Guillaume Le Gorrec on Green Campaign ‘Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables’
Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables – an Interview with Guillaume Le Gorrec
Strategic planner at Marcel
Throughout your work at Marcel, have you noticed that companies are increasingly catering their image to emphasize and promote more environmental-friendly aspects of products or brands, or simply green-washing their image?
I have to say that, though green washing can be a major issue for brands, I haven’t noticed any increase for the ones we manage here at Marcel. It is something that we constantly to try to avoid. As most of our brands are deeply rooted in social media (Oasis, Intermarché, Orange, etc.), if we are not careful enough, people will reach out to us within the minute. In this digital era, we have no choice but to be as transparent and honest as possible. Personally, I think it’s a great thing 
What is your experience working on these campaigns? Please name one that you feel was particularly successful.
I am pretty proud of the Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables campaign (Les fruits et Légumes Moches) that we did for Intermarché, the 3rd retail store in France. It’s a campaign that we did to fight against food waste, which has been a real success.
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Do you think these campaigns are creating a long-term impact and resonate well with consumers? (i.e. are they making people actually aware of how they can change or just temporarily interested in the campaign). How do you ensure that they do?
It is a great genuine campaign that we first tested in 3 stores, then 10 and now nationwide. I strongly advice that you go watch our case study. More than 4 million people have seen it worldwide without any media push. Over 13 million people reached after only one month. Most of our main competitors have now copied us (Auchan, Monoprix, Carrefour,). If this doesn’t tell you how much our campaign impacted and resonated with consumers, and don’t know what will This change is happening for real, in the long run. I strongly believe that communication can sometime be transformative, if it’s based on a true consumer insight. That is why we had to do a lot of research and test the idea before we rolled it out = to make sure it was real and not “just” communication.
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Do you think there will be a correlation with the COP21 in 2015 being hosted in Paris and French (or European) companies promoting their environmental practices more heavily?
It’s hard to say. For instance, the fact that 2014 was the European year against food waste gave us the impulse to think of a campaign towards that goal for Intermarché. I am certain that some brands will see COP21 as an opportunity to promote more environmental-friendly aspects of their products or services. But, for me, it is a slippery slope. You don’t want to end up as a brand “using” such an event to do green washing. Again, I think it could be interesting as long as you are honest and transparent. Otherwise, beware of the social media backlash…
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