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05 Aug 2008

All the Fun of the Fete

Posted by: Henry Hicks

All the Fun of the Fete

Ed and I were invited as VNPs (Very Nice People - natch) to the Innocent Village Fete on Sunday and, well it was lovely.

The Fete is also a really fun and clever way to spend a marketing budget - throw a big party invite all your customers. Okay so it's not free but at £7.50 (£3.50 for kids) for a day's music, welly throwing, duck herding, morris dancing and The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain it's pretty darn good.

The village fete concept is a great fit with the innocent brand as well - it's family friendly, quintessentially British (they even had cucumber sandwiches and trifle in the VNP area - which is great for a hangover), creative, fun and different and distinct from the noise and hedonism of the Summer festival season. 

There was huge amount of love and attention to detail put in but it didn't feel forced or rammed down your throat. I can't imagine the big boys of the global drinks industry pulling off anything similar. And I think it comes down to company values and innocent's approach to ethics.

One thing innocent admit is that they're not perfect and on Saturday they were accused of Greenwash by the Telegraph. It came down to some information that hadn't been updated about where the smoothies are made and how they're transported. See their response here.

It seems like a storm in a team cup (or a smoothie bottle) but it just goes to show how careful brands have to be with environmental claims - you don't have to be 'bad' to be accused of greenwashing.

That's why we wrote the greenwash guide

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