Are cleantech companies becoming more savvy marketers?
Most of the companies I cover in the “cleantech” space have cool technologies, but when it comes to marketing their innovations many of them fall flat. Sometimes it’s simply the nature of their products, other times it’s simply inexperience, and other times it’s intentional — i.e. publicly and vocally touting a product that’s not ready isn’t the greatest strategy and can backfire.
Then there are companies that have no reason to brag or market but go way overboard, showing a desperation for attention that, in the end, frightens reporters, investors and others away.
Why am I bringing this up? I got a package in the mail the other day that contained a DVD box. On the front it read: “Tox Box… Captures Toxins, Viruses, Bacteria, Dust and Dander… Detoxify the air in your home… Next Generation Electronic Air Purifier.”
It caught my attention.
The DVD inside contained promotional information about this next-generation purifier, a creation of Toronto-based Cimatec Environmenal Technology Inc. It also points to the Web site ToxBox.ca, which is essentially a slick, well-designed online brochure providing details of the technology and telling people they can buy it at Home Depot.
Cimatec’s “media kit” reminded me of the type of creative marketing I witnessed during the dot-com boom. It’s a good sign that the space is maturing, and that marketers are recognizing the mass appeal of technologies/services that can help people clean their air and water, reduce waste, conserve energy and embrace clean power.
It’s not tough to figure out why there’s a market for this stuff. Just today a study was released that reveals “toxic chemicals, such as DDT, PCBs, stain repellants, flame retardants, mercury and lead, are contaminating Canadians.”
According to Dr. Rick Smith, executive director of a group called Environmental Defence, “If you can walk, talk and breathe, you’re contaminated… Canadians are exposed everyday and in incredibly insidious ways to harmful toxic chemicals. We are guinea pigs in a massive, uncontrolled, chemical experiment, the disastrous outcome of which is measured in disease and death.”
Gulp! I’m surprised I’m alive to write this entry. Gotta get myself a Tox Box.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca
November 10th, 2005 at 2:43 pm
Personally this is too over the top for me. If I see something as slickly packaged as this Tox Box my BS meter turns on.
I think alternative technology companies need to walk a very fine line with their claims. They need to have a public fascade that explains their products in plain English with easy to understand diagrams. Behind that, they need to make available whitepapers and references so that people like me in the blogosphere don’t eat them for lunch.
November 10th, 2005 at 2:51 pm
Fair enough, but my point is that there’s no point in coming out with a great technology if you’re bad at marketing it. I don’t know a thing about Tox Box or the company behind it, but they at least caught my attention. If, during the type of further investigation you pointed out, you find it’s all a load of crap, then that’s the risk any company takes.
February 17th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Has anyone found any hard data to support the product performance claims of the “Tox Box”?