Last Friday’s Sustainable Brands Boot Camp session* focused on green marketing. My favorite green marketer, Jacquie Ottman, gave her version of green marketing done right.
Though my post-modern self would prefer to say “successfully” or “effectively” instead of “right”, Jacquie’s version of green marketing follows the basic rules of marketing regardless of its hue:
- Get the product right (green marketers must take an extra step of managing the product’s life cycle impacts and eco-innovate from the outset)
- Know your customer (because she’s in charge)
- Focus on the primary benefits of the product
- Be credible
The green (or sustainable) part enters the picture when it comes to the environmental friendliness specifics of so-called green products: green marketers must reassure customers about the product’s performance. I’ve mentioned the product evolution model here a number of times, and its tenets apply in green marketing as well: competition among products is first on functionality and then on reliability, both of which affect perceived product performance. Green marketers must keep this in mind.
Similar to my definition of sustainable marketing, green marketing also has a strong social element: green marketers must educate and empower customers with their products or marketing efforts, and they must engage the community.
You could almost see the nods around the virtual classroom when Jacquie touched on the misconceptions about green marketing:
- There is no such thing as a green product. (Which to me begged the question whether there’s such a thing as green marketing.)
- One green attribute doth not a green product and more green attributes do not a greener product make.
Jacquie offered practical guidance to all green marketers in her presentation. I still can’t shake off the main contradiction in green marketing, however, one that I’m still trying to dissolve myself. On the one hand, in communicating about products green marketers must focus on primary benefits; I agree. On the other hand, one of Jacquie’s rules of green marketing holds that consumers must be aware and concerned about green issues. But if consumers buy on primary benefits, the side benefit of environmental friendliness should be irrelevant in their purchasing decision.
What’s more, another one of Jacquie’s rules holds the consumer must be able to afford the green premium and feel it’s worth it. Leaving aside my belief that green products shouldn’t be luxury, the rule contradicts the dictum to focus on primary features.
Am I reading it correctly? How is green marketing done right in your book?
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Image credit: Clav and iammikeb
* Disclosure: Sustainable Life Media granted me a free press pass for the Sustainable Brands Boot Camp – regular registration for the online seminar series is $395.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Peter,
Thanks for the nice write-up. Always good to get such positive feedback as well as honest critique. A couple of comments: Yes, good green marketing in many/most ways is similar to good marketing in general: have the right product, know your customer, provide value, etc. (In fact, I attribute my insights into green marketing to my training in marketing at the knee of Procter & Gamble way back when in my ad agency days.) However, at each step of the way, green is nuanced. “Know your customer” for example involves understanding not just the typical demographics of one’s consumer, but in the green world, the psychographics, including “shade” of green and, in my book, personal environmental interests—are your consumers into health? animals? the great outdoors? resources? etc. See this blog post for more insight on this.) http://www.greenmarketing.com/blog/comments/a-smart-new-way-to-segment-green-consumers/ )
Respectfully, there is no contradiction between “focusing on primary benefits” and “being aware of and concerned about green issues” and “justifying a premium”. My advice is to lead with primary benefits, but not necessarily to leave the green benefits behind; indeed, green can be a source of added value — the plus that gets aware and concerned consumers over the premium hump that many new green products can’t avoid due to many factors including special ingredients, new technology or economies of scale (again, shared by new products in general). Perhaps an important first step for good green marketers is to first learn good marketing! Thanks for helping to bring these points out.
@Jacquie: Thanks for taking the time to comment. “The premium hump”, I like that! According to an earlier Boot Camp presentation, “premium pricing is DOA”. It seems the premium hump has become a mountain, particularly in this economy. Going forward, it’s likely it will remain the case. That’s why I’ve come to believe that design, not green, will be the differentiator for sustainable companies and products. One of the companies you mentioned in your presentation, Method, is a great example of this. Yes, their products are green; more importantly, they’re beautiful. I can buy many comparable liquid soaps that will be zero impact, natural, etc. but I’m buying theirs because of their aesthetics. Perhaps soon we’ll be talking about the design hump.
Amen on good marketing as the foundation of green marketing!
I do believe that there are no green products, but mitigating our foot print on earth is the only way, so adapt preservation to consummer habits is easyer and less frustrating than the alternative “changenge consumer habits”