It’s Not Easy Being Green
Solving the Riddle of Green Product Marketing
 Being
green is tough for Kermit the Frog, and it is also tough for marketers
of "green" consumer products. Green products are those that
customers perceive as distinctly less damaging to the environment than
their traditional counterparts. Marketers of these products have
it tough because they know that while surveys consistently show that
the majority of the population supports environmental causes, and many
report intent to buy green products, only a microscopic niche of people
actually do.
This "green marketing gap" is a classic mismatch between intent and
behavior. Marketers of green products must ask whether the green
marketing gap the result of unrealistic assessments of consumer intent,
of under performing marketing efforts, or something in-between.
Getting to the bottom of this can mean the difference between
just muddling along and orchestrating a marketing breakthrough.
At stake are the ability to differentiate competitive products,
increase market share, develop a superior corporate image, earn higher
profits, and optimize the environmental benefits that increased sales
would bring.
The Green Mile
 Solving
this riddle starts with realizing that "green" is not a particularly
useful market research concept. The term "green" is too broad to
capture anything meaningful about the emotions and motivations of
consumers who care about the environment. When making a purchase
decision, consumers don’t judge a product on any kind of pure green
dimension. Instead, they have a wide variety of motivations
underlying what market researchers have conveniently grouped under the
green banner. Marketers need to dig deeper to understand consumer
motivations so that they can design appealing products, develop
competitive strategies and craft powerful marketing messages.
For many consumers, a product’s environmental impact is a complex and
emotionally charged set of factors that must be traded off against
other product attributes. Marketers must distill consumers’ green
consciousness into the elemental emotions and motivations that cause
them to take action. To begin with, there are motivations having
to do with personal benefits (i.e., "what I need" components), and
motivations having to do with the benefits to society (the "public
good" components). It should be no surprise that consumers
motivations surrounding "me" are more important in purchase decisions
than those having to do with the "public good". One important
challenge to marketers of green products is how to deliver the personal
value consumers crave.
The Many Shades of Green
When you look under the covers of "green", you’ll find a surprising
array of consumer motivations related to personal value, including a
desire to conserve resources, concerns for safety, interest in
individual and family health, community stewardship, and obligations to
one’s offspring. Secondarily, there are concerns about the public
good, including damage to the environment, threats to wildlife, and
social responsibility.
Likewise, the "green" package of motivations includes demotivators.
Barriers to buying green can include lack of trust in the
supplier or skepticism about the product’s greenness. They can
also encompass strong feelings about who should pay for environmental
benefits; some consumers are willing to take personal responsibility
while others want to share the costs or put them entirely on the
perpetrators. These factors can vary across consumers, from
product to product, and from industry to industry. Marketers must
understand what turns people on and off if they are to succeed.
Resonance® Can Help Meet These Green Marketing Challenges Automobiles. Manufacturers are beginning to produce and
market competing hybrid gas-electric and other fuel-efficient vehicles
that don’t require consumers to sacrifice comfort, styling,
convenience, etc. How do marketers position green among all other
vehicle attributes? For early adopters and beyond?
Electric Power. Retail utilities are offering their
customers power from renewable sources as a way to differentiate their
products and gain consumer loyalty. How do they craft products
and marketing messages to cater to customers who see electricity as a
commodity?
Gasoline. Refiners are selling new formulations of
less-polluting gasoline that they can brand. Will customers pay a
premium? Will they be more loyal?
Appliances. Manufacturers are improving energy
efficiency. How do customers view energy efficiency when making
purchase decisions? Is it about protecting the environment or
saving money?
Food, Cleaning, Wood, and Lawn Care Products. Suppliers
are marketing products claiming to be healthy or produced using
environmentally sound practices. How many consumers will buy them
and how do we reach them? What is the “me” benefit of the green product?
The Color of Money
Resonance is our proprietary method for gaining true insights into
consumer behavior through their emotions and motivations. It is
the only method that takes the mystery out of consumers’ "green"
purchase behavior by getting to the bottom of how people really make
decisions. It serves as a foundation for designing and
implementing winning green product marketing strategies.
If your green marketing results are bleeding red, contact us. Our
experienced consultants will show you how to turn red into green.
At Gang & Gang we specialize in helping our clients diagnose and
close the gap between what is happening today and what is possible.
We follow a four-step process - Understand, Segment, Execute, and
Track - that uses Motivational IntelligenceTM
to achieve superior results. We’ll help you make being green a
little easier. Companies such as General Electric, Procter &
Gamble, Kraft Foods, BellSouth, and Eli Lilly are all using Resonance
to understand customer motivations.
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This article was written by Jeff Wickham, a strategic partner at Gang & Gang.
For more on how the Resonance technology instrument works, click Resonance
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