back to Articles

Article 1              1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |

Organic Cotton Advertising Campaign at Academy of Art College
San Francisco, CA, May 2002

In addition to featuring organic cotton in the graduate fashion show, the AAC has also launched an ad campaign ("A Better Feeling") designed to raise consumer awareness of the importance of organic cotton. The AAC is the largest visual arts college in the U.S. and students from a multitude of disciplines (including Advertising, Motion Pictures, New Media, Television, Photography, 3-D

Animation, Graphic Design and Exhibition Design) are working collaboratively on this project.
Before designing organic clothing collections or developing the ad campaign, students and instructors toured California cotton country with the SCP to see first hand the difference between conventional and organic cotton farming. Students also researched the market to learn more about consumer attitudes. "Background research for the project was thoroughly done," says Brian McCarthy, AAC Director of Advertising. "Students found that consumers want to make a positive difference in the environment, but they are unaware of the environmental effects of cotton growing, they have busy lifestyles, and don’t want to have to put a lot of effort into making the difference. This presented an interesting design challenge for the students: How to turn the consumer into an activist, and make it easy for them. We call it the quite revolution."

The ad campaign’s messages are simple and positive. They highlight differences between organic and conventional cotton and guide consumers interested in learning more to a web site. The web site contains detailed environmental and other data on conventional and organic cotton growing.
In addition to fashion and textile companies, attendees at the advertising launch included Greenpeace, Pesticide Action Network, Public Media Center, The Organic Consumer’s Association, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Organic Trade Association. Heidi McCloskey, Nike’s Global Director of Sustainability for Apparel, commented that she had "been involved in the organic cotton movement since the early nineties, but hadn’t up until now felt so hopeful about it becoming mainstream." The SCP is bringing the ad campaign’s themes to the attention of as many clothing and textile companies as possible “ giving them ideas for their own organic cotton campaigns and helping them to develop effective strategies for raising consumer awareness.