Category Archives: marketing

By Bonnie J. Wallace

Few aspects of human nature are as challenging to green marketers as the human bias to value the present over the future. This trait developed over millennia to serve survival needs, and remains deeply entrenched despite its tendency to lead us into behavior that over the long term may be destructive of ourselves and our species. For example, researchers show that asking people to consider the needs of coming generations as well as their own is largely ineffective. And our brains are just not wired to respond to slow-moving, novel dangers: for example, climate change doesn’t get us moving the same way that large animals do. (See The Evolutionary Bases for Sustainable Behavior: Implications for Marketing, Policy, and Social Entrepreneurship).

So where are the leverage points for getting those instincts to work for, rather than against us? One is “life history theory,” which suggests that people who live in a dangerous, unstable environment tend to be more impulsive and discount the future more than those in more stable and predictable environments. The implication: Don’t paint pictures of a scary, unpredictable future if you want people to act responsibly. In the face of uncertainty, people will reach for the short-term payoff (for example hoarding, and increasing resource use) over their long-term interests. This implies that strategies emphasizing a recognizable future are more likely to encourage behavior that takes the needs of the future into account.

Disregarding intangible concerns is another leftover from our hunter-gatherer past. Our brains evolved when behaviors and consequences were clearly linked (hunt all the game in the area and go hungry, eat something bad and become sick or die). But today our actions are almost entirely divorced from the environment, and our senses are not involved with the consequences of those actions. For example, when we purchase something made from wood harvested with unsustainable logging practices, we don’t feel the effects of deforestation. We feel the attractive price point.

However, if tangible evidence that affects the senses can be harnessed to let people know when their actions are leading to detrimental outcomes, they may change their behavior. The authors of the paper linked to above cite the standard use of an added noxious odor to natural gas to cue people to the fact that they are being poisoned, and suggest that adding a colorant to harmful air emissions to show their levels might lead to changed behavior. This makes perfect sense in the abstract, but I’m not sure that adding colorant to air pollution is likely to happen. I’m curious about what other, smaller cues might be created to bring people closer to their part in the cause and effect cycle. How might we involve the senses to make environmental problems feel real?

Finally, the innate human appreciation for natural beauty may be the greatest asset available to shape positive actions for the environment. The authors suggest exposing urban children to animals, nature, and the outdoors as a way to foster a long-term commitment to the health of the planet. This may be the best green marketing of all.

Bonnie J. Wallace is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles, specializing in responsible business. She holds a Sustainable MBA from Bainbridge Graduate Institute as well as a strong belief in business as a tool for transformation. When she’s not writing, Bonnie enjoys exploring ways that art can create community, and performing her supporting role as a stage mom.

You sell a range of consumer products. There is a “green” story to tell consumers. But you don’t know the best way to tell it.

Or, your company has recently introduced new packaging or a new product formulation that has environmental benefits. But you don’t know how much consumers really care. Or whether the product changes are going to influence consumers’ purchase decisions.

You wish you knew the answers to questions  before the product teams actually designed the projects.

I recently chatted with a marketing director at a global consumer products company. These are the challenges he faces all the time. A few things are holding him back:

1. The company’s market research is not well suited to the task. They do regular tracking studies to monitor the health of their brands. These are useful for identifying trends but not so much for understanding what is driving those trends.
2. The brand managers are not always invested in the research. Like many companies, one department is creating insights and another department is supposed  to use them. Sometimes brand managers are thoroughly engaged in the commissioning of research, with a clear idea of how they will use the results. But sometimes they are passive recipients of data generated elsewhere in the organization. Brand managers are less likely to act on research they don’t feel they own.
3. Key product decisions are committed before the research is done. Product teams and R&D are often selecting materials or tweaking packaging based on generalized directives or engineering concerns, not insights about what consumers value. By the time a product decision is locked in, it’s too late to influence that decision with consumer insights. The best you can do is learn how best to position what you’ve already done.

What should this company do? Here are a couple of recommendations:

1. Use appropriate research tools. As the marketing director told me, consumers like all kinds of things. The challenge in crafting a message or designing a product is determining the relative importance of various product attributes, alone and in combination. A research technique called conjoint analysis is often used to help shed light on questions like this. But it can be costlier and more complex than other kinds of research, and many companies make use of it only rarely.
2. Use research earlier in the process. The process of selecting materials is driven by engineering and cost concerns more than consumer preferences at a lot of companies. It can be really eye opening to employ a well-designed consumer research program to inform the product design and formulation process, alongside the harder criteria that companies tend to use.

What are your thoughts? Is your company doing this well?

By Bonnie J. Wallace

How can marketers design campaigns that motivate good environmental choices? Human nature seems to work against behaviors that would be in the best interest of the collective, as the well-known tragedy of the commons metaphor illustrates. But there may be some good news: in the Spring 2012 edition of the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, the authors of The Evolutionary Bases for Sustainable Behavior: Implications for Marketing, Policy, and Social Entrepreneurship argue that these same behavioral tendencies can be harnessed to encourage more sustainable choices and behavior if they are properly understood.

Vladas Griskevicius, Stephanie M. Cantú, and Mark van Vugt propose five different adaptive tendencies that form the evolutionary bases for our most destructive environmental and social behavior:

1. Propensity for Self-Interest
2. Desire for Relative Status
3. Unconsciously Copying the Behavior of Others
4. Valuing the Present over the Future, and
5. Disregarding Impalpable Concerns

They then outline classic messaging approaches that fail to work as a result of these evolved tendencies, and suggest more effective approaches that leverage unconscious human nature. This is the first of a series of blog posts that explore their findings.

Behaviors that helped us to thrive when we were hunter-gatherers now threaten to destroy us and many other species. Our environment has changed much more quickly than our ability to develop new adaptive behaviors. If we employ strategies designed to change behavior that don’t take into account our evolutionary wiring, we risk making no difference—or worse, exacerbating the very problem we were trying to solve.

For example, the first ancestral tendency cited is the propensity for self-interest. Natural selection pushes us toward making choices that will be more likely to ensure the survival of our genes. Thus “a campaign urging people to use restraint in water use actually increased water use because people feared that others would be unwilling to restrain themselves.” A more effective approach could be tying the reduction of water use to keeping it available for their own children, grandchildren, etc.

Reciprocal altruism is another self-interest evolutionary trait that harnesses cooperation between interdependent non-kin groups. Cause marketing holds great promise in leveraging that tendency. However, typical cause marketing approaches (buy this widget and we’ll donate X$ to Y charity!) get the order of the give wrong: the authors cite new research showing that “a message in hotel rooms informing guests that the hotel had already donated to an environmental cause on behalf of its guests increased towel use by 26%.” Note that this order, where the requester of the behavior change makes the first give, actually allows the recipients to reciprocate!

Indirect reciprocity is a related trait that is tied to reputation and increased status, and can be a very persuasive motivator for individuals and corporations alike. Desire to enhance or protect reputation prompts many individuals to make conspicuous green choices, and can push corporations to put sustainable practices into effect. The authors point to the consumer-led “name and shame” campaign that compelled McDonald’s to discontinue plastic packaging.

Harnessing our unconscious desire to act in our genetic self-interest is a powerful way to shift behavior, both on an individual, and a corporate level. Understand these sometimes counter-intuitive motivators can help marketers craft messages that lead to desired outcomes instead of unintended ones.

Bonnie J. Wallace is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles, specializing in responsible business. She holds a Sustainable MBA from Bainbridge Graduate Institute as well as a strong belief in business as a tool for transformation. When she’s not writing, Bonnie enjoys exploring ways that art can create community, and performing her supporting role as a stage mom.

By Bonnie J. Wallace

For those of us working to promote green business practices, it can seem self-evident that these issues are important. It follows that the language we use in messaging is frequently assertive, reflecting that assumption. But is that the most effective way to get our target audience to take action?

In the January 2012 edition of the Journal of Marketing, Ann Kronrod, Amir Grinstein, and Luc Wathieu say that it depends entirely on the target audience. Their research in Go Green!! Should Environmental Messages Be So Assertive?? shows that imperative language can be a very effective means to reach people already persuaded of a subject’s importance, but—here is the critical part—can actually decrease compliance among those people for whom the importance is not clear. In other words, assertive language in environmental and social justice messaging can be doing more harm than good, depending on who is on the receiving end.

This is particularly interesting given that this same team reports that in an examination of real slogans from http://www.ThinkSlogans.com, environmental slogans were nearly three times more often assertive than a random mix of slogans for consumer goods (57% vs. 19%). Examples used of such imperative messaging included Greenpeace’s “Stop the catastrophe” and Denver Water’s “Use only what you need.”

According to Kronrod et al, “The drawbacks in assertive phrasing have been extensively documented by researchers in communications, consumer behavior, and psycholinguistics. The overwhelming evidence accumulated thus far is that assertiveness interacts with consumers’ drive for freedom in a counterpersuasive manner.” In other words, nobody wants to be told what to do unless they already intend to do it.

The good news: research shows that a softer approach, acknowledging the difficulty of compliance, or simply suggesting/encouraging a behavior choice instead of demanding it (“You could bike to work once a week” vs. “Bike to work once a week!”) is considerably more effective, because it recognizes the perceived conflict between personal agendas and public good.

Another effective approach when messaging an audience that’s less committed to an environmentally friendly agenda is to first elevate the importance of the issue before making any requests. Showing a film clip, or photos that highlight the importance of the given issue can do this.  Once an issue is perceived as important, the audience is then more likely to be persuaded by assertive language.

This brings us to the flip side of these findings. For an audience that is already committed to the importance of an issue, softer language can be irritating, as the message is perceived to be out of line with the urgency felt.

My takeaway: it’s critical to align language to perception. The authors of this study note that it’s still unknown whether assertive language in green requests leads to long-term effects on behavior. Until then, we can at least meet people where they are for an immediate impact, without jeopardizing future credibility. What do you think??!!

Bonnie J. Wallace is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles, specializing in responsible business. She holds a Sustainable MBA from Bainbridge Graduate Institute as well as a strong belief in business as a tool for transformation. When she’s not writing, Bonnie enjoys exploring ways that art can create community, and performing her supporting role as a stage mom.

Twice this week I heard stories from sustainability consultants about clients who were seeking help in creating their own version of an Ecomagination strategy. Ecomagination, as you probably know well, is the name for General Electric’s strategy to develop and market products with superior environmental performance.

Ecomagination has been a smashing success for GE. The company says Ecomagination revenues reached $18 billion in 2010. The reputational benefits of this strategy are no doubt great as well, though not for me to quantify.

Citing Ecomagination as an example recalls something a wise colleague of mine used to say when were were industry analysts covering the Internet. When a coworker would say, “Take Amazon.com, for example…” his retort would be, “Amazon is not an example of anything. It is one of a kind.” Very true and useful to keep in mind.

Is Ecomagination an example, a model for other companies, or is it one of a kind? To be sure, lots of other companies have developed environmental strategies centered on developing or reclassifying products as environmentally friendly. Chemicals maker BASF, for instance, reports that 2010 revenues of its “climate protection products” were €7.7 billion. The Eco Options line of retailer The Home Depot features some 3,900 products, though the company does not report Eco Options revenue separately.

Does every company have an blockbuster ecoimagination strategy inside, just waiting to emerge? Or is this just for the few? What do you think? (And please show your work.)