How does the Live Earth Products idea fight global warming?

Consumers would choose Live Earth Products company products over the same products offered by other companies to ensure that 100 percent of the profit from their purchases would be used to fight global warming.

For example, a Live Earth Products company might sell a salad dressing equal in price and quality to salad dressings offered by other companies.  At supermarkets, consumers would choose the Live Earth Products company salad dressing over the other dressings so that the profit from their purchase can fund action on global warming rather than going to competing margarine companies. 

Can a company that gives away its profit stay in business?

Dozens of companies now donate all of their profits to charities and important causes.  Over the last two decades, Newman's Own, a profit-donating company established in 1982 by actor Paul Newman and author Alex Hotchner, has donated over $200 million to thousands of charities, and has grown from selling one salad dressing to offering a line of over 40 products.  Not-For-Profit organizations have also created profit donating companies to finance their work.  For example, UNICEF earns $130 million annually from selling greeting cards worldwide.  For a listing of over a dozen successful companies that donate 100 percent of their profit to popular causes and charities, scroll down to the next section or click here

How can the Live Earth Products idea help fund the war on global warming?

Transforming Live Earth Products from an idea to a working reality will require the participation of many individuals and organizations.  This website simply introduces the idea.  The next step is for people like you to begin spreading the word.  Eventually environmentalists, philanthropists, politicians, and others who care about the fate of our planet will need to take the ball, and organize a campaign to create the international network of Live Earth Products companies. 

Who would create these new Live Earth Products companies?

Following the example of UNICEF, who since 1949 has generated over $1 billion from greeting card sales alone, not-for-profit environmental organizations can create Live Earth Products company "arms" to their organizations that generate sales revenues to be used to fight global warming.  Individuals can also create Live Earth Products companies using the example of Paul Newman and others. 
 

What would a Live Earth Products campaign look like?

For a detailed presentation of how this campaign could run as a tie-in to Al Gore's Live Earth Concerts, scroll past the Product-Donating Companies list below.

A TIE-IN PROPOSAL TO AL GORE'S LIVE EARTH CONCERTS
USING PRODUCT LABELS TO MOBILIZE PUBLIC ACTION ON GLOBAL WARMING

INTRODUCTION
RATIONALE AND BENEFITS OF THE CAMPAIGN
RATIONALE FOR THE PRODUCT LABELS APPROACH
CAMPAIGN DESIGN
     Estimate of the number of products Live Earth Products can sell during it’s first year
     Additional benefits of Live Earth Products labels
     Financial framework and details of marketing the food products
     Ownership
     Start-up financing
     Product selection, testing, market research, manufacturing and distribution
     Significance and organization of the product launch event
SALES PROJECTIONS
     Food product markets
     Representative products
KEY CONCEPTS AND CAMPAIGN SUMMARY


      INTRODUCTION

Creating the political will to effectively address global warming will require massive mobilization of citizens in industrialized and developing nations. This Live Earth Products proposal describes an innovative information dissemination vehicle designed to facilitate such mobilization. Live Earth Products would essentially market a line of 20-30 supermarket products worldwide, 100% of whose profit would go toward funding public action on global warming. The labels of the products, however, would achieve Live Earth Products’ main objective: providing the global public with accurate and up-to-date information on global warming.

By recruiting celebrities like Al Gore, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Tom Hanks and Salma Hayek, who have already spoken up on global warming, to each lend their names and images to one of the 20-30 products, and by launching the campaign at a future Live Earth Concert, Live Earth Products could sell hundreds of millions of Live Earth products worldwide.  Table of Contents


RATIONALE AND BENEFITS OF THE CAMPAIGN

Although An Inconvenient Truth and other vehicles have informed the public about global warming, an on-going information dissemination strategy is urgently needed to scale up the public mobilization that will compel appropriate government action on global warming. Live Earth Products can deliver global warming messages to the households of hundreds of millions of people throughout the industrialized world by way of the the labels on routinely purchased supermarket products. A major benefit of Live Earth Products is that while the product labels would educate the public about global warming, profits from product sales can fund other major global warming mobilization initiatives.  Table of Contents


RATIONALE FOR THE PRODUCT LABELS APPROACH

The idea of using product labels as a revenue-generating global warming information dissemination vehicle evolved from three distinct, but related, observations.

1. Supermarket products can be easily and profitably marketed. For example, actor Paul Newman and author Alex Hotchner, two individuals with absolutely no prior food marketing experience, have earned over $200 million in profits for thousands of charities between 1982 and 2007 by marketing a line of over 40 food products under the brand name “Newman’s Own.”

3. Newman’s Own has demonstrated that successfully promoting cause-supporting food products can be easily accomplished, at minimal cost, through a product launch event that attracts international press coverage.   Table of Contents


CAMPAIGN DESIGN

Newman’s Own has compellingly demonstrated the feasibility of marketing food products to fund charitable causes, and its business model is used throughout this proposal to describe the marketing and promotion features of Live Earth Products. Fortunately, Paul Newman and his partner, Alex Hotchner, published a book in 2003 titled Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good: The Madcap Business Adventure by the Truly Oddest Couple wherein they describe, in detail, how they created Newman's Own. Familiarization with the facts of Newman’s Own presented in that book is strongly recommended.   Table of Contents


Estimate of the number of products Live Earth Products can sell during it’s first year

During its first 27 months in business, Newman’s Own sold 18,705,555 bottles of salad dressing. Extrapolating from that figure average annual sales of 7.7 million items, we can predict similar first year sales for each of the 20-30 Live Earth Products products marketed. Were Live Earth Products to market 25 products, the campaign could expect to sell at least 193 million items per year. The following additional factors could substantially amplify this base prediction:

1. The Live Earth Products product launch event, at the next Live Earth Concerts could be promoted by not just one primary celebrity, as with Newman’s Own, but with approximately 25 celebrities.  This strategy would result in wider press converge and proportionately stronger sales.

2. Newman’s Own operated without a business plan and without paid advertising from 1982 until 1997, when it hired Tom Indoe, a retired former executive with Del Monte and RJR Nabisco, as its first professional COO. During the subsequent six years, Newman’s Own’s line of salad dressings’ market share increased from 2.1% to 5%. By operating under a business plan from its onset, and devoting a portion of its budget to paid advertising, Live Earth Products could expect similarly larger market shares for its products.   Table of Contents


Additional benefits of Live Earth Products labels

Along with presenting key facts about global warming to the international public, Live Earth Products products and labels can educate and mobilize public action in other ways such as;

Financial framework and details of marketing the food products


Ownership

There are two options for who would actually market the Live Earth Products food products. Option one would be to follow the example of Newman’s Own, and have the celebrities own their company. Each celebrity would run his or her company like Paul Newman does, as an “S” corporation that pays taxes and donates all of its profit before December 31 of each year. Under this option, the celebrities would each provide the estimated $42,500 (2007 dollars) in startup costs per product. Under option two, the Live Earth Concerts campaign would own and finance the 20-30 Live Earth Products food products.   Table of Contents


Start-up financing

In 1982, by forgoing expensive market research, conducting in-house product testing, outsourcing manufacturing and distribution, and using no paid advertising, Newman’s Own launched its first product, salad dressing, with an investment of $20,000 (half of the $40,000 Newman initially earmarked for the project).   Using the Newman’s Own model, in 2007 it would cost about $42,500 to market a similar food product. For all 25 Live Earth Products products, that would require an investment of $1-2 million. Anticipating the Live Earth Products organizers’ ability to attract volunteers to work on the campaign, additional costs should amount to no more than $1 million.   Table of Contents


Product selection, testing, market research, manufacturing and distribution

Paul Newman, a home gourmet, avoided expensive product testing and market research costs by personally approving the taste and ingredients of each product, and by conducting his own in-house taste testing. It is recommended that Live Earth Products conduct this phase of the campaign following the Newman’s Own model of minimal market research expenditure.

Outsourcing the manufacturing and distribution of the products, as is done by Newman’s Own, is also recommended for Live Earth Products products in order to minimize start-up costs.   Table of Contents


Significance and organization of the product launch event

An effective promotion campaign, like the product launch event conducted for Newman’s Own’s salad dressing, would ensure that Live Earth Products products compete aggressively in their food industry markets.

For their first product launch, Newman and Hotchner rented out a small bar in upper Manhattan for one evening, and staged a minor media event. They invited reporters and camera crews from all of the New York newspapers and from the Associated Press. The event immediately received wide national and international coverage, and within days Newman's Own was inundated with orders from supermarkets like Shopwell, A&P, Stop & Shop and others. By announcing the Live Earth Products campaign at the next Live Earth Concerts, Live Earth Products can similarly bring its line of 20-30 food products into supermarkets throughout the world.

Celebrity power is the key feature of the promotion. Paul Newman attracted enough publicity from his small event to sell 7.7 million bottles of salad dressing during the subsequent twelve months. It is not too difficult to imagine how much more publicity and sales 20-30 Live Earth Products products launched at the Live Earth Concerts would generate.   Table of Contents


SALES PROJECTIONS

Using Newman’s Own’s first product as an example reveals the level of sales Live Earth Products products can expect. In 1982, Newman’s Own introduced its first product, salad dressing. Commanding less than 1% of a market worth $600 million, it earned $3,204,335 in gross sales during its first year. By outsourcing manufacturing and distribution, and forgoing paid advertising, Newman’s Own’s earned an after-tax profit of $397,000 from the dressing during that year. That profit, amounting to 12.5% of gross sales, is about five times the food industry profit standard of 3.4% of pre-tax sales.

Using the Newman’s Own model, it would cost $42,500 in 2007 to market an Live Earth Products spaghetti/marinara sauce.  If this sauce commanded just 0.5% of the current spaghetti/marinara sauce market worth $1.4 billion, it would earn $7 million in gross sales. Using the Newman’s Own manufacturing, distribution and promotion model, Live Earth Products’ product could in its first year earn an after-tax profit of $875,000 at 12.5% of gross sales, or an after-tax profit of $238,000 at the industry profit standard of 3.4% of gross sales.

Following are conservative annual sales/profits projections for a complete line of 25 Live Earth Products products that use a base figure of $500 million in sales for each prospective product market, (about 1/3 of the 2006 spaghetti/marinara sauce market).  If each of the 25 Live Earth Products food products marketed earned a 0.5% share of product markets with annual sales of $500 million, their combined gross sales would amount to $62.5 million. After-tax annual earnings for the 25 products would amount to $7.81 million using a 12.5% of gross sales profit margin, or $21.25 million using a 3.4% of gross sales profit margin.   Table of Contents


Food product markets

The following list of food product markets, taken from Market Share Reporter, presents annual U.S. sales figures for various foods.  These billion dollar markets suggest the earnings potential for Live Earth Products products:

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Representative products

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Frozen Fish and Chips Dinner

Al Gore’s Toasty O’s Cereal

Cameron Diaz’s Frozen French Fries

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KEY CONCEPTS AND CAMPAIGN SUMMARY

Before citizens can demand greater action from their government on global warming, they must become more aware of the threat and its predicted consequences.  Live Earth Products recognizes product labels as a global warming information dissemination vehicle that is not only cost-free, but can generate substantial revenues for funding action on global warming. The product marketing and promotion components of the Live Earth Products campaign are modeled after Paul Newman’s hugely successful company, Newman’s Own, that marketed its first product in 1982 and has, to date, donated all $200+ million of its after-tax profit to thousands of charities. To appreciate the feasibility of a Live Earth Products campaign, it is helpful to keep in mind the following: Using a $20,000 investment, Paul Newman and  A.E. Hotchner, two individuals with absolutely no prior food marketing experience, created a company that now markets a line of over 40 products, and the division, “Newman’s Own Organics,” that now markets over 70 products.

Live Earth Products understands the tremendous boost that celebrity endorsements can provide Live Earth Products food products, and recommends that the campaign recruit 20-30 celebrities to each represent a Live Earth Products product.  Launching the Live Earth Products campaign at the next Live Earth Concert could attract wide international press coverage and ensure robust sales for the entire line of Live Earth Products products. It is estimated that no more than $3 million dollars would be needed to market and promote a line of 20-30 Live Earth Products food products,

Please ask Al Gore and the Live Earth Concerts organizers to implement this uniquely powerful Live Earth Products strategy for disseminating accurate and up-to-date global warming information to millions of citizens throughout the world.  Use your personal contacts, or email the Live Earth Concerts organizers this proposal.   Table of Contents


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