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Green Thing launches Nothing - the way to spend without spending 2

Fundraising | Jonathan Waddingham | 25 Nov 2009

If you haven’t heard of Green Thing, you should go straight to their website and see what they do and how they talk about it (then come back here, obviously). In their own words, Green Thing is a not-for-profit public service that inspires people to lead a greener life, and I think it’s a superb example of how an organisation can use the web to be what they do.

Their tone of voice, design and campaigns all bring their brand to life, a brand which has been built from scratch in just a couple of years.

Anyway, enough of the introduction, I wanted to talk about their latest appeal. It’s the launch of 'The world’s most sustainable product, NothingTM' to coincide with the 10th international Buy Nothing Day (no, I didn’t realise there had been nine previously either).

The general idea is that it’s sometimes better to stick with what you’ve got instead of buying something new. Obviously producing a ‘new’ thing involves CO2 and waste that isn’t going to be good for the environment. So their campaign urges you to buy nothing instead. Simple eh?

The clever part is that you can actually buy ‘nothing’ through their Amazon spoof site, Amazero (which you can find at http://www.dothegreenthing.com/nothing):

The fun thing is that the site’s not just a mock-up - you can actually make a purchase of “nothing” (and see different images of “nothing” in sizes ranging from “nothing less” to “nothing extra”). You then get your own email receipt (subject line: "Nothing will be with you shortly") for buying “nothing”, making it feel like you have bought something.

But the email isn’t just a receipt – it also includes a link to make a donation to Green Thing – and a link to seven reasons why you should support them.

It’s the small touches that make it fun – the payment method is a “NadaCard”, the order reference you get is “D1DDLY5QUAT” and the seller is named as “Nothing Ventures, Nothing Gains Ltd”. There’s a real sense of fun about it. You can share the site with a ‘share this’ widget, and there’s also the option to embed a badge of your purchase of “Nothing” on your own site. So as well as making you smile, it’s very easy to share it with your friends to make them smile.

Beyond the website, the campaign is supported by phone, email, and Twitter:

“The public can tweet @DrWillPowers, email DrWillPowers@dothegreenthing.com or text (+447624802787) their dilemma and Dr. Powers will reply with 140 character-long word of wisdom to talk them down from the cash register and suggest a helpful alternative such as places to swap, hire or borrow what they need.”

I especially love the Twitter account (aside from the fact that it’s yet another play on words), because if you ask it a question, it will reply with a suggestion for something else to do and a link to one of a variety of sites that promote free activities and are thus good for the environment (they range from bread-making to a book-swapping website). The tweets have been pre-written but appear to be from a real person, so you feel like you’re really interacting with this mysteriously helpful doctor.

I sent a message on Twitter saying, “I really want some new trainers, but don't really need any. What should I do?” The reply? “Give yourself time to reflect on what matters. Your shopping, or the world's wellbeing? http://bit.ly/QIwaI #buynothing”. Nice, and they’ve included a Twitter hashtag, so they can track the conversations on the topic.

They have also managed to collar a number of celebs to support their campaign too – you can see the likes of John Humphrys, David Suchet,and the Noisettes talking about nothing on their YouTube channel. Each video is only about ten seconds long, but crucially includes a link to their Buy Nothing website (did you know you could embed links in your videos on YouTube?).

That’s what I call an integrated online campaign.

Everything is joined up. The tone of voice, the content, the different sites they’re using and the goal are clear. Charities can learn a lot from what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. It’s nothing sort of brilliant.

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