How to destroy your environmentally friendly brand

Sigg has given us a textbook example:

The marketing darling, which saw its business explode in 2007 as a result of environmental concerns and fears surrounding the use of Bisphenol-A, or BPA, in plastic bottles, is doing some crisis control after admitting some of its bottles do, in fact, contain BPA.

Further angering consumers, Sigg began working on a new, BPA-free liner in 2006 and invested $1 million in new equipment to produce its BPA-free EcoCare liner. Yet, the company was less than transparent in communicating that to the public.

The towering irony is that the explosion of Sigg's popularity and their ability to gain share from Nalgene was driven by, well, fear of BPA, which has been linked to cancer and other health issues.

The company has carefully crafted its message in recent years, letting consumers believe and, in some cases, the media report that its bottles were BPA-free.

As the saying goes, trust takes years to build, and seconds to shatter.

Image from beliefnet.