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NEW HARDLINES CONSERVATION INITIATIVE GETS HOPPING |
| July 27, 1999 In a move to benefit the entire hardlines industry, The National Retail Hardware Association has partnered with The WATER Foundation to blend various conservation campaigns from around the industry into a central initiative. A steering committee meeting convened on June 13 to set a basic plan for launching a series of conservation marketing campaigns designed to provide recycling services and educational programs designed to help reduce pollution and market hardlines products. This plan will be unveiled at a meeting during the National Hardware Expo in Chicago on August 17th (room N128 in McCormick Place, North Building at 5:15-6:15pm). This initiative, dubbed the Hardlines Conservation Marketing Initiative (HCMI), will focus on driving traffic and sales into participating stores. Consumers will be directed into stores in search of products and services that are not only conservation-minded, but save users money as well. Thus, "Conservation Pays!™ is the slogan of the HCMI, who will be spreading the messages in a "frog friendly" manner, using The WATER Foundation’s BOG FROG® character as the icon for the initiative. John Hammond, Director of the NRHA/HCI offered this reasoning for an industry-wide initiative: "While recognizing the need for each stakeholder to nurture its own internal environmental efforts, we feel the industry needs to stand together and become proactive before more costly environmental compliance issues become mandatory. Plus, with demographics showing ever larger segments of Americans becoming "green", we believe that we can also drive sales with cause-related marketing and educational campaigns." David Winkelman, President of The WATER Foundation, shared his vision: "As we move into the next century faced with over-population, decreasing water quality and dwindling natural resources, our children’s health is being compromised. The hardlines industry is one of the front lines for improving the environment because of all the conservation-minded new products available that truly reduce pollution." The HCMI will focus a big part of the initiative on school children, using a series of classroom-to-retailer segments, called Operation HOP (Help Our Planet). In segments on issues such as recycling (batteries, bulbs, old paint), energy conservation, water conservation, less toxic pest control and more natural products of many types, children will have homework which incentivizes them and their parents to visit their local hardlines retailers in search of conservation-minded products and services. |
