The benefits of green marketing

Celebrities and politicians were all dressed up for a famous Hollywood gala recently. But many people's mounts are little odd-looking cars, not limousines.

The car is a new celebrity status symbol: the half-electric, half-gasoline hybrid Toyota Prius. The Prius is one of a growing number of hybrid vehicles for the masses, moving towards low fuel consumption and low harmful emissions. Unlike other consumer products, the Prius has also become a symbol of the growing popularity of green marketing.

"Green Marketing" refers to the marketing of products that are environmentally safe. Green marketing is a hot topic, and it is also a topic that needs to be discussed urgently. Before, being green was "willing to do it" - nice if you could, but not really necessary. It is now increasingly necessary, a "must do".

Green marketing has considerable benefits. The green market is expected to reach $1 trillion in the next five years, according to the Green Marketing Blog, which presents this challenge: "If you want to be part of growth, you have to be as savvy as a consumer, Alert and truthful."

Today, environmentally conscious consumers have a wealth of information and a willingness to spread the word. According to the New York Times, "Green consumers are more inquisitive, less credulous, more practical, and know more than any consumer group in the past."

These consumers are very knowledgeable advocacy, so their opinions are also very influential. They have the ability to influence the choices of mainstream consumers - so attracting those mainstream consumers will be the most important challenge for green marketing.

Types of Green Marketing

John Grant, author of The Green Marketing Manifesto, declares that there are different types of green marketing and gives many examples.

·Green consumer products: such as Toyota Prius.

·Green service: such as Green Tomato taxi company, which only uses hybrid vehicles and is popular with environmentally conscious client companies.

·Green retailer: such as Marks & Spencer, this retailer, through its good publicity campaign, helps customers to save environmental resources effectively in different ways, was voted as a green enterprise in the UK.

·Green financial services: such as Banco Real, when the bank conducts risk assessment of credit business, especially when it involves timber companies, it will comprehensively consider social and environmental factors .

·Green fashion: Welsh clothing manufacturer Howies, for example, designs clothes that are environmentally friendly and durable.

· Green companies: News Corporation (News Corporation) has pledged to use its energy, invest in clean technology, and buy carbon credits to balance emissions that cannot be eliminated.

·Green tourism: For example, the Eurostar railway company has set a green target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 25% per person by 2012.

·Green behavior change campaigns: Like P&G's Ariel marketing campaign, which asks customers to turn their washing machine's thermostat to 30 degrees to conserve warm water use.

·Green sponsorship: For example, in the Formula One Challenge, Honda replaced the company advertisement on the Formula One car with a picture of the earth to raise people's awareness of global warming.

In other words, green marketing is as colorful as marketing itself. What all of these examples have in common is the dual goals presented in marketing—green goals and business goals.

Companies that have successfully applied green marketing strategies have achieved remarkable business results. In her book Green Business, Amy K. Townsend cites the following fairly successful cases:

Patagonian companies encourage employees to be active in the outdoors, they work for nonprofits, pay Paid by the company, employee loyalty is boosted. IBM saves $17.8 million a year just by encouraging employees to turn off lights and equipment when they are not in use. For Suncor Energy, its stock market value has appreciated 1,100% since its green move in 1992. Interface, which encourages green action and sets sustainability as a company-wide goal, has been named one of the "100 Best Companies to Work For" by Fortune Magazine. Since Electrolux started making "ultra green" eco-friendly products, its profit margin has grown by 3.5%.

So, since there are many ways to apply and benefit from green marketing, where do you start?

A simple and easy way to start is through "innovation and education." What does it mean? This means that your company starts by coming up with a greener business proposition, and then uses marketing tools to get customers to embrace it.

“If you think about it, marketing is really simple: offering products and services to solve real problems for people,” concludes an environmental blogger called La Marguerite. “Should we be marketing to green consumers? Although The traditional marketing answer to this question is yes, and a better answer is this: don’t focus on green niche markets, but on green behaviors that all can aspire to.”

Below, Three examples of leading companies focusing on green behavior show that green marketing can achieve huge results.

Toyota Prius: Marketing to a Mainstream Audience

The success of the Prius is not just about good product design. More importantly, the key is marketing.

Evidence: The Prius didn't sell well at the start of the sale.

Marketing the first-generation Prius was a major challenge for Toyota. Don Edmond, senior vice president and general manager of Toyota Motor Sales, candidly said: "This is one of the biggest gambles I've ever taken, and it's not because of our lack of confidence in the quality of the product, the logic of the product concept. Lack of confidence, or lack of confidence in the significance of this breakthrough technology. The key is to convince consumers that hybrid technology is not just a scientific research project."

Few believed at first. Ernie Boch Jr., a Toyota dealer, told The Boston Globe that no one wants to buy a new car when it comes out. "Toyota gave a $1,000 deduction and still couldn't sell it," said Bosch Jr., whose Norwood Co. is Toyota's second-largest dealer in the world.

Clearly, Toyota Motor Sales had to make adjustments in the way it sells the Prius. The marketing tweaks they've made are inspiring for all green marketers.

Toyota is not just targeting "green" consumers, but its marketing messages also target different market segments. For example, the company's marketing communications program for the UK market uses three segments. The first segment is "Early Adopters/Technology Trailblazers" who are interested in the latest technology/innovation and must be the first to own and enjoy this technology in the customer base. To these people, Toyota focuses on promoting the new technology of the car.

The second is the "environmentally friendly" segment, targeting those who recognize the impact of motor vehicles on the environment and want to do something about it. For these people, Toyota focuses on promoting the car's low emissions.

Third is the "value-conscious" segment, where customers are looking for the ideal combination of high fuel economy and low maintenance costs, and in the long run, with a reasonably priced vehicle. For these people, Toyota focuses on touting fuel economy.

With the Prius, Toyota pioneered how to generate consumer-generated content (CGC). CGC allows companies to provide consumers with an opportunity to deeply integrate into the brand. As part of the CGC, Toyota's marketers created the "everyone for a reason" movement. It gathers information on why car owners buy their cars and invites people to join the community.

Toyota has developed a dialogue with consumers through a two-year effort. As a result, more than 40,000 interested consumers were attracted. These potential consumers have early access to Prius' website and its special order feature.

Toyota understands the power of the green consumer well, and has issued a relevant marketing "signal" to actively communicate the message to those who blog about environmental issues.

As part of the promotion, Toyota has curated a "Hybrid Tour" to raise customer awareness of hybrid technology.

Toyota's entire experience illustrates one of the most important aspects of green marketing: addressing consumers' first basic needs. "The Prius has really become a mainstream car," says Bruce Ertmann, Toyota's manager of consumer-created media.

The numbers confirm what he's saying: Toyota Motor Corporation last year announced cumulative global Prius sales The target of 1 million units has been exceeded. The Prius Hybrid is sold in more than 40 countries. Toyota estimates that the Prius reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 45,000 tons in operation.

The business goals were met, and so were the green goals.

Patagonia: Changing Consumer Behaviour

Yvon Chouinard has always been a businessman. But he is happy to accept green marketing.

Schooner is a French-Canadian who grew up in California and all he wanted to do was climb and surf. He suddenly discovered the ability to invent the equipment he needed for his sports, so he founded the Chouinard Equipmnent Co. That company would later morph into Patagonia, possibly the most successful outdoor apparel company in history, making clothing for skiing, climbing, mountain biking, boating, running and travel.

In its first decade in Patagonia, the company expanded to $100 million in sales. Then, under the influence of the recession, sales slowed.

The decline in the company's business forces Schona to reconsider his entire approach. Patagonia is doomed to slow growth. "Our company has exceeded its resources and its limits; we have become very dependent on growth that we cannot sustain, such as the world's economy." Schona says in his book Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman wrote in.

Patagonian companies began to apply new practices that helped redefine not only the company's business, but the entire green marketing movement.

Patagonia began pledging to donate 1% of its annual sales to environmental groups. Then it started using recycled soda bottles when making some products. Then it started making other ready-to-wear garments from 100 percent organic cotton. Three years ago, it began considering recycling customers' worn-out underwear to recycle into new clothing.

With all of the above commitments, Patagonia is proving that companies can inspire significant change across supply chains (and even society). By influencing consumer behavior, Patagonia has managed to do so.

Patagonia is committed to the long-term use of organic cotton in its active apparel product line. The company then expanded its sourcing of organic cotton. But it's easier said than done, because the cost of organic cotton is higher than that of chemical cotton, even more than 20%. The magazine Sustainable Industries reported that Patagonia had to raise prices and endure low profit margins in the beginning. But the company is sticking with organic cotton and has issued a statement to customers about it.

The company's commitment creates economies of scale—the more products they produce, the lower the costs become. Rebecca Calahan Klein, president of Organic Exchange, explained to Sustainability Industry magazine: "What Patagonia is proving is that if you make a commitment it will stand up to time. test, then supply lines and production efficiencies come into play.”

In a strong attempt to demonstrate its commitment, Patagonia has been relentlessly communicating with consumers. It organizes the message into articles in company brochures, store prints and advertisements so it can be delivered to consumers. Jacquelyn Ottman, author of Green Marketing: Opportunity for Innovation, writes:

"Placing ads in leading outdoor-oriented magazines will keep customers informed of product developments and new environmental issues and activities in Patagonia. In addition, the company publishes an annual 'green report' detailing progress against all of its important environmental-related goals."

Incidentally, these prints related to What materials are the brochures for consumer communication content made of? Since 1991, these catalogues have been produced from recycled paper. Five years ago, the company decided to start choosing environmentally responsible paper suppliers as partners.

Multifaceted communication connects Patagonia with consumers who are looking for a "spiritual experience" in their purchases, explains Harvey Hartman, director of the Hartman Group. Group) and author of Marketing to the New Natural Consumer. By doing so, Patagonia can make customers feel personally involved in saving the environment.

All of this is just part of Schona's philosophy of changing consumer behavior to create dramatic change. "I try to change consumers. Through our brochures and our various campaigns, we educate consumers," Schona said. There are many innovative ways of marketing for Patagonian companies, but the most creative is honesty. On its website, it publishes a "footprint history," which allows anyone to track the impact of a Patagonian product from design to delivery. It lists the "good things" its products do for the environment. There's also a different section on this site: it also lists some of the "bad things" the company's products still do to the environment.

For example, in the "Good Thing", Patagonia lists the wool for its second-class cashmere crew neck cashmere sweater as being sourced from well-run sheep farms in New Zealand and dyed without the use of heavy metals. Next to the "good thing column" is the "bad thing column", Patagonia cites the long-distance transport of wool as a drawback, which adds to the cost to the environment.

Commenting on this effort, the Top Ten Wholesale website states that "honesty is the most sustainable policy."

Thus, while other companies may be guilty of "greenwashing"—meaning that some companies are environmentally misleading consumers—but Schona's company insists on honesty.

“A Patagonia company will never be fully socially responsible,” Schona admits candidly in his book, “Our company will never make a fully sustainable, non-disruptive product, but it Will keep trying."

The Patagonia company also sells a lot of products as it strives to be sustainable. Its revenue has already surpassed its goal of $270 million. The company is privately held and is reportedly quite lucrative.

The green goals were met, and so were the business goals.

Procter & Gamble: Packaging and Product Innovation

Shona himself and the Patagonian company may not be that ambitious. But consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble has made no secret of its ambitions, especially in green consumer goods.

Procter & Gamble announced this year that its sustainability measures include a plan to cut its carbon footprint to 40 percent by 2012. (Carbon footprint refers to the measurement of the impact of human activity on the environment by the production of greenhouse gases, measured in carbon dioxide.) The company also announced plans to create at least $20 billion in reduced environmental impact over the next five years. Total sales. The Financial Times reported that those products would have a 10% lower environmental impact than their predecessors.

Like Toyota, Procter & Gamble's marketing targets not only green consumers, but mainstream consumers as well. Green consumers will of course buy green products because that is one of their core consumption needs. "But if your product is convenient for mainstream consumers and you don't ask them to make concessions, then they will consume your product in a sustainable way," said Peter White, director of Procter & Gamble. Director of Sustainability Department.

He went on to say: "Companies need to combine environmental protection requirements with practical interests to win the support of ordinary consumers. For example, P&G's greener and more concentrated products are designed to be lightweight and portable, while saving energy. Cleaning campaigns can help customers save money."

White's colleague Len Sauers agrees. He said the vast majority of consumers feel that environmental issues are important, but are reluctant to compromise on product performance or price. He told Brand Week, "They'll choose a product that's good for the environment, if the performance, value and cost are all right."

Procter & Gamble, known for its marketing prowess, can rely on Its marketing efforts to win over mainstream consumers.

One of the marketing tools is the use of product packaging. Procter & Gamble goes green by reducing the size of packaging. Since last fall, P&G began replacing its entire $4 billion liquid detergent portfolio in North America with dual-strength detergent packs that are half the size of regular sizes. The Mediapost website reports, "The project is being billed as an environmental breakthrough as it reduces water use by 44% and packaging by 22%."

The challenge for P&G is convincing consumers to move to smaller packaging superior. “How do you convince consumers that small packages look good in the laundry room?” Keith Harrison, global product supply officer at Procter & Gamble, said at a conference last year. Small, but how do you convince consumers that small is beautiful in the laundry room, and that's going to be an interesting challenge."

Selling concentrates in small bottles is a new marketing trend, and Procter & Gamble is following that trend. . "The product requires less shipping, less packaging, less water in production, more convenience for the consumer — it's a win-win," White said. He further noted that Procter & Gamble communicates the green concept in its products to consumers by citing examples of reducing packaging and saving the number of trucks used.

Another marketing tool P&G uses is communication to influence how consumers use products. With Bilang, a detergent, P&G promoted the idea of reducing the laundry temperature to 30 degrees. This can save 40% of energy.

P&G used a simple tagline in a series of campaigns in the UK and the US: "Wash at 30 degrees, expect the same results."

Consumer recognition of behavioural change, "is for the community , positivity, and a larger culture of marketing are part of the overall realization of marketing," Grant wrote, "green marketing is an effective means of finding such a win-win situation." Speaking of win-win situations, Procter & Gamble has moved toward its ambitious green goals. In May of this year, Sowers told Brand Week, "We have reduced CO2 emissions, energy/water consumption and solid waste by 30% on a per unit basis over the past five years. . We know very well that we're getting there."

The financial numbers also look good. Profits rose 19 percent to $10.3 billion last year.

Green goals and business goals are met.

The author, Jet Magsaysay, is a consultant for this magazine, translated by Wu Xiaodan.

Three Green Marketing Strategies

According to Jacquelyn A Ottman and Cathy L Hartman's article "How to Avoid Green Marketing Myopia," the best-selling green products The tactics used show that its marketers follow three important principles.

Here, we draw three principles from the feature stories of several companies in the article.

Locate consumer value. Design eco-friendly products to perform as (or better than) other products. When it comes to Patagonian clothing, it means being more durable. As a result, the company says customers need fewer clothes. Environmentally friendly products are promoted and offered to satisfy consumers and target relevant consumer segments. Toyota uses different messages based on the needs of each segment.

Increase attractiveness to mainstream consumers and incorporate consumer-satisfying value into environmental products. Toyota and Procter & Gamble are targeting mainstream consumers and touting the benefits of their products—not green ones, but practical ones—to meet the needs of mainstream consumers.

Educate consumers. Educate consumers through marketing messages that link eco-friendly product attributes to the value of consumer satisfaction. Procter & Gamble cites the transportation cost savings of using smaller packaging.

Express the characteristics of environmentally friendly products as "solutions" to consumer needs. Toyota, for example, sells the Prius' hybrid technology on a fuel-efficiency selling point.

Promote products honestly. To ensure that the promotion of environmentally friendly products and consumer products is specific, meaningful and qualified. Patagonia tells consumers the whole process of forming a product, from raw materials to consumers, through its history of footprints. For example, the company even criticized some of its products for using too much energy.