Hirshberg: We continue to use mail when it fits into our overall plan. We’re also mindful of the environmental costs of any mailings we do.
Deliver: In your book, you describe conventional advertising as the “fertilizer of conventional business.” What did you mean by that?
Hirshberg: Well, no one can claim that advertising doesn’t work. The advertising we’ve been able to do has worked, but it isn’t sustainable. You get the sales lift during your ad buy, but then you drop back. If you rely solely on advertising, you rely on reaching people in less effective emotional ways. But if a customer meets someone from Stonyfield at a soccer match, train station, park or community event, they have another connection with us. Hopefully, they’ve interacted with a nice person and had an engaging experience that made them feel good.
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