Take our favourite brand of mustard. Known in our family only as “Dangerous Mustard” (so dubbed by my then-seven-year-old stepson for its strong taste), Kuhne mustard won a recurring spot in our grocery list not only for its distinctive taste, but also for its unique packaging: glass jars with no threaded tops – perfect for reuse as tumblers.

Kuhne’s jars are an elegant shape and the perfect size to fit the hand. They are sturdy and simple. We have accumulated quite a collection, used daily as no-stem wine glasses and water glasses in our home. It’s not something Kuhne talks about in its marketing or trumpets on the label. I don’t even know if they’re thinking about the reusability as a selling point. Yet while we do love the taste of their mustard, what has kept us buying Kuhne (and thus not taste-testing other gourmet mustard brands) is this collectable packaging. As another Vancouver blogger, Technoracle, points out, Kuhne is one of only a few brands (Catelli being another) who uses fully reusable packaging for their products.

Alas, Kuhne appears to have been led astray. We were shocked to discover recently that Kuhne’s bell-shaped jars now have a screw top. The threaded mouth means it’s no longer suitable as a drinking glass, and this seemingly small change has had a big impact on our loyalty to the brand. Buying non-Kuhne mustard was once unthinkable, both because we liked the taste and because we knew we’d get some good mileage for our purchase through reuse of the glass jar. Now that the jar will be going in the recycling like any other mustard jar, Kuhne in my mind is now just one of many kinds of mustard.

So here’s where I bring it back to green marketing. I’d like to see more long-term thinking from companies in terms of product packaging. It’s nice that a ‘green’ version of your product isn’t quite as toxic as the regular version that gets the bulk of your TV ad dollars, but it would really be something for companies to make it easier for people to reduce and reuse, as well as recycle. By planning product design so that it can effortlessly have a second life as something else once your product is used up, companies make it vastly easier for consumers to reduce the amount of trash in the landfill.

Manufacturers can take their cues from existing behaviours and consumer hacks: whether you intended your mustard jars to be reused as glasses or not, it becomes a product differentiator if they are. Another example would be things like yogurt containers, which many people reuse as lunch & leftover containers even though the plastic isn’t rated for reuse. If that’s how people use your product, why not deliberately package for reuse?

Ipsos Reid recently asked people what actions they would be likely to take in the next six months to protect the environment. The most popular answer (depressingly, only selected by 51% of people ) was to reuse jars or containers. But another 50% said they would seek out products with recyclable packaging, and many of the other popular responses also indicated a desire to reduce extra packaging or choose reusable items over disposables.

It’s time companies took responsibility for what happens to their product and packaging once its original purpose is done. Thinking creatively about packaging items in the most efficient way possible should mean both reducing excess waste and planning for packaging that can easily be repurposed for new use.

Based on recent research that shows that only a minority of people are actively creating content on Twitter and on blogs, Baskin writes:

“The perception that social media usage is today’s cultural and communications phenomena has led many companies to invest in experimental programs, then struggle to invent ways to measure them …. Now consider the possibility that the reason why the numbers don’t add up is because people aren’t using social media as much as we were led to believe?”

When you spend all your time living & breathing social media, and hanging out with friends & colleagues who do the same, you can lose your perspective.

Social media has been oversold as an immediate *replacement* for traditional modes of communication. In my opinion, it has emerged as a complimentary channel and a disruptive force, but it’s clear to me that advertising & more traditional marketing & communications will be around for a long time yet. Save for a few exceptions, mass numbers still require mass media.

Social media has enabled more people to share their thoughts online, but I think it’s a basic fact of human nature that not everyone wants to step up on the soapbox. More does not equal ‘all’.

This doesn’t mean social media is not important. Take the Twitter data on dropoff: it’s not who joins that matters, it’s who remains. I think too much focus has been put on the raw numbers (which naturally include people testing out the various tools) and not enough effort looking at behaviour in these spaces online. If the people who remain are the people you most want to reach, that’s where you need to be. Period.

This is where I start to agree with the ‘death of advertising people’: it sounds impressive that you’ve “reached” millions through your mass-media spend, but how many of them are tuned into your message? It takes more than a media buy to break through the clutter. Social media is one way to differentiate, but it doesn’t work like traditional advertising. Reach is not guaranteed, it rarely delivers immediate results and contrary to popular belief it is neither free nor ‘easy’ (defined as being achieved without effort).

As for the blogosphere, I think it’s natural that the numbers shrank. It doesn’t mean that those people aren’t still communicating online, just that they’re not using blogging platforms to do it. When blogging was booming, it was the best tool around for the purpose. Then social networking sites got better, and for many online diarists, Facebook or other socnets became a better venue for this kind of expression. Once Twitter came along, many one-time bloggers who used it primarily for link-sharing discovered that Twitter was a better medium for them, and a number of them either ceased updating their blogs or reduced post frequency.

At this stage, social media spectatorship is mainstream (i.e. awareness of it, reading blogs, etc.) but the act of creating content and other more active contribution (even commenting on blogs) is still a niche activity. If the strategy is built around content creation, it is zeroing in on a niche  audience. That’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s a mistake to assume that usage numbers are equivalent to the number of active creators on any platform. Forrester’s research also backs this up, and demonstrates an encouraging trend of an increasing number of content creators as more folks become comfortable with stepping up on the soapbox, and also as younger folks (who have fewer barriers to doing this) transition from communicating primarily to peers online to addressing a broader public.

The fundamentals of enabling self-expression, creating a sense of community and speeding up the transmission of ideas & information remain the same regardless of which platform is “hot.” Whether it’s blogging, Facebook, Twitter or another tool is a strategic decision based on personal preference, audience analysis and the technological environment of the time.

Here’s my presentation … not quite the same without the “audio track” but I think there are a few nuggets to pull out anyway.

In essence, I believe Facebook is and will remain a major player in social networking and, with Facebook Connect, Open ID. It is market-dominant now, and its growth remains impressive. The biggest challenge for businesses on Facebook, in my opinion, is how to select the best tactics to fit within their broader marketing strategy.

Facebook offers so many options, from low-tech, low-cost Page setup to more creative and budget-intensive off-site efforts leveraging Facebook Connect. Even once the tactic is chosen (i.e. a Facebook Page), success depends on finding the unique customer insights that open the door to creating a healthy relationship between the brand and its customers.

I think many companies are misled by the ease of setup of a Page, and think that a junior staffer or even an intern can take care of it. It’s as though they hand the intern a hammer, a stack of plywood and a box of nails and say “go, build.” Without a blueprint to follow and a certain level of carpentry skill, the result is unlikely to satisfy.