Understanding the Green Consumer — Part 3

In the last two blog posts we have discussed the six so-called Myths of Green Consumers and how these have been “busted” by the recent Green Living Pulse study of over 30,000 consumers in the USA.

Let’s now take a look at some of the key insights into the mindset of Green Consumers that this study has unveiled.

1. Green Consumers are more concerned about saving money than saving the planet. We can quibble over the extent of the word “more” all day, but the fact remains that most consumers care more about their own pocketbooks than about altruistic concerns for Mother Earth. The good news here is that marketing campaigns that combine messages about saving money while simultaneously helping to save the planet will win out over messages than focus on only one of these benefits.

Thus, a fuel efficient car not only saves the buyer money in reduced petrol bills, but also reduces his / her nation’s dependency on imported oil while also reducing his / her carbon footprint. This multiple benefit message has far stronger appeal to the Green Consumer.

2. Green Consumers are motivated by different wants, needs, desires, like and dislikes.No surprises here that there is no “one size fits all” marketing message that will motivate the buying behavior of Green Consumers. As in any strong marketing campaign, psychographic profiles are just as important as demographic profiles when determining what will motivate buying behavior. Simply labeling your product “green” or sticking some sort of industry accreditation icon on your packaging will not be enough to stimulate strong Green Consumer desires.

3. There are two Green Consumer mindsets. Actually, there are probably many Green Consumer mindsets, but the Shelton Group has decided to segment these into just two, which they call the Engaged Green Mindset and the Mainstream Green Mindset.

The Engaged Green Mindset consumer is “marked by optimism, extroversion and a propensity to try new things,” according to the study report. These consumers are “more likely to respond to themes of innovation and possibility” claims the Shelton Group.

Meanwhile, the Mainstream Green Mindset” consumer is reportedly “more pessimistic, introverted and apt to like things known and tried.” These consumers, say the report authors, will “respond to themes of security and reliability.”

While I cannot agree 100% with these descriptions, I would agree with the conclusion from the report that “green engagement is less about demographics and more about mindset.” Of course, that’s pretty much true for any successful marketing program, green or not.

The bottom line remains, whether you are targeting Green Consumers or not, understanding what motivates the buying behaviors of your prospective and current customers — combined with fully understanding their needs, wants, desires, likes and dislikes — is the only way to build a successful marketing program.

Understanding the Green Consumer — Part 2

We continue our discussion on the six so-called Myths of Green Consumers as supposedly “busted” by the recent Green Living Pulse study over over 30,000 consumers in the USA. See the previous post for the first of these three “myths.”

Myth #4. Green consumers fall into a simple demographic profile — the survey apparently found that “green consumers are not easily defined by their age, income or ethnicity.” Anybody surprised by that? Certainly not me. I have never seen any market research study that revealed any unified demographic profile for consumers who care about the environment. I would venture to say that an analysis of those who donate to the World Wild Life Fund, or even Greenpeace, could not be easily be defined by age, income or ethnicity. This would be a ludicrous myth if anyone, in fact, truly believed it.

Myth #5. Children play a big part in influencing their parents to be green — surprisingly only 20% of respondents with children claimed their children encouraged them to be greener. I would have thought this figure to be slightly higher, but then it would also depend if the research restricted this question to those with children age 7 to 17. While my teenage boys are a factor in our household being better recyclers, our 18-month old daughter certainly is not! So the results will be a direct reflection on how the question was asked and the demographic profile of the respondents determined.

Myth #6. If people just knew the facts they would make greener choices — the survey results showed there was some slight correlation between respondents who answered “all of the science questions correctly” and those who “report participating in a significantly higher average number of green activities, such as driving a fuel-efficient car or lowering their thermostat.” But apparently those age 25-34 who correctly answered the science questions were less “green active” than some groups of older respondents.

What does this mean? Frankly, not much, other than many consumers who are actively green in their behavior may not be able to answer a handful of questions related to the science of environmental protection. And, of course, that educating consumers on the science behind the need for environmental conservation is probably a waste of time. What consumers need is to be educated on the benefits of making pro-environmental choices, not on the scientific proof that carbon is bad for the long-term sustainability of the planet.

If any marketers or advertising agencies are stereotyping Green Consumers based on these “myths,” then they need a whole lot more help than just the results of the Green Living Pulse study. They need a more solid education in marketing fundamentals, starting with our list of Recommended Marketing Books in the Howard Marketing Services Resource Center.

Please add your own comments on these so-called Myths of Green Consumers in the Comment Box below.

In our next post we will highlight some of the key insights into the mindsets of Green Consumers that this survey reveals.

Understanding the Green Consumer — Part 1

A new national study in the USA claims to “bust the stereotypes” of green consumers, but leads to me to ask a couple of key questions.

The first question is: how real were these stereotypes to begin with?

The second question relates to the proclamation by the company conducting this study that these are “six big myths long held true about green consumers.” Long held? “Green marketing” in its current form has only been around for a half dozen years or so. So any views in this field are not truly “long term,” at least not in my view. But perhaps I quibble?

More importantly, however, the Green Living Pulse study, one of four national consumer studies conducted annually in the U.S. by the Shelton Group, does provide some key insights into the mindsets of green consumers.

We will get to these insights in a subsequent post, but first here are three so-called “myths” of green consumers that this study claims to put right.

Myth #1. The top concern of Green Consumers is the environment — the economy (no surprise there) is by far the number one concern (59% labeled it their top concern), with the environment well behind at just 8%.

This “myth” is like saying people who take prescription drugs have the cost of medical care as their primary concern. I consider myself to be a Green Consumer, and yet would easily rank the healthy and safety of my family, women’s rights, and perhaps even our country’s education system above my concerns for the environment.

As a strategic marketer, I would never have jumped to the conclusion that the environment is the number one priority of everyone who occasionally or frequently makes purchases based on environmental concerns.

(Note: the study was conducted amongst the 77% of the U.S. population identified as green buyers in the most recent Eco-Insights study of 30,000 consumers.)

Myth #2. The main motivation of Green Consumers when reducing their energy use to save the plant — 73% of the respondents in this survey chose “to reduce my bills / control costs” with only 26% claiming this behavior is done primarily to “lessen my impact on the environment.” Again, no surprise here, especially with petrol prices being where they are.

Also, let’s not forget that there’s a “feel good” factor about turning off the lights at home, switching off unused appliances at the power point, and not make unnecessary trips in the car. But the key motivating factor for the large majority of people will always be the impact on their own household budgets.

Myth #3. Green Consumers are all-knowledgeable about environmental issues — just because almost half (49%) of the respondents chose the incorrect answer on a question related to the impact of CO2 on the ozone layer doesn’t prove much in my book, other than the fact that the entire spectrum of environmental issues is so complex and convoluted that I don’t believe there is anyone in the world who is all-knowledgeable about environmental issues.

For any marketer to believe such a concept about Green Consumers would be astounding, to say the least. That would be like a car marketer believing that all car buyers are all-knowledgeable about motor vehicles! This simply isn’t true, for even though I’ve purchased two new cars in the past year what I don’t know about cars could fill a text book!

We’ll look at the other three so-called “Green Consumer myths” in our next post.

Personal Recommendations More Trusted Than Advertising

Personal recommendations and consumer opinions posted online are the most trusted forms of communications, according to the latest Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey. Over 25,000 respondents from 50 countries participated in the survey.

According to the survey, which is conducted twice yearly, 90% of Internet consumers worldwide trust recommendations from people they know, while 70% trust consumer opinions posted online.

Brand websites, the most trusted form of advertiser-led communications, are also trusted by 70% of the survey respondents. Fortunately for marketers, all forms of advertiser-led advertising, except ads in newspapers, experienced higher levels of trust in this most recent survey.

Brand sponsorship is the marketing category that has seen the most significant increase in trust levels since the Trust in Advertising portion of the survey was initiated in April 2007. Almost two-thirds (64%) of Internet consumers now trust Brand Sponsorships, up from just 49% two years ago.

Significantly, text ads on mobile phones have the lowest trust factor, with less than one-fourth of respondents saying they completely or somewhat trust this form of advertising. This is not going to make the folks at the Mobile Marketing Association happy!

Here’s the ranked order of the results for some degree of trust in the following categories:

1. Recommendations from people known (90%)

2. Consumer opinions posted online (70%)

3. Brand websites (70%)

4. Editorial content {e.g. newspaper articles} (69%)

5. Brand sponsorships (64%)

6. Television (62%)

7. Newspapers (61%)

8. Magazines (59%)

9. Billboards / outdoor advertising (55%)

10. Radio (55%)

11. Emails signed up for (54%)

12. Ads before movies (52%)

13. Search engine results ads (41%)

14. Online video ads (37%)

15. Online banner ads (33%)

16. Text ads on mobile phones (24%)

Not Necessarily the World’s Absolutely Strangest TV Ads

Creativity, like beauty, is obviously in the eye of the beholder.

I say this after having watched the 10 television commercials that Geoffrey James showcases in his recent BNET blog called World’s Absolutely Strangest Television Ads.

While I found commercial #8 to be extremely weird, most of the others were not nearly as weird or strange as others I’ve seen, including some current ones showing on Australian television!

Admittedly James does say  he is “not completely sure if these are the absolutely strangest TV ads ever made, but they’re certain among the top fifty or so.” I’m not sure I would even go that far, especially since I noticed that 25% to 40% of viewers so far have indicated by their votes that many of these commercials are not all that strange.

On the other hand, the brands advertised are not always communicated clearly, so I would agree with anyone who feels some of these commercials have probably benefitted the ad agencies more than the advertiers.

Have a look for yourself and let me know what you think.