The HCHLV Green Consumer Segmentation was just recognized by its parent company, WPP marketing communication giant, as one of the best pieces of work in the area of ‘Market Research and Insights’. Although developed for the British market, this segmentation provides yet another valuable way to look at consumers/citizens.
At the disengaged end of the spectrum, over a quarter of UK adults are ‘Onlookers’ – those who are the least engaged and have a limited level of concern about ethical and environmental issues.
Moving along the spectrum, the ‘Conveniently Conscious’ make up over a third of UK adults. This group is aware of and fairly concerned about ethical and environmental issues. They will take easier steps such as reducing their water use, but are not interested in more involved ethical consumption or local issues.
The ‘Positive Choosers’ are highly aware of ethical and environmental issues and feel guilty about their lifestyle. They regularly buy from ethically sound companies and will boycott those they feel are not acting responsibly. However, they will rarely complain actively, choosing instead to walk away from companies they disapprove of.
There is a small segment of the population, the ‘Vocal Activists’, who hold similar attitudes to the ‘Positive Choosers’, with the exception that they are much more likely to articulate their discontent.
The most engaged segment is the ‘Principled Pioneers’. These consumers are more prepared to make significant investments of time, energy and money, alongside lifestyle changes, to turn their beliefs into actions. This includes highly engaged activities such as installing alternative energy sources and calculating their carbon footprints.
This way of segmenting consumers/citizens is remarkably consistent with the most recent Pew Survey of Americans. Basically, slightly less than half of the population is positively inclined regarding environmental issues that really matter. A glass nearly half full, that’s a start. Communication efforts should focus on nudging some of the ‘Conveniently Conscious‘ more towards the left.
This provides us with a great vocabulary. Love it.
I always wonder what makes people activists or pioneers. I haven’t figured that out yet. I don’t think it’s genetic. I think it has more to do with certain life events and social context.
Merci Marguerite for such a nice article.
I think the onlookers will turn to the left side of the spectrum as utilities bills keep on soaring.
Another thing we should do about them, is educate them on how our values of conservation can benefit them immensely.
And I agree with you on the conscious, we have to target them as they are more prone than the onlookers to change their way of life.
On this, I wish you all a great weekend !
Great post Marguerite. Thanks.
My main thoughts . . .
The more that I think about it, the more I realize that (of course) the best segmentation approach to use on this issue for any given exercise will depend on the question being addressed and the intent of the contemplated effort.
No single message can be all things to all people, of course, especially on this particular (climate-change-and-energy) problem. So, in thinking about this, and planning potential messages, there needs to be a careful “iteration” between the message (roughly) and the various segmentation schemes, some of them developed already and some of them to-be-developed. The who (do I want to convince or move) and the what (of what do I want to convince them?) are highly interrelated and, to a degree, need to be thought about, and clarified, in parallel.
Although there are many other dimensions involved (and segmentations need to be actionable in the media, of course), one dimension or dynamic to keep in mind is this:
Some people do not understand or believe that climate change is real. (And of course, not all of these people need to understand or believe before changing their behavior, as many people do that on the basis of social factors, incentives, etc.) But, to the degree that some degree of understanding or belief is necessary for at least some of these people to alter behavior, the issue then (for those people) is understanding/belief.
On the other hand, other people understand/believe that we have a problem but don’t understand or believe that we (humans) have any responsibility to the future, or to the planet, or to other species, to address the problem. So, that’s a different problem, calling for a different message.
And some people think we probably have a problem, and may even think that (other things equal) we should do something about it, but also believe or feel that an even higher ideology is more fundamental to the way things “should be”. For example, some people think that free-marketplace ideals, or an unlimited view of personal freedom, trump our responsibilities to future life, the planet, and the biological environment. (This is a VERY misguided view and would be impossible to support down to real bedrock in a Socratic discussion, but, nevertheless, many people seem to hold this view.) In any case, messages to those folks would look a bit different.
So, while it’s very helpful to understand the different segmentation approaches, and certainly very helpful to see actual market research, to a degree one needs to have a “context” and a specific goal. I would LOVE to design a piece of robust market research to understand certain things, but I don’t have the budget or the time.
Have a nice weekend, All. Cheers.
Thanks all for your feedback. The most useful aspect of market research, is when separate studies converge to form a coherent picture, as is the case here. Here, I am just aiming for a majority of ‘green positive’ people. The data tells us we are not that far from reaching that goal. Changing economics and citizens media, as well as the voices of a few tenors such as Gore and Obama, are helping. And so are you, who are reading this blog and other blogs, and writing elsewhere, and talking to people in your circles. One person at a time. The green ranks are swelling.
I wonder if there is–or if it really matters–another segment of consumer which buys anything labeled “green” to demonstrate their social consciousness. Sometimes, when you think a little deeper about the total impact of a purchase, you may conclude that the supposed environmental benefits of a choice are minor and the less flashy alternatives are actually “better.” Example, because I take public transit, I don’t drive that much. I think buying a Prius would be wasteful for me. Other people buy Priuses but don’t bother to sort and recycle.
Like I said, it may not really matter, as my quibble is more of a judgmental attitude than a market segmentation. But I would caution that perhaps in the “conveniently conscious” segment, there are many who believe they are “positive choosers” but for whom the leap to inconvenience is a very short hop. I don’t want to malign these people as poseurs or whatever, but when we have the opportunity to talk about ideas like an ecological footprint, we should encourage people to think more holistically and question not only their habits, but the marketing messages of everyone jumping on the green bandwagon…But we should also be happy there is a bandwagon to jump on!
Thanks Dave for bringing some more nuances to this discussion. As discussed in some my earlier posts on other segmentations, the same person may fit different segments, and move back and forth, depending on time and situations. Personally, I can see myself in all of the segments above, with the exception of the Onlookers category.
[...] Green demographics are hard to come by. Most of the green consumer research deals with lifestyles’ segmentation, and is not very reliable, nor actionable from a marketer or green strategist’s point of [...]