Lacoste Replaces Their Crocodile Logo With Endangered Species, And Internet Is Not Happy About It

You've probably already seen the famous Lacoste's polo shirts and their distinctive crocodile logo. Well, for this year's Paris Fashion Week, Lacoste has decided to replace these famous crocodiles and put 10 threatened animal species instead. Their campaign is called 'Save Our Species' and its main purpose is to raise awareness to the global state of biodiversity. Lacoste has declared that proceeds from the sale of the shirts will be donated to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). So, during the brand's runway show on 1 March 2018 they have launched their limited-edition polo shirts and all 1.775 of them were sold out immediately. The number of shirts produced was not chosen by accident, the amount of polo's made represents the number of endangered animals remaining in the wild, for example, there were only 30 polo's made that featured The Gulf Of California porpoise, making it the most limited design. You can find some of the designs online now but their cost varies from 200$ to 800$. But as every idea spreads around the Internet, reactions become mixed. Even though most of the people went online to praise Lacoste's genius way of branding and raising awareness, some people did use the term 'greenwashing' to describe Lacoste's marketing maneuver. Typically, the term 'Greenwashing' is used to describe companies that claim they do more for the environment than they are actually doing just to promote their brand. According to pages like Rank A Brand or Shop Ethical, dedicated to promoting sustainable and ethically produced products, Lacoste is known as a brand that promotes supply chain practices in China and Child labor, it is also unclear whether Lacoste is committed to sustainability or not. As the environmental situation becomes more and more serious, many famous brands have chosen to become eco-friendly, for example, McDonald's, Starbucks, Coca-Cola. So now 'going green' is not only good for the environment but also a good marketing strategy. Check out this collection below and decide for yourself if it's an initiative to raise awareness or just a good marketing trick. You can find more information about this collection here. (h/t)

For this year's Paris Fashion Week, Lacoste has launched a new design of their famous polo-shirts

The brand has swapped their famous crocodile logo into 10 threatened animal species

A campaign named 'Save Our Species' aims to raise awareness to the global state of biodiversity and the proceeds will be donated to International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The iconic crocodile was replaced by endangered animals such as The Vaquita, The Californian Condor or The Sumatran Tiger

There were produced 1.775 polo shirts in total and the number of shirts made represents the number of endangered animals remaining in the wild

For example, there were only 30 shirts that had the Gulf of California porpoise on them, making it not only an endangered species but also the most limited design in the collection

This collection has raised a huge amount of media attention

And while some were praising Lacoste's initiative

   

Others called it 'greenwashing' a term used to describe companies that claim to be eco-friendly just to get more sales and media attention. It is known that Lacoste has been supporting supply chain practices in China and Child labor in the past, and their product sustainability remains unclear.

What do you think? Is it a great attention raising campaign or just a smart marketing maneuver?