TThhee VViirraall GGrreeeenn The IT Industry and Green Web Marketing

Georgia State University

J. Mack Robinson College of Business

Masters of Science in Marketing

Capstone Independent Study

Dr. Pilling – Spring 2009

Final Project

Jacob J. Aull

April 29, 2009

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Abstract – The Green Movement, IT, and Web 2.0 The current green movement in the U.S. has produced a fervor extending beyond the

public into the day-to-day business world. Greenwashing has run rampant, as countless

industries now advertise with green messaging and unsubstantiated claims. The Internet –

and Web 2.0. – have been heavily imbued with green messaging.

Web 2.0 is perhaps a misleading term. But essentially it represents the culmination of

open source technologies enabling social media and Web site widgets. These

technologies have changed the form of the IT industry and Web communications in

general. Communications in Web 2.0 are unique because they can be one-to-one,

collaborative, relationship-focused, and targeted to the “prosumer.”

For all the focus in modern business on green issues, the IT industry is a very minor

culprit in US greenhouse gas emissions. Yet there are many green IT products and

services advertising to increase efficiency in the data center. Much attention is paid to

making the IT industry or software companies appear more green – yet B2B buyer

companies and business journalists instead request more relevant or useful services, such

as carbon reporting software. Reasons for this lack of service could be post-dot-com

caution or lack of U.S. governmental reporting standards. Or it could be a simple lack of

ability to innovate.

There are new business and IT approaches regarding R&D and cost-efficiencies today.

Some strategic marketing approaches celebrate innovation and reduced costs resulting

from open collaboration in Web 2.0. Vehicles for this include Web 2.0, customer-

collaborative communications. These could help birth future offerings of green IT

services.

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Abstract – Content Analysis (Secondary Research Report) A study was conducted to better understand IT industry green promotions in Web 2.0.

Top 20 software and programming companies (by revenue) were sought for green claims

in Web promotions (four video-gaming companies were removed from this study for

irrelevance). Six of the remaining 16 firms did feature green advertising As a result, there

were 20 green ads out of 184 (total ads from all companies reviewed). Green claims were

judged (and clicked-through) for substantiation. Most green ads were judged process-

oriented, and only three were judged to be unsubstantiated claims. Green advertising

claims were checked for substantiation via maximum allotment of three click-throughs.

Only two green ads were judged to have customer-orientation – unfortunately, as this was

arguably the best category to represent actual business potential and service to the

marketplace. Regardless, observing differences between companies that did make green

claims, versus those that did not, revealed intriguing results. Companies that did make

green claims also had a higher amount each of Web 2.0 communications overall (66%),

versus IT companies with no green claims (60%). This was especially true in social

networking profile pages (LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace), where companies that did

make green claims simultaneously occupied 24 profiles between them. Comparatively,

counterpart companies had only 10 total profiles between them.

None of the examined ads revealed software products whose primary offering was green

reporting. Yet readers may find interest in the revealed quantities, and unique uses, of

Web 2.0 communications among IT companies.

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Content Outline I. BACKGROUND: GREEN IN THE MARKETPLACE TODAY p. 4

The State of Green Green and Web 2.0

II. CSR IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE WEB p. 7 Reporting Standards Cautious Advancement FUTURE Potential FOR GREEN IT SERVICES Web and Business Theory Web Search Marketing The Green Beyond Tactics

III. SECONDARY RESEARCH REPORT: CONTENT ANALYSIS OF IT “GREEN” ADVERTISING IN WEB MEDIA p. 16 Introduction: Rationale for this Research Inspirations for Study Research Methods Inspirations for Study Research decision statements and objectives Companies Typology Media Channels Brand Name Search Challenges Advertising Placement Affiliate marketing Judging Time Lapse Additional Potential for Bias Results

IV. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS p. 38

V. SOURCES p. 39

VI. APPENDICES p. 43 Appendix A: Preliminary research (conducted in the week before final research) Appendix B: T-Mobile green ad Appendix C: VMWare green Web promotion Appendix D: Comprehensive content analysis spreadsheet

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I. BACKGROUND: GREEN IN THE MARKETPLACE TODAY

THE STATE OF GREEN

Trends in corporate social responsibility (CSR) rise and fall with the decades – this is

especially true with environmental issues (Scammon & Mayer, p. 34). The 2000s have

seen an unprecedented time of green consumer interest, emphasis in the marketplace and

pressures on business. Current green issues comprise recycling, renewable resources and

alternative energy sources. Businesses have embraced the ‘viral green.’ Companies such

as Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola and Tesco (Europe) have consistently made headlines for

reducing supply chain greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and requiring supplier carbon

footprint credit counts (“Green is Good,” 2007). Countless sites and advertisements today

cover magazines and the Web with green messaging – whether promoting a company's

green initiatives, reporting carbon footprints, requesting customers to "save trees by

requesting online, paperless billing" (see image in appendix; T-Mobile, 2009), or just

blatant "greenwashing." Many of these efforts focus on business cost-savings from

energy efficiencies (Feuchtwanger, 2009).

In studying the motivations for CSR issues in the marketplace, many facets must be

considered. These various motivations and ideas also reveal challenges of definitions in

basic terminology. For example, a common green word is “sustainable.” However, in the

business world with some confusion, sustainability can mean a focus on environmental

preservation, the sustainable power of a corporation, or even a mixture of the two

(Krueger & Gibbs, 2007). CSR issues have been used in strategic marketing to attract an

interest market, or to represent a company’s (or its leader’s) own ethics (“Union of

Concerned,” 2005). Likewise, often in business, environmental motivations or results are

often just efficiencies savings. That is, by reducing energy consumption, a company may

reduce costs and simultaneously promote an improvement in greenness (Elgin, 2007).

Hence, a common business strategy is to focus on the latter, or strive for a happy medium

between efficiency and environmental ideals (Rigby, 2008).

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While it may be tempting to judge companies on their CSR involvement or purported

ethics, many business writers and thought-leaders raise issues regarding the role of

businesses, governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in advancing

environmental issues (Vegter, 2008). Many business thought-leaders claim that

environmental issues should be far more the domain of governmental control than

corporate effort. They cite industry problems of corporate motivational conflict, lack of

corporate knowledge, inability to control the greater physical environments, and lack of

cohesion and guidance between companies for green efforts (“Good Company,” 2005.).

Put bluntly, “The proper business of business is business” (“Ethics of Business,” 2005).

Irrespective of theory or accountability, “green” messaging is here today and seemingly

ubiquitous – in both the physical world and the World Wide Web.

GREEN AND WEB 2.0 The current, hot term ‘Web 2.0’ is misleading for many. Despite the suggestion, it is not a

‘software upgrade.’ More than anything, Web 2.0 is a term attached to myriad, current

advances in Web technologies and social media. Some common definitions include viral

capabilities and multi-channel networks (as opposed to traditional one-to-many broadcast

models and single-message advertisements; “Boom in Network,” 2007).

Enabling technologies for Web 2.0 include AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML

combined) – a merging of disparate programming languages enabling simple widgets. An

additional enabling technology is that of “mash-ups,” yet another tool for integrating

disparate software technologies. These are easily combined via widgets on the simplest

Web site (Deans, p. 198). It is such capabilities that have allowed the Internet to advance

from traditional search engines and e-commerce, to recommendations engines, such as

found on Amazon today. Supply and demand have increased for broadband access, also

aiding open Web-based, cross-compatibility B2B software such as CRM (customer

resource management; Bowman, 2008). Likewise, such technologies have enabled viral

social networking software (such as MySpace and Facebook), wikis (user-written article

upload) and other user content sites, such as blog-submission sites Technorati and Digg

(Scott, 2007).

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There is also no question that Web 2.0 has played a strong role in the current

environmental movement’s visibility. From corporate green-centric promotions, to

organizational activist Web sites, to dynamic metrics reports for environmental issues –

the Web teems with topical information. In fact, a truly landmark data Web site called

ScoreCard was created by the US government in 1998, specifically to publicize corporate

pollution data (Tapscott & Williams, p. 200). It achieved an unexpected level of attention

with massive hits by a curious public, and was considered one of the first, best,

foundation-setting examples of Web 2.0 (more on this below). In the more immediate era,

green has consumed blogs, as well as online communities, festivals and fund raisers such

as the 2009 “Twestival” on microblog Twitter, which funded a charity helping water

shortages and contaminations worldwide (Wortham, 2009). Not surprisingly, non-profit

organizations are escalating online fund-raisers – finding them more efficient, low-cost

and profitable than traditional approaches (Passmore, 2009). Playing off the Web 2.0

moniker, even the term “Green 2.0” has crept up in communications to describe the

current green movement (Vogel, 2008).

It is not surprising that environmentalists would find their voices on the blogosphere. The

unique attributes of this viral communications channel show the ability of fringe,

extremist and outlier opinions (or even just the loudest in a populous) to amplify their

voices for all to read. Amazon recently found this out the hard way. Strong opinions in

the blogosphere created national awareness around Easter 2009 regarding Amazon’s

(apparently unintentional) miss-categorization of alternative lifestyle literature. Amazon

initially ignored the firestorm of negative comments on blogs and microblogs. The longer

Amazon remained silent, the more the angry voices built. Finally Amazon fixed the

categorization issue and apologized online (James, 2009).

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II. CSR IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE WEB

Naturally, one would expect the IT industry to be Web 2.0-savvy, embracing these new

channels for communications. But what about the current green movement – are

prominent software companies also on the ‘viral green’ bandwagon? And do these virtual

products realistically contribute to pollutants or local, national or global environmental

degradation?

The IT industry currently only contributes to 1.5% of U.S. CO2 emissions – yet the most-

visible green IT services’ promotional literature and public documents self-servingly

focus on “e-waste” or greening for IT data centers (“IBM Project Big Green,” 2008).

IBM at least is a small exception to this rule – having made some progress offering

customer green reporting software in addition to its greener data centers (“IBM’s Green

Software,” 2008). Otherwise, when IT companies aren't focused on making servers more

efficient, PC manufacturers HP and Dell actively compete to prove whose company

supply chain is more green in the market (“Green is the way,” 2007). IT and computer

companies elsewhere are major contributors to worthy CSR initiatives, such as the non-

profit program “One Laptop Per Child (OLPC),” devoted to advancing children’s

education among the earth’s poor by providing laptop PCs at little over $100 each

(Talbot, p. 60).

Yet, in more familiar fare, in the B2B IT solutions realm, specialized green IT services

receive accusations of greenwashing and a lack of true business benefit (Vegter, 2008).

Members of the press and media call for more green IT services’ reporting solutions to

serve business in general (Winterford, 2008). NGOs provide green issues consultation

and services, and request reporting and IT involvement to serve current green values and

future government demands (“Business Guide,” 2008). There is also common media

request for triple bottom line reporting:

…while pursuing profit, enlightened companies should take care to protect the

environment and uphold the rights of workers (and others) as well. Hence the

“triple bottom line” which thought-leaders on CSR (including the United Nations

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and the European Commission) want companies to monitor and report… (“World

According to CSR,” 2005)

And the United State’s largest contributing industry to GHG emissions, the transportation

industry (33%), is not prominently obtaining green IT services or reporting (Nat’l Surface

Transport, 2007). While studies for this industry (and its IT solutions) are too few, what

few there are challenge simple assumptions. For example, a study in Japan proved that e-

commerce book sales have a higher transportation carbon footprint than traditional retail

store book sales (Williams & Tagami, 2002).

This is not to suggest that green concerns have been entirely unaided by IT or Web

deliverables. The aforementioned example of ScoreCard has already been given. At the

same time of this innovative inception, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

also commissioned the Environmental Land-Use Control Web Ring, which enabled area-

specific monitoring of environmental issues, toxins and violations, inspiring local citizens

into action (Deans, p. 198). Cited as precursors of Web 2.0 technological integrations,

these Web sites performed “mash-up” type combinations of graphic information software

(GIS) with dynamic data (Tapscott & Williams, p. 200).

Even today, GPS and mash-up integrations are recommended for basic company Web

sites (Wertime & Fenwick, p. 5). For software advancement and optimization they are

essential “The rise of Web 2.0 requires [software] applications to be much more dynamic,

bringing demands for dashboards, scorecards, graphics, maps and even animation”

(Actuate, 2009). IT and the Web have elsewhere promoted CSR issues with landmark

Web 2.0 site “The Human Genome Project,” a global, collaborative, biological research

leap-forward (Tapscott & Williams, p. 163). Likewise, social network SparkPeople

allows people to monitor and share their exercise and overall wellness information – with

timely, contextually-served health advice (www.SparkPeople.com). And SocialVibe

allows people to select sponsorship, donate to favorite social cause foundations, and

populate this info on their other social media (www.socialvibe.com). As these projects

prove, there is at least capacity for technological and idea innovation in light of CSR

concerns.

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REPORTING STANDARDS Irrespective of IT industry capabilities, multinational corporations (MNCs) meanwhile do

face green reporting requirements beyond the U.S., in a world where all other advanced

nations have ratified The Kyoto Treaty (Vogel, 2008). Again, lack of current

environmental standards for business, which should be directed by the U.S. government,

can be a large contributor to the confusion and lack of green IT services. There is a

painfully apparent lack of baseline, cognitive metrics for environmental issues (Vegter,

2008). Concomitantly, large U.S.-based corporation early adopters of green reporting are

discovering that accurate green reporting needs to come from industry-specific experts as

opposed to general NGO consultants. For example, Starbucks has a strong, leading brand

reputation in CSR and green endeavors (it even provides pamphlet sustainability reports

in its retail stores for all customers). Yet Starbucks complains that green consultants,

accordingly employed for measurement, may know horizontal environmental issues, but

don’t know ultimately how to measure or optimize vital parts of coffee industry processes

(Lee, 2008). This perhaps puts the onus back on industry-specific IT services to fill in the

holes, since these already often contain customer niche expertise, as well as the

technological knowledge to provide green reporting services.

CAUTIOUS ADVANCEMENT

Another reason for lack of green IT services must certainly be the ripples of fear still felt

from the 2001 dot-com shake-out and bubble burst. The new breed of IT has certainly

been much more cautious in its business models. Concurrently, the IT industry is also

attempting the maturity to recognize and wait out the "hype cycle of e-commerce and

new technologies" (see exhibit 1; “Hype Cycle,” 2008). To avoid a new, great "trough of

disappointment" (such as with the dot-coms), IT companies may await a "green" demand

that is more relevant to predictable, traditional business concerns, and in a more mature

phase of the hype cycle.

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Exhibit 1: Gartner’s Hype Cycle (this hype cycle curve is considered for all new software or hardware technologies, broad or narrow; “Hype Cycle,” 2008).

Today Americans feel the after effects of an economically catastrophic 2008, and the

dawn of an unknown 2009, with a new president and economic plan. All industries,

including IT, are unsure of the new models for successful business, but there is no

question that the Internet plays a big role. Even for items not sold or advertised online,

consumers now research online in advance for what used to be pure impulse, hedonic

purchases (Jones, S., 2009). And the research, in these new channels, involves consumer-

written reviews and collaboration in "peer-to-peer networks" (Mootee, 2007). Using

social software to write content (such as reviews and opinions formerly restricted to the

media), consumers now become simultaneous producers or "prosumers" (Wertime &

Fenwick, p. 73). While this increases customer involvement in supply and demand

models, it is easy to see how this new phenomenon can confound traditional business

approaches and the post-burst, dot-com caution of new IT services. Marketers now must

collaborate with consumers in two-way dialogue, focusing on long-term relationships in

Web 2.0 communications, as opposed to traditional one-time-message advertisements

(“Avoid Pitfalls,” 2009). Once the broad reach and collaboration of the online

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marketplace is better understood, it is conceivable that IT providers as well can be

quicker to conceptualize and serve new demand (see exhibit 2).

Exhibit 2: A value chain progressing toward green IT solutions

FUTURE POTENTIAL FOR GREEN I.T. SERVICES

Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams in Wikinomics forecast a new era of business

broad-reach and collaboration on the open source Web (2006). They see business

innovations, in all industries, working in an open approach and benefiting from the reach,

strategies and external involvement of agile giants such as Google, The Human Genome

Project and even IBM. Specifically, this strategy is termed “open innovation” (or open

sourcing), and focuses on collaboration – with customers, affiliates and vendors

(McGregor, 2009). This new model of collaboration achieves and caters to the new

markets of prosumers. Contrarily, traditional corporate and IT intellectual property R&D

approaches have highly guarded innovations and technological capabilities within the

company’s “walled garden” (Smarr, 2008). According to Tapscott and Williams, world,

science and technology problems now just need an invitation for publics online to

collaborate and solve.

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Exhibit 3: Helen Brown’s “policy-borrowing cycle in case studies” of tech and environmental innovations (p. 38)

This outlook has parallels with that of Helen Brown, author of Knowledge and

Innovation (2008). In this book Brown explores the global, interwoven cross-pollinations

essential to major innovations today (comprising IT, Web and environmental thought and

breakthroughs; see exhibit 3). Following these theories, the world seems ripe for

breakthrough innovations, for both environmental issues and IT, requiring only the

tactical implementation to communicate and facilitate.

WEB AND BUSINESS THEORY In spite of new Web 2.0 technologies and ideas however, the business aspects of these

theories still purport the early dot-com credo – requiring early, huge Web presence for

awareness, market share and economies of scale. These “network effects” represent

Metcalfe’s Law, an Internet theory requiring more and more users to achieve e-business

profitability (“Boom in Network,” 2007). Often-cited companies such as Amazon and

eBay are chief examples of this model. To the downfall of many, this original dot-com

Web-presence strategy (based on single-channel networks), required a critical-mass

advertising awareness before economies of scale kicked in – only then did the lower costs

of e-commerce (versus brick-and-mortar) truly profit the company.

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Yet this is not the only perspective. Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine sees the new

power of the Web as a platform for businesses to increasingly serve the “extreme niche

customer.” Here, the “long tail” of product offerings and revenue profit niche providers

(2004). While the costs to serve such miniscule segments were too high in traditional

business models, the Internet now becomes the great, low-cost, niche-business driver

(Scott, 2007). If this particular concept gains popularity and acceptance, it could solve

some complex problems of current business green reporting – such as the aforementioned

Starbucks dilemma. If a coffee-industry-specific, environmental-efficiency expert were to

arise 20 years ago, how easily and quickly could she have publicized her niche offering to

the appropriate people in promising companies? Likewise, how could they have known

of her existence? Hence, the demand for niche, a business model already visible in the

shadows of the modern IT environment. If vertical specialized IT services could

incorporate green expertise and reporting in their offerings, they could grow profits from

the increasing needs of the "infinite niche" (DigiMarketing, 2008) - while simultaneously

aiding the world’s greenness.

WEB SEARCH MARKETING To further explain the long tail, search engine marketing (SEM) can be considered. For

pay-per-click (PPC) keyword purchases, search engine marketers choose between “head”

and “long-tail keywords” (Jones, ch. 2). Head terms were common in the early days of

search engine advertising. These broad keywords (for example, “green”) were purchased,

following Metcalfe’s Law, to achieve network effects via broad, common searches. The

industry has migrated to much more niche keyword purchasing. For one, keyword bid

prices are based on demand. Hence, broader, more common terms are more expensive.

Long-tail specific terminology is less in demand and less costly, but also more actionable.

For example, the chances of someone searching keyword “green” and simultaneously

seeking “green IT services” are pretty slim (and expensive). Yet someone searching

“green IT services” is seeking just that – and consequently represents a higher likelihood

to click-through and purchase (Jones, ch. 2).

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Google CEO Eric Schmidt further severs The Long-Tail Theory from Metcalfe’s Law by

endorsing the latter’s network effects as a requirement for new Web business models and

companies. He predicts “In fact, the Internet will lead to larger blockbusters and more

concentration of brands” (Schmidt, 2009). Regardless, both theories as discussed above

have application for advancing green efforts.

Beyond critical mass or behavioral niche, there are opinions that environmentalism needs

to be a local geographic issue (Krueger & Gibbs, 2007). The argument spotlights how

different locations have very different environmental problems with very different

scopes. Therefore, who better to address and discuss these than local governments and

their publics?

Since a major strength of the Web is the ability to transcend geographical boundaries, it

may seem counter-productive to tie Web 2.0 approaches to local issues. Yet ScoreCard

and Environmental Land-Use Control Web Ring, as discussed above, operated on a local

ZIP-code level (Deans, p. 198). An important differentiator here is the role of Web 2.0 as

public collaboration. In aforementioned book Knowledge and Innovation, historical

problems with government-initiated innovations are revealed (2008). These hierarchical,

“waterfall” management approaches dictate top-down, cascading orders (Gentle, p. 156).

Yet what is truly required for innovation and public support (critical elements to

environmental causes) is bottom-up (and horizontal partner) knowledge and ideas

(Brown, p. 68). The power of Web 2.0 and social media rise from this bottom: the

ultimate power of mass-collaboration.

THE GREEN BEYOND TACTICS

This paper has examined myriad perspectives on optimal business and technology

innovations – as well as their applicability to modern environmental issues and ideas. It

has reviewed accusations that the IT industry is not serving much-needed B2B tools for

green reporting. This paper has presented examples of environmental, Web 2.0

integrations and their applications at the local geographic level. It has presented the

power of global, open-source innovations – attributable to Web 2.0 business approaches,

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as well as Metcalfe’s Law network effects. Likewise, the appropriateness of the Web has

been demonstrated for low-cost, non-profit fund-raisers. The business requests for niche-

specific knowledge and IT green reporting have been reviewed. This paper also presented

the long-tail of the Web as potential enabler of niche business. This paper considered

arguments favoring environmental issues as governmental concerns rather than

businesses’. And here the U.S. has been considered as a world laggard in political policy

for environmental issues.

The common thread to all of these purports that the ideas and tools for technological and

green innovations and achievements are available – requiring only openness and tactical

facilitation to bring them to fruition. Yet there are voices indicating that true green

solutions require something bigger and much more elusive – a kind of ‘universal mental

shift’ (Boyle, 1996). Additionally, some claim that this mental shift must be encapsulated

(or perhaps even conducted) using new terminology for association. This too has been

attempted, as green promoters in industry and education alike have attempted new terms,

such as GE’s “Ecomagination” (Rigby, p. 1), or research authors Menon and Menon’s

“Enviropreneurial Marketing Strategy” (1997). Often, used verbiage is either confusing

to uninformed audiences or immediately receives bias (Scammon & Mayer, p. 34). For

example, part of the U.S.’s laggard approach to environmentalism, according to the New

York Times, lies in preconceptions or misconceptions of terms. “Carbon tax”

terminology has immediately received negative connotations by politicians, while

“carbon offset” terminology has received positive attributions according to research

(Gertner, p. 43). Another, often-cited prerequisite for positive, environmental discussions,

is correct “framing” for the audience (Gertner, p. 42). It is worth considering whether

Web 2.0 collaborative, two-way communications could enable optimal dialogue in these

regards.

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III. SECONDARY RESEARCH REPORT: CONTENT ANALYSIS OF I.T. “GREEN” ADVERTISING IN WEB MEDIA

INTRODUCTION: RATIONALE FOR THIS RESEARCH Beyond traditional business models, and even without monetary reimbursement, Web

2.0 tools have allowed for much successful consumer- and professional-driven

innovation (take for example the “open-source” computer language Linux platform –

available to anyone for free use and creation; Tapscott & Williams, p. 8). For the IT

industry to advance green reporting software and services, a key factor to success

could be Web 2.0 (and Web 3.0) approaches (Wertime & Fenwick, p. 13).

This paper does not attempt to predict the future. It does attempt to better understand

cross-pollinating issues of environmentalism, B2B software services and Web 2.0

integration. Therefore, the content analysis research portion of this report examines

the occurrence and nature of green Web promotions among the top 20 IT companies.

IT companies’ proven familiarity with green-focused communications and Web 2.0

technologies may reveal a degree of advancement in customer benefiting business

green solutions.

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INSPIRATIONS FOR STUDY: A driver for this research was to achieve answers to the following questions:

1. What types of environmental claims are being used by top IT companies to

promote their green concern?

2. What types of claims appear most often among Web green promotions?

3. Is there incidence of vague claims, or claims not substantiated, among

environmental ads?

4. Do some Web media platforms serve more green promotions than others?

These questions, largely drawn from “A Content Analysis of Environmental Advertising

Claims: A Matrix Method Approach” by Carlson, Grove and Kangun (p. 29), inspired the

research decision statement, questions and hypotheses below (exhibit 4). Capitalizing on

that same source, this study harnessed content analysis to research IT industry Web green

promotions. The original source approaches were deemed transferable, as both that and

this study examined green promotional claims.

RESEARCH METHODS: • Search and access GoogleFinance top 20 IT companies’ Web sites.

• Search and document companies’ (immediately accessible) green promotions.

• Access top Web 2.0 and 1.0 channels (listed below) and search and document

same companies’ green promotions (exclusively from first page results listings).

• Observe and document all ads based on content types and orientation (criteria

below).

• Aggregate, and calculate quantity of common, like ad occurrences.

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RESEARCH DECISION STATEMENTS AND OBJECTIVES Exhibit 4: Decision statement translation process (Zikmund & Babin, pp. 112-113)

Top IT Industry Players’ “Green” Advertising in Web Media

Situation Symptoms Probable Problem Decision Statement

Research Objectives

Research Questions

Research Hypothesis

The researcher desires to understand the nature and pervasiveness of IT industry “green” Web advertising claims.

Many businesses, including IT, promulgate “green” ad messaging today and are accused of “green-washing.”

To appeal to current green trends, much Web advertising showcases vague “green” messages.

Are IT companies “greenwashing” in their Web advertising?

Search for top 20 IT companies’ (by revenue) Web advertising to discern types (and qty) of “green” messaging.

What, if any, are the types of messaging in IT green advertising (vague, quantitative, narrative)?

Majority of “Green” messaging, in IT Web advertising, is vague or unsupported.

IT industry has been accused of not delivering B2B-demanded green-reporting products focused on buyers.

It is easier to spin company-focused green initiatives for ad messaging, than to create and promote products that aid customers in greening.

Do IT companies self-serve, or serve their customers’ needs, with their green offerings (as communicated in Web advertising)?

Discern the content orientation for same (as above) IT companies’ green advertising.

What is the content focus for the majority of IT companies’ green advertising (process, image, environmental, or customer)?

The “Green” advertising majority’s content-orientation is not customer-focused.

Web 2.0 presents many new channels for advertising today.

Newer Web advertising channels require up-to-date technology awareness and creative capabilities. Many industries lack here, but presumably the IT industry are new Web ad channel innovators.

How commonly are newer Web advertising channels used as compared to older Web media?

Discern balance of IT “green” advertising in prominant, innovative Web 2.0 (social networking and tagging software) media vs. traditional Web 1.0 channels (SEM, Web page ads).

How many IT “green” ads exist in Web 2.0 media vs. traditional Web 1.0 channels?

“Green” advertising representation (qty) exists equally in Web 2.0 media as Web 1.0 channels.

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COMPANIES A purpose of this study was to observe top IT companies who could potentially aid

customer companies in green reporting and analysis. Therefore, the top 20 “Software &

Programming” companies by revenue were picked from GoogleFinance.com

(GoogleFinance.com, 2009). It is important to note that Google Finance offers different

subcategories to choose among for “technologies.” For example, Google itself is listed as

the top in the “computer services” subcategory ($21.8b). For this report, the subcategory

“software & programming” was chosen, because these companies have the greatest

ability to provide green reporting services to business customers. Undoubtedly this report

would have uncovered a more hardware-efficiency focus if focused on available

subcategories such as “computer hardware,” “computer storage devices” or “computer

networks” (GoogleFinance.com, 2009).

The top 20 software and programming companies include:

1. Microsoft Corporation

2. Oracle Corporation

3. SAP AG (ADR)

4. SAIC, Inc.

5. Symantec Corporation

6. CA, Inc.

7. Infosys Technologies Limited (ADR)

8. Adobe Systems Incorporated

9. Amdocs Limited

10. Intuit Inc.

11. Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp.

12. Autodesk, Inc.

13. VMware, Inc.

14. Lender Processing Services, Inc.

15. BMC Software, Inc.

16. McAfee, Inc.

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From the original list, the following four companies were discarded, because they are

video gaming companies and do not serve B2B software as a prominent deliverable:

Electronic Arts Inc.

Activision Blizzard, Inc.

Konami Corporation

International Game Technology.

TYPOLOGY The typology of this report owes much to predecessor research reports and journal

articles on green advertising:

Green advertising is defined as any ad that meets one or more of the following

criteria:

a. Explicitly or implicitly addresses the relationship between a

product/service and the biophysical environment.

b. Promotes a green lifestyle with or without highlighting a product/service.

c. Presents a corporate image of environmental responsibility (Banerjee,

Gulas & Iyer, p. 24).

Further, the following words (and their variations) for this study identified “green”

messaging:

• greening

• environmental

• recycled

• sustainable

• global warming

Sustainability is a bit confusing, as it can mean either environmental sustainability or

business sustainability for the future (or both; Krueger & Gibbs, 2007). Likewise, the

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following words are sometimes associated with environmental issues, but were ruled too

vague to identify “greenness” in this study:

• efficiency

• renewable

• energy

• corporate social responsibility (CSR; “Union of Concerned,” 2005)

Typology used for this study was largely drawn from Carlson, Grove and Kangun.

Derived categories for green content orientations included, “Process Orientation, Image

Orientation, Environmental Fact and Combination” (p. 31). Another orientation, “Product

Orientation,” was dismissed from this study, since software products themselves are

mostly intangibles and don’t truly exist in the physical environment (aside from

packaging, which is used less currently due to Web downloads). Any claims in this study

focused on products were portioned into other appropriate categories. A final category

added for content orientation was “Customer Orientation,” for example representing

software products claiming to make customers greener, or to serve customer demands for

green reporting (see second research objective, exhibit 4, above).

In addition to content orientation, a second typology of concomitant categories was added

to represent content focus – derived from “Corporate Social Disclosures by Listed

Companies on Their Web Sites: An International Comparison,” by Williams and Pei

(1999). That report analyzed claims made involving “environmental,” as well as other

CSR categories. The report’s categories for “sentence… analysis” included: “(1)

monetary; (2) quantitative; and (3) narrative” (p. 397). That typology was deemed

transferable to this study, as it too studied companies’ green claims found published on

the Web. The content-focus categories were used concomitantly in this study to clarify

how found, green promotional claims were substantiated by their advertisers. The

departure from the Williams and Pei typology here was to combine the first two

categories (quantitative/monetary). This category collapse was conducted to better

facilitate the relatively small base, and to cleave numerical from narrative claims.

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Unlike the Carlson, Grove and Kangun content analysis (p. 37), these Web promotions

were given the benefit of claim-checking in linked materials. That is, after discovering a

green promotion, a maximum of two click-throughs were allowed, as rules for this

research, for an advertiser to provide content to substantiate a claim. For example, if a

green claim was made on a Web site home page, the (single) nearest or most pertinently

described link would be clicked to seek claim-substantiation. The maximum allotted

number of two click-throughs was determined by preliminary research into the nature of

Web promotional content, claims, sales communications and linking strategies

(additionally, Kristopher Jones’ Web book Search Engine Optimization, 2008, provided

best-practices reference).

This rule of two click-throughs also applied to keyword-sponsored ads, which were

typically short enough in copy to exclaim company or product name and a minimal

offering statement (usually not enough room for a cognitive green claim). Hence, ads

were typically clicked-through once to review (and verify) the company’s ad landing

page, and then one additional click-through was checked to substantiate a green claim (if

made). The term “click-through” is used in this study liberally to imply functions

resulting from clicking a link or button. However in social networking software such as

LinkedIn, clicking upon the “see more” content button merely expanded the profile page

to preview more content – without actually “clicking through” to a disparate Web page.

Despite this technicality, the term “click-through” in this study was applied to this

function in LinkedIn. Therefore, any claim made on a customized LinkedIn profile page

was still expected to be substantiated in the expanded copy from clicking (if not from

another link).

If a green promotion (with a designated content-orientation category attribution) was

observed not to substantiate its claim, it was re-categorized with one of two

classifications: “Vague” (again drawn from Carlson, Grove & Kangun, p. 31, but yielded

no coded results in this study), or the added category “Unsupported (no claim

substantiation).” Further, vague or unsupported claims were separated from true green

claims results. Hence, just as the Carlson, Grove and Kangun content analysis (p. 30)

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permitted “classification of claims that were deemed to be acceptable,” this study gave a

positive value to green promotions which had either monetary/quantitative or narrative

claim-substantiation.

The background content of this study reported industry accusations and requests,

purporting that IT companies have not offered their true green IT capabilities to the

market. They have neglected to produce green reporting to make customer companies

more green (instead concentrating on presenting themselves, and data storage products,

as more green). It would be tempting to judge all green-message companies in this study

as proponents of greenwashing – unless they truly featured customer-oriented,

substantiated green claims (see second research hypothesis, exhibit 4, above).

Substantiated green claims of customer orientation would presumably represent B2B

software that aids customers in green measurement or estimates. This would likewise

assume that claims of process- or image-orientation did not provide an optimal, green

benefit to B2B customers or the greater market. However it is important to remember that

environmental perceptions and claims require subtleties beyond black and white thinking.

It is not as simple as declaring a company (or many claims) right or wrong, “green or

non-green” (Banerjee, Gulas and Iyers, p. 22). In “Shades of Green: A Multidimensional

Analysis of Environmental Advertising,” Banerjee, Gulas and Iyers purport that “Being

green, therefore, should be conceptualized as a continuous variable with shallow and

deep involvement as the two extremes” (p. 22). Therefore, green claims in this study have

been judged solely on the nature of the claims themselves and how, or if, they were

substantiated. To truly determine and rate IT companies based on their responsibilities

and benefits to the greater market is beyond the scope of this study and would require

steep attention to the multiple "shades" discussed by above authors.

MEDIA CHANNELS A purpose of this study was to explore promotions in publicly accessible Web channels

(see first research objective, exhibit 4, above). More specifically, careful examination

was given to Web 2.0 media, their collaborative approaches and communications for

currency (see third research objective, exhibit 4, above). Just as the modern green

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movement and alternative energies require global collaborative efforts and major

innovation (Guggenheim & Gore, 2006), according to Moore’s Law, IT requires

innovation at rapidly accelerating rates. The background portion of this paper has already

presented Helen Brown’s studies cross-pollinating environmentalist movement

innovations with IT and Web. While innovation in and of itself was not a focus for this

research, a cross-section of IT and the modern green movement in business was.

Therefore, this convergence of innovation-related topics suggested careful examination of

the innovative media of Web 2.0. Hence, top Web 2.0 “multi-channel networks” were

studied as promotional media (“Boom in Network,” 2007). Specifically, top channels of

Web 2.0 platforms were derived from the book Social Software and Web 2.0 Technology

Trends, edited by P. Candace Deans (2009). These channels included social networking

software (LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace), tagging media (Flickr and Del.icio.us), and

virtual world (Second Life). From book The New Rules of Marketing and PR,

recommended top blog search engines Technorati and Digg were selected for the study to

represent Weblogs (track 4). As blogs are very niche in content focus, primarily based on

one person’s view points, these major blog submission sites were chosen to represent the

most Weblog content.

Although key to this study, Web 2.0 media were not intended as exclusive sources –

more traditional Web platforms were also integrated (see third research hypothesis,

exhibit 4, above). Web site home pages could not be ignored – particularly since on the

Internet today, many Web 2.0 ads click-through to company Web site ad landing pages or

home pages themselves. In this research, Web site home pages were found by typing the

company brand name in the Universal Resource Locator (URL) field in a Web browser.

This typed company name was the common, familiar brand name for the market, or the

name used in a company logo. For example, instead of the full, formal name “Infosys

Technologies Limited,” only the name “Infosys” was used for searches. This applied to

all other names as well (exact details and results of searched names were captured in

individual research documents recorded for each company at the time of research). While

in almost all cases there were no problems, questionable Web site home pages were

additionally confirmed by linking directly from the GoogleFinance Top-20 page.

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In addition to the Web site home page as a common, bountiful source of promotional

claims, traditional search engine keyword searches could not be ignored. Most social

media incorporate search engines and contextually serve keyword PPC ads (a primary

focus of this study). Hence, it made sense also to study keyword ads served from the

traditional, top three search engines: Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft/MSN (Jones, ch. 11).

Searches in social media were conducted in the same way as searches in search engines.

In all cases the same (common) company brand names keyed into URL fields were keyed

into Web search fields on appropriate sites. If a choice was given between searching “the

Web” versus just a site search, searching the specific site was chosen. For example,

MySpace defaults to “search the Web.” For this study, “search MySpace” had to be

manually selected to receive only MySpace organic and sponsored list results.

An important channel for Web 2.0, the future of marketing, and this study is virtual world

Second Life. Second Life does require download and installation on a desktop computer

(although it interacts on the Web). To begin “searching” in Second Life, an avatar must

be created. For the purposes of this study, an avatar was created and teleported to the

“Orientation Island” to learn optimal company-searching strategies. The chosen, optimal

approach involved searching for company-owned islands from the Top 20 IT group.

Once “in-world,” from the Second Life “search” button, the company name was typed in

and searched for “place” (Deans, ch. VII). For the resulting listed company islands, the

avatar “teleported” (without flying) and stood where landed. For rules of this study, the

only permission for avatar forward progress occurred when Second Life directed the

avatar to move. That is, red directional arrow indicators appeared on the island, in front

of the avatar, listing proximity to the company island’s epicenter or reception location.

Once the avatar moved and arrived at the epicenter, the indicators would disappear, and

no additional avatar movement (forward progress, walking or flight) was permitted.

Keyboard right- and left-arrow buttons were permitted and used to turn the avatar’s

vision 360 degrees in search of “green” promotions. Any perceived communications were

“zoomed” (via Second Life “mouse look;” physically turning the mouse’s wheel) to

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observe in detail, but no avatar movement (forward progress) took place. The reason for

this approach was to avoid directional (or other) bias, as it would be nearly impossible to

replicate avatar exact movements in a location for purposes of future study. Three

hundred and sixty degree vision, however, is not impossible to replicate. Since a purpose

of this report is to view the “immediate accessibility” of IT green communications, avatar

movement (beyond teleporting and head-turning) was restricted in this research.

Microsoft is a good example to illustrate the importance of Second Life to Web 2.0

approaches and innovations. In preliminary research Microsoft’s top Second Life organic

search result (for “all” instead of “place”) produced a Wiki on how to build in Windows

for Second Life. This is a great demonstration of prosumer- and Web 2.0-integration –

touching consumer connections, collaboration and creation (Wertime & Fenwick, p. 222).

Following teleportation, the Microsoft island also immediately offered product demos

and class-style learning in a virtual amphitheater (also good customer focus

representation). However scoring such items was beyond the scope of this research.

Many social media, such as Del.icio.us, have profile pages appearing in organic search

results. However, profile page results, for the purposes of this study, were researched

only in social networking software (as their core business offering comprises profiling for

social connections). Social media on the whole offer myriad Web 2.0 functions.

Del.icio.us is primarily a URL bookmarking, tagging and sharing site (Deans, p. 193).

Likewise, MySpace is one of the highest-activity blog sites (Deans, p. 154). Also, several

IT companies studied here uploaded video demos to MySpace pages, emphasizing

MySpace as a video resource (upload, tagging and sharing) site. All social media studied

here appear to have similar dichotomies of roles and positioning – they all offer more

social media features than their primary, perceived positioning represents.

Readers may wonder about personal favorite media with similar features, for example,

Wikipedia, YouTube and Pandora. Wikipedia for one does not allow advertising.

Likewise, these sites were not the top subjects of focus in Web 2.0 marketing sources

Social Software and Web 2.0 Technology Trends (2009), The New Rules of Marketing

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and PR (2007), DigiMarketing (2008) or Wikinomics (2006). Yet Google’s YouTube is

an important widget integration – just as GoogleMaps is an important mash-up (mash-ups

are Web 2.0 widgets and tools for combining software technological and hosting

capabilities on Web sites). YouTube-hosted video allows company sites or software to

easily upload, integrate and measure results (Wertime & Fenwick, p. 76). Pandora is a

music customization site, allowing users to create, customize, share, bookmark and rate

their own radio stations – another great example of Web 2.0 capabilities integrated

(www.pandora.com).

Two other Web channels that had to be removed from the study were Twitter and MSN

(search engine). Twitter, a microblog, is one of the most visited sites of Web 2.0 media

(Walsh, 2009). However it does not return obvious company-paid advertising (such as

search engine pay-per-click results for company listings, or other contextual advertising),

and therefore was removed from this study. Likewise, Microsoft (MSN.com) is one of the

top three search engines (Jones, ch. 11), but an obvious conflict of interests arose in this

report, as Microsoft was also the top IT company (in revenue) being measured. Assuming

a natural skew in its favor, the Microsoft search engine was consequently removed from

this study. This is not to say that all conflicts of interest were herein removed –

presumably some subject IT companies are affiliate partners of, or else own share

interests in, the social media providers within which they are studied. For example, the

Google search engine now searches Adobe PDF files for content on the Web, presuming

some cooperation between the two companies (Adobe is one of the top 20 IT companies

studied; Chartier, 2008). At least in name however, the one obvious conflict was negated.

BRAND NAME SEARCH CHALLENGES This brand name search approach did create problems for the company “CA, Inc.,” which

received searches for company name “CA,” and in many cases yielded many returns for

the state of California or other acronyms. In fact in Digg, the search produced no results,

as two letters were too short for a proper Digg search. These problems were perceived as

a branding problem for CA – research results were recorded as found. Resolving potential

confusion in the greater marketplace for company names is beyond the scope of this

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research – when CA advertises, they have the misfortune of competing in part against all

organizations that might also have some claim on those two letters. Similar problems

occurred with Lender Processing Services, Inc. When searches for “Lender” produced

conflicting, undesirable results, “Lender Processing” was attempted as well in all media

for confirmation. In both cases, results were exactly the same (most of the time yielding

no promotions), proving Lender Processing Services as a company with very little Web

presence and an unfortunately confusing brand name.

ADVERTISING PLACEMENT Social Media PPC sponsored results text advertising is not necessarily always chosen by

the advertiser. For example, Google AdWords advertising networks allows contextually-

served ads on a vast network of Web sites including some social media. Depending on

the level of an advertiser’s chosen account, there are varying degrees to control where ads

appear. Some accounts allow network preferences controls to exclude advertising on

certain sites. Other account levels allow only “all or none” choices between all Google

networked and affiliate sites or just Google.com (Jones, ch. 11). Of course such Google

textual advertising is contextually served, providing an automatic filter for ad locations.

Yahoo!’s model of advertising options is similar. However the purpose of this research

report is not to investigate whether IT companies deliberately chose specific social media

for green advertising. Logically, the companies (and/or their advertising buyers) that

appeared in Google- or Yahoo!-served sponsor listings in social media, at least knew they

could appear in Social Media (and approved of this possibility) – and likely had even

more control than this, given the size of company and advertising accounts

(Jones, ch. 11).

Some media channels are more transparent about their search engines than others. For

example, Flickr is a Yahoo! company, utilizing Yahoo!’s search engine for site searches

(flickr.com, 2009). Del.icio.us also provides Yahoo! search PPC listings. Digg’s searches

are provided by Microsoft (Digg.com, 2009). But LinkedIn has its own search engine

independent of Google or Yahoo! (Longest, 2009). Technorati has its own search engine

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(Technorati.com is considered a blog search engine, but it additionally does present a

couple of ads by Google buried in organic search results).

Of course regardless of keyword sponsored listings, company-customized pages are

purposefully placed in social networks. Take for example, a Microsoft page in MySpace,

obvious of Microsoft’s own creation to attract fans and raise brand awareness. Some

social media pages are harder to discern in origin – employees, users or brand fans

sometimes generate pages for companies they wish to support, or to connect with other

supporters. Likewise, some social network pages exist in foreign languages; for example

Microsoft has several Facebook pages in foreign languages. The purpose of this report

however is not to examine languages beyond English; therefore these few pages are

discarded from the study.

While the term PPC (pay-per-click) is used liberally throughout this report, it is important

to note that not all keyword sponsored ads are necessarily PPC. Some Web sponsored ads

are CPM (cost-per-thousand, based on reach or “eyeballs”). For example, Facebook

offers CPM advertising. But for the purposes of this study, the term PPC is an

understandable designation for labeling ads and is used accordingly.

AFFILIATE MARKETING Beyond advertising choices, IT companies do decide upon affiliate partnerships. The

wealth of affiliate advertisements resulting from specific company media searches

demonstrates the growth in collaborative strategies synonymous with Web 2.0 and 21st

century approaches to innovation success (McGregor, 2009). Affiliate listing results have

not been included in this report, as they exceed its purpose. That is, not all affiliates (or

affiliate programs) are created equal. Some PPC listings by parties may be close alliance

sales partners for the IT companies, some may merely be third-party retailers who carry,

for example, some Microsoft products. In many cases, PPC listings are presented by

head-hunters or customer-companies hiring employees experienced with the forenamed

company’s products/services. It is conceivable that some PPC advertisers may not even

be authorized, or knowingly allowed, to use the brand names. Likewise, there is the

possibility that a company’s product or daughter brand sponsors served links. However, if

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the company does not obviously claim the brand as its own, it must be ignored for the

purposes of this study. Logically, even if a company does make a “green” promotional

claim through its daughter brand, if it does not also claim the daughter brand in

promotions, then it must be assumed that the mother brand does not desire to project a

relationship (whether the desire concerns “green” associations or not is left unknown -

only the divide is purposeful). Therefore, this report concentrates on listings obviously

traceable to the IT companies themselves.

Social networking software profile pages present similar problems, such as many profile

listings, with none clearly created to fit and promote the IT brand, by the IT company.

That is, many profile pages appear “unprofessional, not designed” relative to, for

example, company Web sites. It is certainly worth considering that some IT companies

may desire profiles to look authentically created by customers and fans, to propagate that

very spirit among others. For example, it is conceivable that Microsoft may want a

MySpace page to look as if it were created by a common MySpace user, to represent her

affinity for Microsoft products, to put the focus on customers and fans rather than the

company. Affirming authenticity for such stealth marketing is beyond the purposes of

this study, and therefore questionable sources are removed. Lest it seem a biased and

haphazard method of judgment, here are the criteria by which social network software

profiles, as well as apparent PPC keyword ads and landing pages, are measured:

1. Use of the IT company’s official logo

2. URLs containing the company’s name, for example, www.sap.com/landing_page,

or www.facebook.com/sap

3. Copyright statements with the IT company’s name, for example, “Copyright 2009

SAP All rights reserved”

4. Visual and tone consistency with other “official” company promotions, for

example Web site home page

Profile and landing pages which did not automatically measure up to such criteria were

automatically disqualified from the study.

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As discussed, more IT companies that did have green messaging also presented more

social networking software customized-profile pages than did other companies. It may be

tempting to expect that these IT companies (with green-messaging and greater social

media representation) have an end-consumer face to the market, eliciting social

networking media. However, two giants with consumer- (and B2B-) facing sides,

Microsoft and Adobe, did not make green claims in the media studied.

JUDGING A total of 184 total promotions were observed, judged and categorized by the author.

There were many duplicate promotions (for example, ads leading to duplicate landing

pages); however, unlike the content analysis of Carlson, Grove and Kangun, duplicate

promotions here were not discarded (p. 32). This was because of the purpose here to

count instances of green Web promotions – regardless of repeatability. In this study, total

broadcasts were more important than unique, disparate messaging.

The author of this study was the sole judge of content. Obviously, this can raise questions

of bias. Certainly, it can be insinuated that it was the author’s nature to find green

promotions that might be overlooked by the casual observer. However, it was not a goal

here to replicate the common or Hedonic consumers’ potential discovery of IT industry

green promotions. Rather, a purpose was to capture what, if any, Web green promotions

were being conducted by top IT companies within a narrow timeframe. Another, future

beneficial study could attempt consumer awareness or attitudes toward such promotions.

Likewise, a study on perceived relevance, by IT customers toward IT company green

claims, could be of future interest. Both of these are beyond the purposes of this study,

however.

Rather than attempt causal observance of green promotions, the author of this study

carefully scoured (often twice or thrice for confirmation) the promotional content to

capture any and all green claims. This purposefully skewed search approach by the author

should be perceived as no more biased than that in “Shades of Green: A

Multidimensional Analysis of Environmental Advertising.” In that study, the authors

purposefully researched ads selected by a “green marketing consultant” to study the

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nature of green ads (p. 23). Here in this study, the author himself scrutinized Web

promotions to discover green claims.

A (reduced) trial run for this study’s research portion was even conducted by the author

one week prior to the specific time of research to affirm research systematization and

comprehensiveness, or to discover flaws in methodology. Typology and categorization

were also observed and approved by two doctors, professors of marketing at Georgia

State University J. Mack Robinson College of Business, two days in advance of the

actual research. Likewise, individual documentation of specific company results was

reviewed and approved by same professors for depth of detail immediately following

actual coding and reporting.

TIME LAPSE A sensitive aspect of the Web is time required to alter communications. Obviously, Web

promotions do not require advance insertion as do monthly periodicals. Change can be as

instantaneous as desired.

To attempt to control at least changes in time and resulting bias, the research was

conducted over only three days. Web 1.0 and social media research was conducted over

Saturday, April 4, and Sunday, April 5, 2009. All Second Life research was conducted on

Monday, April 6, 2009. The purpose here was to capture a horizontal assessment of green

Web promotions within a narrow snapshot of time. This timely value was referenced by

researchers Williams and Pei whose typology was designed “…to control for potential

fluctuations due to timing differences when comparing results based on Web Site

information…” (Williams, Pei, p. 396). It is worth noting that later in the same month

was Earth Day (April 22). Likewise, just before this content analysis began, lights went

out worldwide for Earth Hour on the evening of March 28 (“Sydney,” 2009). One would

expect advertising studied during this time to be abundant – perhaps even biased.

However a goal of this research was to study green advertising and greenwashing. If a

certain period yielded more results than another, the proliferation could boost this study.

Regardless, no green messaging in this study mentioned these events, nor were there any

inconsistent communications suggesting event-specific advertising.

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ADDITIONAL POTENTIAL FOR BIAS Web content is often greatly impacted and altered by automated efforts. Cookies enable

Web sources to glean a user’s specific information and preferences, and contextually

served ads change based upon algorithms or user search terms. Web search fields

“remember” previous terms searched and offer these again. What’s more, the Internet is

starting to move into its next phase – Web 3.0 – which threatens greater invasion of

privacy to more accurately serve listings and advertisements. It also boasts the “semantic

Web” – the ability for algorithms to transcend keyword and terminology affiliations in

spider analysis, moving into semantic analysis and ad serving (Deans, p. 13). That is,

content will be automatically assessed based on the semantics of the messaging. For

example, content searches for “tree houses” will serve relevant ads rather than ads about

“houses with trees.”

Social networking software achieved more bias than any other examinations of this study.

Specifically, LinkedIn and Facebook, are very biased – searches are not allowed without

logging in with a user profile. Login access requires full profile creation, including

personal information (allowing the social software to contextually suggest links on

provided information). Therefore, keyword ads are served based on a user profile’s

recorded background information and interests – as well as search terms. In spite of this

bias, social networking software was deemed too critical to Web 2.0 advertising to be

excluded from this study (and in fact interesting results were provided).

By heavily drawing from the content analysis of Carlson, Grove and Kangun, their

emphases on “objectivity, systematization, sampling methods, and reliability” were

hopefully to a degree inherited in this study (p. 29). Regardless, the potential forms of

bias discussed here are simultaneously indications of the Web’s unique strengths – and

therefore grant great importance on such research. As Williams and Pei state, “Space

allocation… provides Web Sites with an advantage... companies have the advantage

when using Web Sites of being able to establish a one-to-one relationship with a

stakeholder… This ability to communicate… immediately enables a closer and more

personal relationship between the stakeholder and entity in question” (p. 393).

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RESULTS: 16 total disparate investigations (or visual fields to examine) occurred per IT company

(total 256 investigations), but many more disparate promotional possibilities existed (in

the form of total potential results listed on one page). That is, for each company,

examinations occurred on Web site home pages, search engine results listings, social

media search results listings, etc., totaling 16 investigations each. One positive find

resulting from one company search, for purposes of this report, was considered to be one

promotion, or one claim. Claims were checked for substantiation, but click-throughs were

not counted as disparate promotions or claims themselves. These were viewed merely as

the support documents to the original promotion or claim (hence, results counts did not

include separate, support iterations).

A total of 184 promotions were observed and recorded. 10.9% of these contained green

claims (20 green promotions total; see exhibits below, or comprehensive spreadsheet in

appendix). Only three green claims (from three different companies) were judged to not

be substantiated (hence “greenwashing”). This result was contrary to the original research

hypothesis predicting that the “Majority of ‘Green’ messaging, in IT Web advertising, is

vague or unsupported” (see exhibit 4 above). These three, unsubstantiated claims (within

maximum allotment of two click-throughs), coincidentally also all achieved “process”

claim-orientation judgments, as well as a “narrative” claim-focus. It follows logically that

unsubstantiated claims did not project quantification or monetary claims focus, since

accurate, pertinent numbers would have theoretically proved substantiation for the initial

green claims. Regardless, results were virtually equal between total number of green

quantitative/monetary-focused claims versus narrative-focused claims. Process

orientations also dominated overall green-claims results with 12 (out of 20). The next

most-common result was image-orientation, which achieved six green claims.

Unfortunately only two claims were judged to be “customer orientation” (both from

VMWare; see VMWare Web site promotion in appendix). Theoretically, substantiated,

customer-orientation claims would prove the most value to customers and greater

industry. This result was consistent with the original research hypothesis predicting that

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“The ‘Green’ advertising majority’s content-orientation is not customer-focused.” (see

exhibit 4 above).

Exhibit 5: Green promotions content results TOTAL GREEN WEB PROMOTIONS FOR TOP 20 IT COMPANIES

Content Orientations12 Process Orientation 60.00% of all green claims were judged process orientation6 Image Orientation 30.00% of all green claims were judged image orientation0 Environmental Fact2 Customer orientation 10.00% of all green claims were judged customer orientation0 Combination

20 TOTAL (Orientations) 37.50% of top 20 IT companies had green Web promotions

Content Focus9 Quantitative/Monetary

11 Narrative (Instructional or Theoretical)20 TOTAL (Focus) 7.81% is the yield of green promotions from investigations20 GREEN COMMUNICATIONS TOTAL 10.87% of all promos contain green msg

2 Claim-Substantiation AVG#of click-thrus 2 avg click-throughs per green claim0 Vague description green claims3 Unsupported/no claim-substantiation 15.00% of all green claims were unsubstantiated3 VAGUE/UNSUPPORTED TOTAL 1.63% of all promos contained unsubstantiated green claims

17 SUBSTANTIATED CLAIMS TOTAL 85.00% of all green promos had substantiated claims164 Promotions contain no green msg 89.13% of all promos had no green messaging184 Total Promotions 9.24% of all promos were substantiated green claims256 Total investigations 71.88% is the yield of promotions from investigations

Interestingly, although IT companies that made green claims represented only 37.5% (six

out of 16) of all companies studied, more of these IT companies had customized social

networking software profile pages (LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace), than companies

with no green messaging. The six IT companies that did have green promotions also

occupied a total of 24 customized social networking software profile pages (five of which

contained green messaging), while the other 10 companies had only 17 customized

profile pages among them total. Similarly, companies that did make green claims also

had more keyword sponsored ads overall in Weblog search engines (Technorati and

Digg) than did companies with no green messaging. The green-message companies

featured nine ads (three of which contained green messaging), compared to seven ads

among the other companies.

Only one green advertisement was observed in virtual world Second Life (the same one,

twice). Following the rules of the typology, signage was viewed in-world on the

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Autodesk island (after teleporting, to the same location, from two organic listings). The

signage promoted a lecture on environmental importance. Hence, this research

demonstrated that even Second Life is used for accessible presentation of green claims.

Exhibit 6: Media platform advertising results Media results for: All (6) IT companies who did have green web promotions

Corporate Web Site

Weblog submission

Tagging Media SEM PPC

Virtual Worlds Web 1.0 Web 2.0

HOME PAGE

Custom pg total:

PPC ad totals: sites total: Total: Total:

Second Life Total: Total:

25% 15% 10% 15% 10% 15% 10% 40% 60% 100%Green Communications Total: 5 3 2 3 2 3 2 8 12 20

33% 13% 67% 33% 20% 30% 67% 32% 24% 27%

Claim-Substantiation #of click-thrus: Average = 20% 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 100% 100%

Vague/Unsupported claims total: 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 30% 13% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 6% 4%

29% 0% 12% 18% 12% 18% 12% 47% 53% 100%Substantiated claims total: 5 0 2 3 2 3 2 8 9 17

33% 0% 67% 33% 20% 30% 67% 32% 18% 23%

19% 39% 2% 11% 15% 13% 2% 31% 69% 100%Promotions contain no green msg: 10 21 1 6 8 7 1 17 37 54

67% 88% 33% 67% 80% 70% 33% 68% 76% 73%

20% 32% 4% 12% 14% 14% 4% 34% 66% 100%Total Promotions: 15 24 3 9 10 10 3 25 49 74

100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Media results for: All (10) IT companies who had no green web promotions25% 15% 8% 6% 15% 15% 15% 40% 60% 100%

Total Promotions: 27 17 9 7 17 17 16 44 66 110n% = out of aggregate

n% = out of total promotions

AGGREGATE TOTAL:

Social Networking Software Totals:

Results show that companies that did make green claims were simultaneously more likely

to communicate more overall in Web 2.0 media. 66% of the communications from green-

message companies were in Web 2.0 (49 total for six companies, 12 of which contained

green messages), while only 60% of the other 10 companies’ communications were in

Web 2.0 platforms (66 total). Companies that did make green claims also averaged 8.2

promotions each in Web 2.0 platforms (12.3 promotions each in overall Web media),

while companies without green messaging averaged only 6.6 Web 2.0 promotions each

(11 promotions each overall). A partial explanation for this increase in promotions

overall for green-message companies may be real estate: more media, more ads and more

pages allow for more content - including green claims presumably secondary to primary

product or service offerings.

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An original research hypothesis predicted that “‘Green’ advertising representation

(quantity) exists equally in Web 2.0 media as in Web 1.0 channels” (see exhibit 4 above).

This paper has already discussed the research proven problems with attempting such a

divide – namely that many Web 2.0 technologies (such as widgets or blogs) now exist on

traditional Web media channels (such as Web sites). Likewise, the amount of investigated

visual fields and specific media channels were not equal between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0

categories (see exhibits here, or comprehensive spreadsheet in appendix). These Web

terms aid in understanding the history and roles of the Internet, but ultimately challenge

research categorizations such as these. That said, results showed that green

communications in Web 1.0 platforms represented 12% of all (16) IT companies’ Web

1.0 promotions (8 out of 69), while Web 2.0 green communications represented 10% of

all Web 2.0 promotions (12 out of 115).

Exhibit 7: Total advertising results Media results for: All 16 IT companies

Corporate Web Site

Weblog submission

Tagging Media SEM PPC

Virtual Worlds Web 1.0 Web 2.0

HOME PAGE

Custom pg total:

PPC ad totals: sites total: Total: Total:

Second Life Total: Total:

25% 15% 10% 15% 10% 15% 10% 40% 60% 100%Green Communications Total: 5 3 2 3 2 3 2 8 12 20

12% 7% 17% 19% 7% 11% 11% 12% 10% 11%

Claim-Substantiation #of click-thrus: Average = 2

0% 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 100% 100%Vague/Unsupported claims total: 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 3

0% 7% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 3% 2%

29% 0% 12% 18% 12% 18% 12% 47% 53% 100%Substantiated claims total: 5 0 2 3 2 3 2 8 9 17

12% 0% 17% 19% 7% 11% 11% 12% 8% 9%

23% 23% 6% 8% 15% 15% 10% 37% 63% 100%Promotions contain no green msg: 37 38 10 13 25 24 17 61 103 164

88% 93% 83% 81% 93% 89% 89% 88% 90% 89%

23% 22% 7% 9% 15% 15% 10% 38% 63% 100%Total Promotions: 42 41 12 16 27 27 19 69 115 184

100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Total Investigations: 48 48 48 32 32 32 16 80 176 256

n% = out of aggregate

n% = out of total promotions

AGGREGATE TOTAL:

Social Networking Software Totals:

Web 1.0 platform promotions in general had virtually equal quantities among the

company groupings, as both green-message companies and their counterparts averaged

just over four promotions each in Web sites and search engines. It also bears explanation

that Web site home pages (labeled here a Web 1.0 media platform) in this study were

given three disparate positions of promotions (primary banner graphic, textual description

or body copy, and skyscraper or other image ad). While this may be viewed as unequal

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weighting, it is the real estate consumed, and relative importance of the medium to

corporate marketing, that warrants a Web site’s heightened status. However, even on a

home page, as “traditional” as it gets for Web media promotions, Web 2.0 technologies

may be incorporated. For example, blog entries, widgets or mash-ups can potentially be

integrated into a corporate home page (Deans, p. 198). Hence, there may be no true, clean

way to separate Web 1.0 from 2.0 media today (in fact a truer study may be to compare e-

promotions today to those of 10 years ago).

IV. Concluding Thoughts None of the examined ads focused on software products whose primary offering was

green reporting. To be fair, the purpose of this research was not to find these products.

Rather, it was to better understand the amount, and nature, of green claims in IT industry

Web promotions. Specifically this comprehensive paper has discussed:

• Alignments between 21st century, Web 2.0, business and R&D approaches

• The modern green movement and innovations in industry

• The IT industry and green IT reporting services

• IT industry Web promotions and green claims

It appears from this research that modern software and programming companies are not

harnessing a strategic alignment with Internet channels to aid environmental concerns.

Nonetheless, these companies are using Web 2.0 approaches to attract consumers,

provide them with professional content (including environmental facts and information),

and interact with customers in interesting – perhaps innovative – ways.

- Jacob J. Aull, April 29, 2009

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VI. Appendices

Appendix A: Preliminary Research (conducted in the week before final research) COMPANY/BRAND NAME SEARCHES (FINAL APPROACH):

Typing URLs for IT companies (or searching/clicking on provided URLs, then subtracting domain-name extensions to land upon the straight home page), the following (in order of rev) have “green” communications on home page:

SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation, body copy claims to solve environmental problems, “SAIC is a Fortune 500® scientific, engineering, and technology applications company that uses its deep domain knowledge to solve problems of vital importance to the nation and the world, in national security, energy and the environment, critical infrastructure, and health.”); infosys (sustainability report banner ad on home page); Autodesk (body copy states, “As ARRA funds fuel infrastructure projects, Autodesk Technologies support a more sustainable future.”); VMWare (“green” all over home page, in ads & body copy). NOTES: 4/20 were gaming companies. Adobe did express CSR with a “TRUSTe” logo on home page for personal privacy and identity security. McAfee expressed CSR by covering cybercrime and global information security threats all over home page. GREEN IT SEARCHES – BG & CASE FOR DISMISSAL

NOTE (all below searches conducted 3/31/09):

“green IT” first page sponsor/PPC search listings in all media:

LinkedIn: No top 20 IT firm listed. However Dell is at top of list.

Facebook: Organic listings appear to be groups, not obviously tied to top 20 IT companies. Paid listings have nothing to do with either “green” or “IT,” rather seem to be contextually driven by the account-holder’s claimed interests and experience.

mySpace: This is the only social networking site allowing company or service searches without requiring a user log-in (which can skew contextually-served ads). Considering the younger demographic stereotyped for mySpace, many results appeared for “green IT.” However, the only top 20 IT subject in paid sponsor listings was Microsoft. mySpace’s search function is powered by Google.

Digg: No top 20 company results on first page of search sponsor results.

Technorati: Same as Digg.

Flickr: Flickr, a Yahoo company, provided the same results as mySpace.

Del.icio.us: Bookmarking and sharing site Del.icio.us provided the same results as mySpace and Flickr, without openly disclosing a third-party search engine.

Google: Only immediately obvious paid sponsor listing is Microsoft.

Yahoo: Same results as Google.

Second Life: Second Life does have a “classifieds” section for ads, but neither top 20 IT firms, nor “green IT” results appear in searches there. For the purposes of this study, placing importance on “immediacy” of green promotions, IT companies were studied on their own islands. That is, company names were searched in “places,” followed by teleportation. Immediately following avatar teleportation to an IT company’s island, avatar vision scanned 360 degrees to observe any green communications. Any communications observed were “zoomed in” for detail, but no forward movement was involved in the observance. With 360 degree-ability for movement – vertically as well as horizontally – “immediacy” of observance was deemed most objective when precluding forward movement.

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NOTE: Digg searches bring up no Oracle ad results, nor Green SAP ad results. No “green IT” ad results corresponding to top 20 on first page. Similar results for Technorati, and ad results for “green IT” seem to be unrelated contextually (fit “IT,” but not “green”).

PPC searches for “green IT”:

Since, as previously discussed, “green IT services” is a market offering in the innovation stage of the product life cycle, with minimal market awareness and common vernacular, I wanted to test for the accuracy of this term. Running searches in social media and all three search engines, I tested this term (“green IT services,” in quotes) against other terms (“green IT,” “carbon footprint software,” “carbon reporting software,” “carbon credit software,” “carbon credit IT,” and others). The purpose of this research report is not to outline these specific, varied keyword search comparisons and therefore results are not exhaustively reported here. However, the most pay-per-click (“sponsor” listings) results came from keywords “green IT” (in quotes). As comparison, “Green IT services” searched in Yahoo brings up only Semantech as recognizable vendor on first-page ORGANIC listings. As another example, searches in Flickr bring up many results for IT company name keywords such as SAP and Oracle, but none for “Green IT services.” The only paid sponsor is, as in other media searches, www.itservicesweb.net. Since the “green IT” results best fit the nature of this report’s objectives, these were the official keywords used for the final documented searches.

Search engine PPC results for keywords (in quotes) “green IT”:

Google: Google on its first page listings yielded an IBM affiliate, two Microsoft ads and a Xerox ad.

Yahoo: Yahoo only came up with 3 sponsor listings (I think Yahoo varies amount & results of PPC each time of search – even for same keywords), one of them being Microsoft.

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Appendix B: T-Mobile Green Ad

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Appendix C: VMWare green Web site promotion

Appendix D: Comprehensive content analysis results spreadsheet

Media results for company: All web promos(green&non-green combinedSocial Networking Software Virtual WorldsCorporate Home Page LinkedIn FaceBook MySpace Totals: Weblog submission sites Tagging Media SEM Pay-per-click

Content Orientations Home Pg bOther imagText/descr TOTAL: Custom pgPPC ads Custom pgPPC ads Custom pgPPC ads Custom pgPPC ad totNetwork ToTechnorati Digg Twitter* TOTAL: flickr Del.icio.us TOTAL: Google Yahoo Microsoft** TOTAL: Second Lif Web1.0 TOWeb2.0 TOAGGREGAContent OrientationsProcess Orientation 1 0 1 2 3 0 0 0 0 1 3 1 4 1 1 0 2 1 1 2 1 1 0 2 0 4 8 12 Process Orientation

Image Orientation 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 2 2 4 6 Image OrientationEnvironmental Fact 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Environmental Fact

Customer orientation 1 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 Customer orientationCombination 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Combination

TOTAL (Orientations): 2 0 3 5 3 0 0 1 0 1 3 2 5 1 2 0 3 1 1 2 2 1 0 3 2 8 12 20 TOTAL (Orientations)

Content Focus: Content FocusQuantitative/Monetary 1 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 2 1 1 2 1 1 0 2 0 4 5 9 Quantitative/Monetary

Narrative (Instructional or Theoretical) 1 0 2 3 3 0 0 1 0 0 3 1 4 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 2 4 7 11 Narrative (Instructional or TheoreticalTOTAL (Focus): 2 0 3 5 3 0 0 1 0 1 3 2 5 1 2 0 3 1 1 2 2 1 0 3 2 8 12 20 TOTAL (Focus)

GREEN COMMUNICATIONS TOTAL: 2 0 3 5 3 0 0 1 0 1 3 2 5 1 2 0 3 1 1 2 2 1 0 3 2 8 12 20 GREEN COMMUNICATIONS TOTAL

Claim-Backing #of click-thrus: Average = 2 Claim-Backing #of click-thrusVague description 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Vague description

Unsupported/no claim-substantiation 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 3 Unsupported/no claim-substantiationVAGUE/UNSUPPORTED TOTAL: 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 3 VAGUE/UNSUPPORTED TOTAL

SUBSTANTIATED CLAIMS TOTAL: 2 0 3 5 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 2 2 1 2 0 3 1 1 2 2 1 0 3 2 8 9 17 SUBSTANTIATED CLAIMS TOTALPromotions contain no green msg: 13 12 12 37 12 3 19 2 7 5 38 10 48 5 8 0 13 11 14 25 12 12 0 24 17 61 103 164 Promotions contain no green msg

Total Promotions: 15 12 15 42 15 3 19 3 7 6 41 12 53 6 10 0 16 12 15 27 14 13 0 27 19 69 115 184 Total PromotionsTotal investigations: 16 16 16 48 16 16 16 16 16 16 48 48 96 16 16 32 16 16 32 16 16 32 16 80 176 256 Total investigations

NOTE: *Removed from study for lack of advertising. **Removed for conflict of interests.If a company makes a green claim (appearing as at least 1 positive score in "Content Orientations"), then the claim is expected to be "substantiated." If there is no positive score in "Content Focus," the claim is considered "Vague/Unsupported."

Media results for company: All companies who had green web promos Social Networking Software Virtual WorldsCorporate Home Page LinkedIn FaceBook MySpace Totals: Weblog submission sites Tagging Media SEM Pay-per-click

Content Orientations Home Pg bOther imagText/descr TOTAL: Custom pgPPC ads Custom pgPPC ads Custom pgPPC ads Custom pgPPC ad totNetwork ToTechnorati Digg Twitter* TOTAL: flickr Del.icio.us TOTAL: Google Yahoo Microsoft** TOTAL: Second Lif Web1.0 TOWeb2.0 TOAGGREGAContent OrientationsProcess Orientation 1 0 1 2 3 0 0 0 0 1 3 1 4 1 1 0 2 1 1 2 1 1 0 2 0 4 8 12 Process Orientation

Image Orientation 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 2 2 4 6 Image OrientationEnvironmental Fact 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Environmental Fact

Customer orientation 1 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 Customer orientationCombination 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Combination

TOTAL (Orientations): 2 0 3 5 3 0 0 1 0 1 3 2 5 1 2 0 3 1 1 2 2 1 0 3 2 8 12 20 TOTAL (Orientations)

Content Focus: Content FocusQuantitative/Monetary 1 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 2 1 1 2 1 1 0 2 0 4 5 9 Quantitative/Monetary

Narrative (Instructional or Theoretical) 1 0 2 3 3 0 0 1 0 0 3 1 4 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 2 4 7 11 Narrative (Instructional or TheoreticalTOTAL (Focus): 2 0 3 5 3 0 0 1 0 1 3 2 5 1 2 0 3 1 1 2 2 1 0 3 2 8 12 20 TOTAL (Focus)

GREEN COMMUNICATIONS TOTAL: 2 0 3 5 3 0 0 1 0 1 3 2 5 1 2 0 3 1 1 2 2 1 0 3 2 8 12 20 GREEN COMMUNICATIONS TOTAL

Claim-Backing #of click-thrus: Average = 2 Claim-Backing #of click-thrusVague description 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Vague description

Unsupported/no claim-substantiation 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 3 Unsupported/no claim-substantiationVAGUE/UNSUPPORTED TOTAL: 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 3 VAGUE/UNSUPPORTED TOTAL

SUBSTANTIATED CLAIMS TOTAL: 2 0 3 5 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 2 2 1 2 0 3 1 1 2 2 1 0 3 2 8 9 17 SUBSTANTIATED CLAIMS TOTALPromotions contain no green msg: 4 3 3 10 4 0 11 0 6 1 21 1 22 3 3 0 6 3 5 8 4 3 0 7 1 17 37 54 Promotions contain no green msg

Total Promotions: 6 3 6 15 7 0 11 1 6 2 24 3 27 4 5 0 9 4 6 10 6 4 0 10 3 25 49 74 Total Promotions

Media results for company: All companies with no green messaging Social Networking Software Virtual WorldsCorporate Home Page LinkedIn FaceBook MySpace Totals: Weblog submission sites Tagging Media SEM Pay-per-click

Content Orientations Home Pg bOther imagText/descr TOTAL: Custom pgPPC ads Custom pgPPC ads Custom pgPPC ads Custom pgPPC ad totNetwork ToTechnorati Digg Twitter* TOTAL: flickr Del.icio.us TOTAL: Google Yahoo Microsoft** TOTAL: Second Lif Web1.0 TOWeb2.0 TOAGGREGAContent OrientationsProcess Orientation 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Process Orientation

Image Orientation 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Image OrientationEnvironmental Fact 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Environmental Fact

Customer orientation 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Customer orientationCombination 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Combination

TOTAL (Orientations): 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 TOTAL (Orientations)

Content Focus: Content FocusQuantitative/Monetary 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Quantitative/Monetary

Narrative (Instructional or Theoretical) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Narrative (Instructional or TheoreticalTOTAL (Focus): 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 TOTAL (Focus)

GREEN COMMUNICATIONS TOTAL: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 GREEN COMMUNICATIONS TOTAL

Claim-Backing #of click-thrus: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Claim-Backing #of click-thrusVague description 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Vague description

Unsupported/no claim-substantiation 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Unsupported/no claim-backingVAGUE/UNSUPPORTED TOTAL: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 VAGUE/UNSUPPORTED TOTAL

SUBSTANTIATED CLAIMS TOTAL: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 SUBSTANTIATED CLAIMS TOTALPromotions contain no green msg: 9 9 9 27 8 3 8 2 1 4 17 9 26 2 5 0 7 8 9 17 8 9 0 17 16 44 66 110 Promotions contain no green msg

Total Promotions: 9 9 9 27 8 3 8 2 1 4 17 9 26 2 5 0 7 8 9 17 8 9 0 17 16 44 66 110 Total Promotions

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Copyright 2009. Cover illustration and written copy by Jake Aull www.zenofbrand.com