I thought of a few headlines for this post… 

“Tobacco – It Ain’t Just Nicotine Anymore” 

“Tobacco Use Soon to Be Approved in Hospitals”

“Perceptions of Tobacco – Up in Smoke”

“Tobacco a Double Edged Sword”

“Mom Said No but the Doctor Says Yes”

“Tobacco Wonder Drug.  Makes You Sick AND Cures You!”

But, apparently yes, according to an article in the June 23, 2008 issue of Chemical & Engineering News.  “Bayer and its subsidiary Icon Genetics have opened a pilot facility that employs a new process for producing biotech drugs in tobacco plants.” (The C&C News article is for members-only but similar story is here.)

Tobacco, says the International Tobacco Growers Assn., grows in a wide range of areas including arid land and soil with low fertility.  It stores well and is light and easy to transport.  Best of all (for biotech), as reported by Bayer, is that “tobacco plants can yield proteins rapidly and in high quantities.” 

I know massive production of corn in the US is nasty business and I’m not up to speed on the actual growing process and chemicals used but a protein is now in the works for ”a patient-specific vacine for non-Hodgkins lymphoma.”   That sounds better than a Cohiba Maduro 5 Secretos.

A recent eMarketer.com article described several research reports on ‘being green’ relative to age and Internet usage.  It seems that tech savvy, early adopters and influencers are more likely to consider themselves ’green’ and buy green products. 

One study asssociated ”greenness with overall engagement in new technologies and online social behavior.”  “Other studies have noted that older Internet users are more likely to take specific measures to curtail their consumption of resources.”  “A 2007 survey of the shopping behaviors of US baby boomers by AARP and Focalyst found that 70% of respondents—an estimated 40 million boomers—use their purchasing power to buy environmentally safe brands” according to eMarketer.com.

Graphic Design USA (June 2008) magazine covered a Wall Street Journal article (May 12, 2008) I missed.  WSJ “reported on a research study that sought to determine if consumers actually reward good corporate behavior by paying more for products or punish irresponsible behavior by paying less.” 

“The researchers, Remi Trudel and June Cotte of the University of Western Ontario’s Ivey School of Business, conclude that moving toward ethical production – and making sure your customers are aware of it – appears to be a wise investment,” wrote the GD USA publisher.  That hardly seems significant – appears to be a wise investment.   But wait….

eMarketer.com included this quote from Heather Stern, director of marketing at Focalyst (who worked on the AARP study noted above), ”We anticipate that as time goes on, more and more boomer shoppers will simply expect brands to be eco-friendly.  Rather than this being a point of brand differentiation, it will be a price of entry.”

The WSJ article pointed out that, “regardless of their expectations — consumers were willing to pay more for ethical goods than unethical ones, or ones about which they had no information. Likewise, negative information had a much bigger bearing on consumer response than positive information.”

Travel & Leisure notes Long Branch New Jersey as one of the twenty Great American Beaches.   Yes, New Jersey.

Interestingly, sales of sporting goods have grown. Sales in the hunting, fishing and camping categories (1997 through 2007) grew 37%, or faster than the overall sports equipment category, which grew 32.8% during the decade, according to a report from the National Sporting Goods Association. 

The BIG winner in participation….skateboarding.  According to the NSGA’s media release, “Among sports and recreation activities that grew more than 15% the past 10 years, skateboarding led the way with a 74.1% growth, according to the National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA).  Skateboarding grew from 5.8 million to 10.1 million participants between 1998 and 2007. ” NSGA says the increase is due largely to media coverage of events such as X-Games.

Americans drove less for the sixth month in a row, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. In the US, we drove 1.4 billion fewer highway miles in April 2008 than April last year and 400 million miles less than we did in March 2008.  This is a decline of almost 20 billion miles traveled this year compared to ‘07!  Data also shows midsize SUV sales were down last month 38 percent over May of last year! 

On the downside… The travel and recreation industry is being hurt worse than the economy as a whole by rising gas prices according to data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  The data shows spending on tourism (adjusted for inflation) decreased at an annual rate of 3.7% in Q1 ‘08. 

Today’s Adotas article reporting on BIGresearch among 16,000 adults.  Somewhat contrary to info I’ve read before, this one says… 18 to 24 year-olds are “the demographic most open to mobile advertising.”

“The percentage of young consumers influenced more than doubles for both forms of cell phone media (14.2% for video and 15.9%for text messaging).”  For ref. ‘word of mouth’ is #1 at 42%.

Tech-driven Word of Mouth – “More than half (50.5%) of 18-24 year olds communicate with others about a service, product or brand via cell phone (compared to 29.6% of all adults), second only to face-to-face communication (66.9%).”

The article’s title is Mobile Marketing Sweet Spot: 18 – 24 year olds

A New Industry Report published by the World Youth, Student and Educational (WYSE) Travel Confederation and UNWTO says, (it seems somewhat counter intuitive but) “today’s young travellers stay longer and spend overall more than mainstream tourists. Since 2002, the average spend per trip has increased by 40%.”  

With a “make a difference” headset, “70% of young people travel with a purpose – to learn a language, volunteer, work or study abroad etc.” according to the UNWTO report.

Today’s eMarketer article titled, “Gen Y Comes into Focus” points out that the US Gen Y universe is about 70 million strong (depending on your definition of Gen Y), surfed the Internet 22 times a month on average and averages 28 days of Xbox, Playstation or  Wii a month.  One half of those under 24 made a purchase online in a one year period ending March ‘08.  In 2007, 13 to 21 year olds spent over $120 billion.  And in 9 years Gen Y income will be almost 3.5 trillion dollars.

So, Millennials find travel to be more important than their elders and spending has increased 40% but they are media elusive, multi-taskers.  As I wrote the other day , they don’t want marketing messages via Text, RSS or IM and like generations before them, make purchases based on good old direct mail and email (this too, seems counter intuitive).

Folks age 21 to 29 “feel that travel is more important than other age groups do” according to a JWT survey excerpted in Travel Agent magazine (May 26, 2008) – 73% of them to be exact, followed next by people age 30 to 39 at 67%, age 50 and over at 64% and age 40 to 49 at 61%.

Still, the most effective way to make them purchase is by direct mail and email according to eMarketer.  Over 50% US Internet users 18 and up have made purchases due to these two methods.  Text messaging, IM, Social Networks and RSS produced a purchase in less than 15% of US Internet users – even considering the 15 to 17 year old group.   (I’m not knocking branding or awareness, only pointing out that the transaction is initiated via these two methods quite a bit more than others.)

Considering the amount of text messaging going on today you might think this is the perfect way to market to the masses.  But consider, as eMarketer notes, only 9% of text users ”preferred getting marketing messages by SMS instead of email.”

It seems to me that there is some unspoken, unrecognized or un-noticed bias against outdoors or mountain sports people/companiesfrom New Jersey.  I hear the sniggering already… outdoors and New Jersey??  NOT perfect together!!

Just a few name drops to start to set the record straight on the Garden State..

• Missy Giove one of the winning-est female downhill mountain bike racers of all time lived in Northern NJ through her teen years – skiing mainly until she hurt her knee and started riding a bike.
• Jeff Lenoskylong time mountain bike trials, urban and free rider and winner of numerous National events born and raised in Joisey.
• Danny Kass two-time Olympic silver medalist in snowboarding grew up in Vernon, NJ and learned to snowboard in the Garden State.
• Donna Weinbrechtfreestyle skier from West Milford, NJ who won the gold in the first Olympic moguls competition at the ‘92 Games in Albertville.

Donna’s musical backdrop for the Albertville bumps was the Ramones “Rock n Roll High School.”  Of course, I like the Ramones and saw them a bunch of times but this is interesting to me for two other reasons.  One, Donna and I graduated WM High School together.  We weren’t friends per se but I never knew she liked the Ramones.  And two, Marky Ramone played drums (2001-2005) for NJ horror punk band The Misfits.

The Misfits are considered to be the progenitors of “horror punk” and their influence is musically and visibly apparent in bands 30 years later…as well as having an influence on Grenade Gloves - the snowboard glove and accessory company founded by Danny Kass (see Kass above) and his brother.

Grenade’s current line-up includes the Reaper glove with skeleton fingers reminiscent of The Misfits style.   A few years ago the fiend face grimaced from a pair of black Grenade mitts (btw, there’s still a few pairs of those gloves upstairs in the corner at Speshon Rte 23 in Pompton Plains, NJ).

If you buy anything online from Spesh they donate 1% to the planet which is nice.  A REALLY green New Jersey company is TerraCycle who, according to a recent Sierra magazine, “entices schools and others to collect cast offs (yogurt cups, drink pouches, etc.) in return for a charity donation, then refashions the items for sale in big-box stores.”

One of TerraCycle’s items is a shopping bag created out of CapriSun (and other) drink pouches.  CapriSun’s (a Kraft Brand with sales & marketing based in NJ last I knew) marketing campaign features the tag line “Respect the Pouch.”

Respect the pouch indeed – recycle it in NJ.  And now, respect New Jersey!

I saw three pumpkin seed sunfish sitting on their sandy nests while walking by a stream during my lunch break today.  I’ve seen a snapping turtle swimming underwater and what appeared to be a group of 3″ long eels but I never noticed sunfish in the stream before…

I notice a lot of stuff on my lunch time walks… a male tom turkey displaying his “fan” to two or three lady birds (they do that as part of a courting ritual – sorry for the intrusion dude).  Several deer – one about 20 feet away and one a fawn sleeping under a bush just 4 feet from me – it let out a little snort when it realized I saw him.  (I talk softly to the close dear and don’t make eye contact and they stay where they are….) Picked up a painted turtle who was crossing the road and put him into the weeds.  And, of course, birds – cardinals, wrens, Canada geese, crows, turkey vultures, etc.

All this wildlife just a mile from Route 80’s eight lanes posted at 65mph and Route 46, the deadliest roadin New Jersey, and only a few miles further away from Route 287.  People think NJ all looks like Newark and believe the “what exit” punch line – but there’s alot more than that up north.  I think people just don’t see it.  They don’t even notice it.  Lots of folks from other offices walk the same route and I’ve never heard anyone mention the wildlife…

Why is it that some people notice things – like me noticing these animals – and others don’t?  Is it that I’m interested?  Is it “learned” or part of some distant part of DNA that is looking for a meat meal?  Is it that something dosen’t quite fit in?  Was it the little fins turning a different direction to the current that caught my eye today? 

“The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds. “  That from J.D. Laing a Scottish psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and author of “The Wing of Madness.”

I think I have noticed that I notice things and want to notice them more so I notice them….part nature, part nurture.  What do you think?