Originally posted at Marketing Profs Daily Fix, here are the highlights of the cause-related marketing campaign Show the World What’s Inside campaign by Seventh Generation. I’ve added a post review at the bottom to highlight some changes in opinion regarding this campaign.

Create A Tree
List the ingredients that define who you are, select a tree shape, and watch it come to life. The program pulls in pictures from iStockphoto based on the words you entered, then allows you to go back and edit it OR save it to the Forest. Upon deciding to save it, you’re given a few options. Creating an Account allows you to save your tree and them the ability to send you product coupons. Selecting “No Thank You” asks you to type in your name, then gives you a permalink to share your tree and its attributes with others. I had selected “freedom, water, and vitality” as my attributes. The last option is to log in and save it to your library, or as I’ll call it: your personal forest.

The Forest
Here you can explore trees created by other members in a slideshow tree-by-tree manner and see the name of the person who created it. The site offers to click the tree for a closer look, but this functionality is a bit redundant as there’s no substantial change other than seeing the creator’s attributes. Navigating the forest one by one is a bit cumbersome, but the main idea is creating a user perception of community while perusing around for 15 seconds, at which point you’re ready to move on.

Label Reading Guide
The link first takes you to an overview of what it’s all about; and what’s that? A flash based info library on personal and household care ingredients/chemicals. Clicking to “Learn More” takes you out of the microsite and to a devoted page on Seventh Gen’s website; hosting it here is important because the guide needs a permanent url to be effectively accessed and shared with others. The guide itself has an index, is searchable, ingredients can be submitted, has a send to friend feature, and is downloadable as a widget (Windows Vista) or for use on your mobile phone.

Take Action
Here they give you two options. The first is to sign a petition from Environmental Working Group to tell the new president that you “support new laws to make chemicals in consumer products and the environment safe for all children.” - see NotKidSafe.org. The second option is to buy an ingredients T-Shirt or baby garment along with a colored marker for you to write with, for $19 plus shipping; the proceeds go to EWG.

What’s Inside Of Us
This is the promotional clip of the campaign which includes animation, narration, and music. It asks us to consider the beauty inside us.

Summary
Seventh Generation has created a tiered cause-related marketing campaign that directly ties into its core brand identity (safe, non-toxic ingredients) by employing a microsite with user-generated trees and a label guide, petition, t-shirts, and video. I must say this is one of the best a pretty good green marketing campaigns, and a great inspiration for similar interactive media.

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Post-Review
While one can admire the creative elements and depth of the website, I have to admit that I feel a bit overwhelmed. There’s too much to explore and read. The tree and forest are superfluous, novel, and take too long to load. If we’re really out to support a worthy cause while gently making people aware that this brand cares, let’s limit the campaign to the following elements:

• Video - Creative direction is great, but the message is a bit too touchy/feely. Include at least a little insight into the facts that many health-questionable chemicals are included in personal care / household cleaning products, and it’s the public’s right to know and stand up for safer products. Also provide fans an easy way to share the video on their blog and spread the word. Although technically feasible now, it takes some site exploration to see that it’s available from Google Video, then time to get the embed code.
• Label Reading Guide - Awesome, but remove the flash and convert it to HTML. It’s too difficult to navigate as is, and would be much better if it was indexable so it could be crawled by search engines, pages could be bookmarked and shared, and easier read by folks on a multitude of mobile devices.
• Take Action - Leave as is

By limiting the communication to just these elements makes for a stickier message: Why you should care, Use this handy guide, Here’s how you can take action.

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