Patagonia, Starbucks, RadioShack Launch Earth Day Ad Campaigns

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Today is Earth Day, and Patagonia, Starbucks, RadioShack, and other brands are highlighting their environmental sympathies through the use of mobile and social media marketing campaigns.

Outdoor clothing brand Patagonia kicked off its effort last month with its "buy a song, benefit the environment" campaign, which encourages users to buy specific songs from iTunes, such as "One Life" by moe and "So Damn Good (Live)," performed by Bonnie Raitt and Jon Cleary. At least 60 percent of the music sales will be donated to environmental organizations such as the Rainforest Action Network and Earthjustice.

Patagonia  is hoping to align that effort with Earth Day, by running its first mobile display ad campaign across applications and mobile sites in Millennial Media's network. The ad creative - which features the artists themselves - will drive users both to iTunes and to the brand's dedicated "buy a song, benefit the environment" application in the AppStore.

"The mobile space is an obvious vehicle for a campaign whose call to action is a digital download… We’re using mobile to get to a broader audience than we might otherwise be able to reach with a message we think is broadly compelling, and to learn what we can from the response," Patagonia's director of marketing, Christina Speed, said in an email to ClickZ News.

Ads will be targeted to content across Millennial's network, which the company says includes an array of eco-related sites and potentially relevant ad placements. The creative is powered by Millennial's in-house technology, as opposed to that offered by a third-party rich media provider.

Besides today's mobile display campaign, Patagonia has been promoting its music-elated initiative on its site, through social media activity on Facebook and Twitter, with email campaigns to its customer community, and via in-store mobile QR codes. That activity will continue today.

Artists involved with the campaign have also been supporting the campaign on their own social media profiles, Speed said, adding, "Patagonia has had artists approaching them for many years, but no real vehicle to engage them or a model that fit their mission."

Elsewhere on social networks, Starbucks and RadioShack have also turned to Facebook to spread their Earth Day messages. The former is offering a free cup of coffee to customers that bring their own travel mugs to be filled, saving on the waste produced by handing out beverages in paper cups. Ads for the giveaway have been running on Facebook this week.

The brand is also encouraging users to post an image of a mug as their Facebook profile picture to demonstrate their "commitment to Earth Day." Users that don't have photographs of travel mugs are encouraged to use an image of a Starbucks-branded one instead.

RadioShack, meanwhile, is offering customers the opportunity to trade in their old electronics in exchange for discounts on new ones, and promoting the deal using Facebook ads and its page on the social networking site. Users can use that page to locate a store accepting trade-ins, and to enter a competition for a chance to win a Nissan Leaf electric car.