Still Striving For that Elusive Halo

I have just received correspondence from the manufacture of my tumble dryer telling me that it is now two years old and it is a fact of life, that even the most reliable products break down (it might be a fact of life but I am not sure that is a good way to endorse their own products).  The reason for the letter was to suggest that I take out the insurance which I turned down on purchasing the tumble dryer and turned down again last year when they wrote telling me it was a year old and out of manufactures guarantee.

Through this blog I would like to give them a fact of life back.

The tumble dryer works just fine thank you and if I had have been paying your insurance for the past two years and signed up to pay it again this year it would have cost me as much as the tumble dryer did in the first place, and I would have paid you more than the possible quote you give if I should ever have to call out someone to fix it!

Last June I blogged (here) about a then new Lenor advert promoting their concentrated fabric conditioner and saying that if we all switched to it then loads of lorries would be taken off the road.  At the time I contacted them asking why they didn’t just make all their fabric conditioner in concentrated form and got a reply (here) stating that it was to give consumers choice.

So imagine my surprise when I saw a new Lenor ad on the TV stating their new ’fragrance’ will only be available in concentrated form.  I applaud them for the decision; however it does rather contradict the idea of consumer choice they once rated so highly!  Call me cynical but I still think it has more to do with their profits than any enviromental impact.

The South-side of Glasgow has a new shopping centre, and it has chosen an interesting way to advertise which shops are still to open up. 

‘Heaven has sent us ……’

‘Salvation is coming ….. will be opening soon.’

These are but two of the examples, of the boards that cover the currently empty units. 

I have long said that the shopping centre in East Kilbride is like a modern day cathedral drawing people in with their music and services, sending them out with renewed hope that they can afford something, or that they will be able to get into a size smaller soon, and it now looks as if the advertising gurus have decided the same.

Apparently some of the local churches are up in arms about it, I am not sure they should be after all if it is getting people talking maybe it will also get them thinking.  If after leaving laden with bags and an empty wallet with only the credit cards bills to look forward to once they have unpacked, maybe they will realise that the comfort they are looking for can’t be found in possessions and they will remember those slogans and start looking for the real thing.  Then again maybe they won’t, but we can always hope and pray that they will.  Of course the SEC could take a unit itself and show them were salvation is really found! 

Following a comment by RevRuth with regard to my recent post about Lenor, I did indeed contact them, here for those of you who might be intrested is their reply.

Hello and thanks for your email.

I do appreciate your comments and will certainly pass them on to the relevant departments. We do always try to offer as much choice as possible to our consumers which is why we haven’t automatically discontinued the regular versions although this may be considered in future.

Procter & Gamble is committed to ensuring that our products, packaging and operations are safe for consumers and the environment. For products that go out with your rubbish collection, our approach is to reduce, reuse, recycle, compost or incinerate (with energy recovered) waste prior to landfilling, where it’s environmentally and economically
appropriate.

We’re continually researching alternatives for more environmentally improved products and packaging. For more information about what P&G is doing to achieve this, please visit
http://www.pg.com/company/our_commitment/sustainability.jhtml

Thank you for your interest in our products.

Kind regards,

Fiona

Consumer Relations

In other words - as long as we can still make money out of the big bottles we will continue to make them.

They aren’t fooling me that they make them simply to offer choice, if there was no profit in them they would cease production quick enough!

Has anyone else out there noticed the new Lenor ad, the one encouraging you to buy the concentrated version as it will make lorries disappear off the roads?

When I first saw the ad, I thought, good one, then as it faded from the screen I thought again.

What the ad actually suggests is that those who are watching it are responsible for big artics going down country roads, and the nice people at Lenor would like to stop those big lorries but can’t unless we change our shopping habits! Yes we are responsible for what we buy but hold on a moment, what is stopping them from ceasing manufacturing the big bottles and getting the lorries off the road. If they really cared, rather than that ad, there would have been a press statement reading:

We at Lenor, want to do all we can to ensure our lorries and the lorries that move our products up and down the country are as few in number as possible. We want you to smell our new fragrances in our new concentrate rather than the smell of diesel fumes when you hang out your washing. We want to reduce the amount of plastic filling landfill sites leaving an unknown legacy for our children and grandchildren - so we will be making only concentrated fabric condition in future.

Okay so in an ideal world all fabric conditioners would also contain eco friendly components, but hey it’s a start.