Greenpeace

Greenpeace and  Kimberly-Clark have announced the successful resolution of the Kleercut campaign as the maker of Kleenex has established a new sustainability policy focused on protecting Endangered Forests. Go to www.greenpeace.org/kleercut to find out more!


Last weekend, Kleercut campaign activists teamed up with fans of the LA Angels baseball team to send a powerful message to tissue-manufacturer Kimberly-Clark.

Prior to the game against the Texas Rangers, the Angels hosted a festival for fans.  Amid Latin music acts, carnival rides and vendors, Kimberly-Clark set up a train-shaped booth to promote their Huggies and Pull-Ups diapers.  While I’m not sure what trains have to do with diapers, their goal was to flood Spanish-speaking moms and dads with coupons and bags of their paper-plastic panty protectors  – just what you want to carry around at a baseball game, right?

They didn’t know that a “Kleercut en Espanol” outreach-blitz was about to be launched.  Dressed as Boreal Bears, trees and “Forest Angels,” bilingual Kleercut activists set off to spread the word about Kimberly-Clark’s contribution to forest destruction.  Angels fans of all ages learned that most Kimberly-Clark consumer products, like Huggies, Kleenex and Cottonelle, don’t use any recycled paper fiber.  Instead, they use trees.  And plenty of those come from ancient forests like the Canadian Boreal.  You can read more about why that’s a really dumb idea here and what they should do about it here.

When they learned about Kimberly-Clark’s role in forest destruction, more than 300 Angels fans decided to take action straight away!  In bilingual photo petitions they pledged to be “Ancient Forest Angels” and stay away from Kimberly-Clark’s unsustainable products.  Two of the performers at the event, Latin American rap stars, jumped off the stage to take a quick shot with the bears and a stand up for ancient forests.  Our team even had to split up in two groups to accomodate all picture and bear-hugging requests. Check out more pictures here.

Complaints from the spoil-sport Kimberly-Clark marketers eventually led to our poor Boreal Bears being booted from the event – sorta like clearcuts kick wildlife out of the Boreal Forest.  But, they accomplished their mission, talked with hundreds of fans, and put Kimberly-Clark on notice that people of all backgrounds want to “salva nuestros bosques primarios” (save our ancient forests)!

-Gesche

Greenpeace and  Kimberly-Clark have announced the successful resolution of the Kleercut campaign as the maker of Kleenex has established a new sustainability policy focused on protecting Endangered Forests. Go to www.greenpeace.org/kleercut to find out more!


Kimberly-Clark is investing a great deal in "hip" advertising these days – and a lot of their attempts turn out just silly. The latest example is the "Viva Diva Café Tour" to promote their Viva paper towels. Strangely, the tour includes no divas, and no café. (At least this time they’re not telling us what to do with our butts…) Like Kleenex, Viva has no recycled content and contributes to the destruction of the Boreal forest.

So when K-C set up a booth at the Ghirardelli Square Chocolate Festival in San Francisco last weeken, we had to show up. Their goal was to give out samples of Viva towels (wow – free paper towel sheets!) and promote their product to moms. Our volunteers had another plan. Kleercut activists swept into action, unfurling a banner in front of the booth reading: “Viva: Stop Destroying Ancient Forests.” Security guards and Viva promoters seemed stunned, giving us plenty of time to take photos and spoil their advertising before being escorted out by police.

But our undercover Kleercut activists didn’t get escorted out, and they made good use of the distraction created by the banner team. Suddenly, our leaflets had mysteriously appeared in the “Viva Diva Café” itself. As rumor goes, the Viva promoters were handing out sample boxes later on that not only contained the one little papertowel sheet but our flyers, too!

When the banner team was done, a stellar outreach team, including tree people with speech bubbles and folks dressed up as Viva “brand ambassadors,” passed out over 500 flyers, stickers and Forest Friendly Tissue guides to the chocolate munching public. They motivated people to return Viva samples and convinced people not to buy K-C's disposable products until the company stops destroying ancient forests.

Our team was a hit with the crowd: families took photos with the tree people, they earned a shout out from the event stage, and even won over one of the Viva brand ambassadors! At the same time, a Greenpeace “Forest Crimes Unit” van circled Ghirardelli Square, adding visibility to our outreach.