Paper brands go up in flames
There’s currently a serious recycling scandal in Japan involving major paper companies who grossly overstated the amount of recycled paper in their products. Paper products that claimed to contain 50% recycled material actually had between 5-10%. The Guardian has the story here.
Reputation in tatters
Brand trust, reputation and credibility are taking major hits in the companies affected.
The reputation of Japan’s paper industry lay in tatters today after the market leader, Oji Paper, admitted it had lied for more than a decade about the volume of recycled paper used in some of its products.
The revelation comes days after the country’s second-biggest paper company, Nippon Paper Group, admitted it had made similarly false claims.
One company president apologized for “mislabeling” his products. Another took responsibility personally, and said he would resign.
Paper brands
Paper brands (those that exist merely as labels or packaging) are probably the worst kind of brands. They delude a company into believing that it really has a brand, when all it really has is a shell—and perhaps a very thin one.
