Sustainable Advertising in the Eco-Century: Eco-Tourism in Sri Lanka
Eco-friendly products, eco-design, eco-technologies, eco-renewable energy, eco-sustainable development… and this list could have no end. No doubt that the 21st Century is the eco-century. While not being a new idea, it has been a few years that sustainable development has taken centre stage under the political, social, and industrial spotlights. Ancestral cultures already recognized the need for cultivating harmony between the environment, society and economy. What is new is the perspective from which those ideas are looked upon: they are placed in the context of the Information and Globalisation Age, with all what it means. In a nutshell, there are no more limits on Mother Planet Earth: possibilities and dangers are endless.
What is also new is the power that sustainable development has earned in business communication. “Sustainable” and “eco” words are now pervading all marketing and sales pitches. For every advertiser or marketer, the game today seems to try and find a (often artificial) way to obtain an eco-label for their products or to demonstrate their sustainable value.
There are obviously some privileged playfields, and the tourism industry is one of them. To take one concrete example, what do you think if I’m telling you Sri Lanka?
Ceylon teas, elephants, gems, spices, ayurvedic medicine, ecological sites and friendly denizens are some of the positive images that should come to your mind. And that’s also what all travel companies will put forward to make you dream about this exotic destination. But to try and tease your interest, they will also describe their pre-packaged travel services by using various labels such as ecotourism, sustainable tourism, eco-adventure, nature-based tourism, responsible tourism, green travels, and so on.
And you already know that: the eco-trend will accompany you all along your travel path. In your hotel, you’ll be offered ecological skin care, while in tourist shops you’ll be able to buy all kinds of local eco-products. The good news is: more than ever, it is today possible for the true eco-concerned tourist to travel with responsibility and contribute to the sustainability of the destinations and the welfare of its inhabitants. On the other hand, the conscious traveller needs more than ever to develop his ecological literacy and to learn how to filter the marketing claptrap.
To finish up and to follow-up with Sri Lanka, here are below two interesting examples of innovative eco-products and advertising that I recently came across with.
Recycable Elephant Dung-Made Paper: Sri Lanka elephant population is about a tenth of the estimated total of 40,000 Asian elephants in the wild. On average an adult elephant produces about 180-200 kg of dung per day. An amazing project resulted into producing handcrafted, multicoloured paper products made from 75% dung and 25% recycled paper. You support the elephant cause with your money, and they give you back a nice, truly organic product that they manufacture right from their intestines. Now, that’s what I call fair trade!
Word-of-Mouth Water-Tanks: Another example is a word-of-mouth, outdoor social advertising initiative developed for the We Can (End all Violence Against Women) campaign: in tsunami related camps, water-tanks are providing an unexpected platform for the campaign messages.
