So SunChips takes a step in the right direction and creates a compostable bag for their chips.  That’s great.  The new bags are a little louder than the previous ones, but that’s an easy compromise when we’re talking about helping out the environment.  Well, at least you’d think so.  A Facebook page labeled “Sorry I can’t hear you over this SunChips bag”, along with a few YouTube videos demonstrating the loudness of the new bag, was all it took for SunChips to scrap their new biodegradable concept.  What a joke.  I mean, unless you carry around a bag of chips with you throughout your day, you really won’t have to worry about your SunChips interrupting your phone call with a client.  And maybe you do end up encountering your dreadful SunChips bag when you decide you want an addition to your lunch.  Well, I did the math and it takes only a few seconds to retrieve the bag and pour some chips onto your plate.  If you can’t suck it up for that minute amount of time, go play in traffic.  My boy said it perfectly – that’s just some ignorant shit.

I’m sure customer complaints are one reason. But the likely reason for discontinuing the bags is the nearly 11% sales decline in SunChips recently reported.

Marketing Magazine awarded Frito-Lay the 2010 Excellence in Brand Creativity for their Green Effect Campaign. They said Frito-Lay “acted so differently it caused everyone to take notice by reimagining its entire relationship with consumers.”

When the Green Effect Campaign started, it received rave reviews for truly reflecting what the brand stands for. They showed that they can make awesome chips, and save the world at the same time.

Fast-forward to this week.

Loud Bag + Customer Complaints + Declining Revenue = Abandon Brand Positioning

Frito-Lay missed an opportunity with their SunChips brand to expand on their marketing efforts and strengthen their brand positioning. This innovative revolution would have made them the most sustainable potato chip producer and differentiate themselves away from their competitors.

Take your customer complaints, create focus groups, and expand on what how you started marketing in your Green Effect Campaign. With my limited knowledge of the feedback they’ve received, here are a few marketing campaigns that could have expanded the reality of a loud bag:

Family Share Bags

Create different packaging options for large family bags. A 500+ gram bag intended to be shared in a bowl. This option would eliminate the loud bag complaint and focus on the share the chips in a bowl. Smaller bags might revert to a quiet bag, but family-sized bags would be the loud-as-ever biodegradable bag.

Buckley’s Approach

Be honest. Hey, this marketing approach has worked for Buckley’s cough syrup for years … it tastes awful, but it works. I’m sure Frito-Lay realized the SunChips bags were loud when they first released their product. Maybe their pitch should be: Be loud, you’re saving the planet with every chip.

I hope Frito-Lay rethinks their decision to stop producing the environmental friendly bag. I’m sure an expanded marketing/communication campaign could recoup that 11% in revenue decline, your public image would sky-rocket, and they would continue to differentiate the SunChips brand from competitors.

Take a stand – a loud stand – and stick with your bag.

Advocates for environmentally sustainable business are having a rough week. Two products beloved by the movement, the Tesla Motors Roadster, an all-electric vehicle, and PepsiCo Frito-Lay’s SunChips, the snacks sold in biodegradable bags, are suffering setbacks.

Tesla voluntarily recalled Roadster models 2.0 and 2.5 when the company heard from a customer with this problem:

[A] low voltage auxiliary cable in [the] vehicle chafed against the edge of a carbon fiber panel in the vehicle causing a short, smoke and possible fire behind the right front headlamp of the vehicle. This issue [involved the] 12V low voltage auxiliary cable and… not the main battery pack or main power system.

Tesla’s stock price, which remained steady immediately after the Oct. 1st recall, dipped more than 3% within the week as media and industry analysts discussed the Tesla Roadsters’ fire risk along with the company’s looming expenses and competitive outlook.

Tesla’s chief executive Elon Musk will soon have to cut checks for: recruiters to bring in hundreds of new engineers and their salaries; continued work on a new, Model S sedan; and production of new vehicles along with fixes for the recalled Roadsters, which numbered fewer than 500 vehicles.

Skeptics worry about how long it will take Tesla to generate more money than it spends on all of this in the name of the environmentally sound but still sweet ride.

Challenges to Tesla in the market are also varied, including other electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf, and hybrids like the Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid.

Shortly after the smokey Roadster recall, PepsiCo Frito-Lay announced it would scale back the use of plant-based, biodegradable plastic packaging for SunChips due to complaints about the bags making noise.

All but one of the flavors of SunChips will now be sold in “traditional” plastic sacks instead of the non-petroleum, compostable stuff. That’s at least until the company comes up with or purchases another green alternative.

Back in April 2009, when Sun Chips introduced the biodegradable bags, the company ran extensive print, TV and digital advertising touting the green initiative (as MediaPost reported then). Now, PepsiCo Frito-Lay seems to blame the bags’ noise for the widely reported 11% sales decline in SunChips over the last 52 weeks.

Alexis Madrigal, a writer for The Atlantic went so far as to lament how much capital, human and otherwise, was invested in the SunChips sustainable packaging effort in the first place:

This is where we put our productive talents to work…The great machinery induced by billion dollar markets for everything (anything) can be reconfigured for any purpose, even something as mind numbing as flexible, lightweight chip containers.

Typical “flexible, lightweight chip container” materials — namely petroleum-based plastics — represent some 8% of the nation’s waste stream according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Other writers suggested that consumers should have tolerated the noise or poured their chips in a bowl if the idea of keeping petroleum-based (and quieter) plastics out of the waste stream mattered to them, really.

Will PepsiCo’s investors feel good about the company ditching the sad sacks in response to customers’ demands, or will they be inspired by the fact that PepsiCo Frito-Lay tried to actually do something game changing in the first place? Its stock price was dipping at the opening of the market on Thursday Oct. 7th following widespread media discussion about the bags. PepsiCo is, unlike Tesla Motors, such a massive global food and beverage business there’s a chance that SunChips’ sales didn’t even move the needle for investors.

Environmentalists will be watching both brands, hoping for improved sales and stock prices, and case studies that prove sustainable business can also be profitable and competitive, and these setbacks were just a price paid by pioneers.

[crunchbase url="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/tesla-motors" name="Tesla Motors"]

[crunchbase url="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/pepsi" name="Pepsi"]

SunChips has been in the news this week. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been because consumers have been raving about their taste.

The Frito Lay brand of multi-grain chips has gone to great lengths to foster a brand image that reflects a commitment to a “healthier you” and a “healthier planet.” They’re manufactured at a solar powered plant in Modesto, California. They’re made with less salt and tout zero grams of trans-fat. The SunChips website and packaging reflect a color palate of warm yellows, sky blues and earthy greens. And in a move to be even more eco-friendly, the chips were recently repacked in 100% compostable bags.

Obviously, a great deal of attention was given to details that are designed to reflect the brand values consistently across a number of consumer touchpoints. But at the moment, consumers don’t associate SunChips with anything that they see or taste.

They associate SunChips with what they hear.

SunChips has generated a lot of negative buzz over the way they sound. Or more specifically, the way their new bio-degradable packaging sounds – which, if the stories are true, produces an ear numbing 95 decibels of noise.

If you think that’s loud, it’s nothing compared to the deafening outcry from consumers that followed.

From twitter to facebook to the mainstream media, the bags took a beating. So much so, in fact, that Frito Lay is switching out the biodegradable bags and going back to the old packaging.

Regardless of the sunny colors and fresh marketing copy, the brand was undone because, for all its admirable attempts to reduce pollution, it wound up manufacturing pollution of another kind: noise pollution. And while they’ve experienced an 11% drop in sales, there is every indication that SunChips can, and will, develop another, more “sonically friendly” bio-degradable package. They may even benefit from the adverse buzz, focusing a future ad campaign around the “new sound” of SunChips.

It makes you wonder: if SunChips had paid more attention to how their brand was communicated sonically, would they have made different choices and avoided the disconnect between the brand and the sound that ultimately came to represent it? And knowing what they know now, will audio branding become an important element of future marketing strategies?

The last two questions of the survey asked respondents to list companies they belived to “have an interest in the community” and those that were thought “to be at odds with the community.”

I’ve finally compiled the list and I think the results will delight you. Some I was aware of, others I was very surprised to see on the list. Of the list I learned two things:

1. Some companies’ CSR page is hard to find. I tried to link you to as many as possible and
2. We should all marry people named Tom.

The list below is the A-List.

The original question asked: “When you think about companies that have an interest in the community, which companies come to mind? Please list them.”

Abita Beer
AFLAC
Apple
Ariel
Aveda
Bank of America
Bed, Bath, & Beyond
Ben & Jerry’s
Bike Planet
BP (MS-150 Event)
Chick-fil-a
Chili’s
Coca Cola
Comcast
Costco
CSX
Dawn
Deloitte
Dove
Giant
GOOD Magazine
Google
Harris Teeter
Home Depot
Honest Tea
Kashi
Kellogg
Kraft
Life is Good
Lowes
Mattel
McDonald’s
Microsoft
New Balance
Newman’s Own
Nike
Patagonia
Pepperidge Farm
Pepsi
Safeway
Seventh Generation
Starbucks
Stoneyfield Farm
SunChips
Target
Tide
Timberland
T-Mobile
Tom’s of Maine
Tom’s Shoes
Walt Disney Company
Wendy’s
Whole Foods

It may seem like a trivial matter — a corporate brand switching from an eco-friendly yet slightly noisy snack bag back to its quieter plastic counterpart — but SunChips’ decision to pull the majority of its “100 percent compostable” chip bags is a microcosm of a larger problem hindering our transition to a green society: the preference for personal comfort and convenience over progress and environmental awareness.

As global citizens and consumers, we don’t want to change the way we live or do business to better our planet and live more efficiently if it means sacrificing our beloved creature comforts: new, eco-friendly light bulbs are too bright, too ugly or too expensive; electric cars are too slow, too pricey or too effeminate; and, apparently, biodegradable snack bags are too loud.

Granted, SunChips is a product of Frito-Lay, a leading corporation in the snack food industry whose main concerns are customer satisfaction and continued revenue from the sale of their products, regardless of environmental impact. Although the company heavily marketed the new biodegradable bags as a step in the right direction for sustainable packaging, the reason SunChips made the switch was the foghorn of customer complaints — including semi-humorous Facebook group pages — about elevated noise-levels associated with the crunchy, plant-based bags.

As much as we’d like to blame the big bad billionaires at Frito-Lay, it’s us who need to make the real switch. How can we make large-scale changes to our governmental policies regarding environmental well-being, investment in green technologies and alternative energy, or reducing carbon emissions when we can’t even give up the relative quietness of a 99-cent plastic snack bag?

When a corporation steps up and gives us the choice to be more environmentally responsible by using their eco-friendly products, we have the responsibility to step up and sacrifice our delicate sensibilities for sensible consumerism.

Researchers announced yesterday that they had uncovered a rarity in today’s world: a previously unknown language, Koro, spoken by approximately 1,000 people in northeast India. Previously linguists had believed Koro to be a mere dialect of Aka, a regional language, especially because Koro speakers are culturally identical to Aka speakers. “There’s a sort of a cultural invisibility; they’re culturally identical in what they wear, what they eat, the houses they live in…. They just happen to have a different word for everything,” Swarthmore linguist K. David Harrison said.

Staten Island brutes busted in Stonewall gay bash [via The New York Post]

Two Staten Island men have been charged with attempted robbery and hate crimes after assaulting a gay man in the restroom of Manhattan’s Stonewall Inn, apparently unaware that the Stonewall is not only a gay bar but the “ground zero” of the gay rights movement. On June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall, a frequent bust in the gay community. That night, however, patrons fought back and rioted, becoming a catalyst for the burgeoning gay rights movement. Stonewall general manager Shawn Curran said, “That’s the thing — it’s not just ‘a’ gay bar, it’s ‘the’ gay bar.” The two men allegedly cornered the patron in the restroom, asked if the Stonewall is a gay bar, and attempted to rob him. The man escaped from the restroom and his assailants fled the bar, chased by several patrons and staff. The men were later caught by police.

Frito-Lay sends noisy, ‘green’ SunChips bag to the dump [via USA Today]

Frito-Lay is giving the pink slip to the new, biodegradable SunChips bag introduced just a year and a half ago. The bags, which were billed as 100 percent biodegradable, had an unusually rigid molecular structure that made them extremely loud when handled. SunChips sales dropped 11 percent in the last year, a market research group reported. “Everybody seems to be on the bandwagon for environmentally friendly packaging,” says JoAnn Hines, a packaging consultant. “But the problem is that bags like this come out without researching all the consequences.”

A little over 5 months (Earth Day) after Sun Chips introduced the world’s first 100% compostable bag, the company has decided to switch back to plastic, for the most part.  Although it’s good for the environment, the bag is quite loud.

There have been a few pages on Facebook about the noise of the bag and how the old packaging should be brought back.  My suggestion is when you want a chip, grab a chip not the sides of the bag.  Unless you’re trying to eat the bag, it doesn’t make much noise except when you’re opening it.  The bag is better for the environment, whereas the noise is causing what damage exactly?

On the upside, the bag won’t completely go away.  Of the five flavors (Original, French Onion, Harvest Cheddar, Garden Salsa, and Peppercorn Ranch), the compostable bag will continued to be used on the Original flavor.  One of the factories run on solar power.

The plastic bags can also be repurposed by a company called TerraCycle.  You would have to mail them the bags though, which does more damage to the environment than it would if the bags were compostable, not to mention if the company shuts down or no longer accepts them in the future for whatever reason.  There is also a cost to send them depending on how many bags you have and if you’re an organization or school.

I think Sun Chips or it’s parent company, Frito Lay, should have kept it on all of the flavors.  No sane person would stop buying the chips because of a loud bag.  I think the company could have afforded the minor loss in profit from any such people.  It just seems to me people can put up with a lot while more money or important things are at stake.  A quick example that comes to mind is how many people would put up with the reception and 3G coverage problems of AT&T to have the iPhone.

There is also a Facebook page to keep the bag here.

On an unrelated/side note, the following according to the website page contains pig enzymes and thus haraam for Muslims to eat, treif for Jewish people, and not vegan.

SunChips website
SunChips Facebook page
SunChips Twitter

[via Associated Press]

Frito-Lay hopes to quiet complaints about its noisy SunChips bags by switching out the biodegradable bags for the old packaging on most flavors.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101005/ap_on_bi_ge/us_noisy_sunchips_bag

Yes, we’re going nuts with these annoying little polls over here, favorite tasting toothpaste, mouthwash, best pizza, fried chicken, fast food burger…you name it. Now chips…

(AP Photo/Frito-Lay)

Frito-Lay hopes to quiet complaints about its noisy SunChips bags by switching out the biodegradable bags for the old packaging on most flavors.

The company is switching back to original packaging, which is made of a type of plastic, for five of the six varieties of the chips. It will keep the biodegradable and recyclable bags for its sixth variety, its original plain flavor. That’s its second best-selling, after Harvest Cheddar.

The snack maker said the switch started in the middle of September and should be complete by middle to late October.

The bags were launched in April 2009 with a big marketing effort to play up their compostability because they’re made from plants and not plastic.

But that which makes them compostable also makes them loud. The bags have a different molecular structure from the original packaging, and they’re stiffer. So people complained about the noise. Groups on Facebook abound with names such as “I wanted SunChips but my roommate was sleeping…” and “Nothing is louder than a SunChips bag.”

Spokeswoman Aurora Gonzalez said the company received complaints about the noise from the bags, although it also received thanks from customers who liked being able to recycle them.

So the decision was made to remove the bulk of the biodegradable line.

“We need to listen to our consumers,” she said. “We clearly heard their feedback.”

Frito-Lay, a unit of PepsiCo Inc., based in Purchase, N.Y., is developing its next generation of biodegradable bags and will use what it learned with the SunChips effort, she said.

More and more companies are trying to develop sustainable packaging, not just to save on costs but because it’s what shoppers want, said Bob Stolmeier, business development manager for Zip-Pak, who works with companies to create packaging. But there’s a limit to how much shoppers will sacrifice in the name of sustainability, and apparently noise is one of the sore spots.

“There’s no reason to offer solutions that the market would not accept,” he said. 

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)