Disinfectant So Green You Can Eat It? File Under "Interesting Promotion"

I subcribe to many, many e-newsletters from green consumer product companies.  Like everyone else, given email overload, I don't open all of them.  But one subject line caught my eye this week:

"What's For Dinner this Week?  We're Here to Help!"

Naturally, you would assume that the email was from a food company.  But what made me look twice was that the sender was CleanWell, maker of plant-based disinfectants.  The company was inviting readers to head to their Facebook page or blog and share recipes featuring ingredients used in CleanWell products, such as "orange, vanilla, oregano, thyme, ginger, spearmint, and lime."

Ok.  I am of two minds about this.

On the one hand, CleanWell is creatively using unexpected juxtaposition to paint a squeaky green image of their disinfectants:  As in "Wow!  Our germ-killing products are so non-toxic you can eat them!"  (Well, not literally, of course.)

On the other hand, let's remember that to reach mainstream consumers, it is essential, as Jacqueline Ottman points out in her very insightful book, "The New Rules of Green Marketing",  to emphasize "primary benefits".  In CleanWell's case, that primary benefit is non-toxic ingredients that effectively disinfect your home and your hands, not offer inspiration for cookies and spaghetti sauce.

So, the recipe invitation might offer some fun for existing CleanWell fans, who are already sold on the products' disinfecting capabilities.  And that's exactly what CleanWell is doing by inviting submissions through their Facebook page and blog. So kudos to them.

But would the "Disinfectant so green you can eat it?" theme work for a broader campaign aimed at people who have never heard of CleanWell?  Would these folks believe that a product which touts ingredients commonly found in refrigerators and spice racks actually keep their kids' hands germ-free during flu season? 

It would be very interesting to find out if such a campaign would work, but I sure would want to do some focus group testing with the target audience before I launched it!