When you think about it, marketing is really simple: to offer products and services that solve people’s real problems. If it is so straight forward, then, why is it that the market place keeps getting flooded with new products without any real benefits to the consumers? I call that phenomenon, marketers’ amnesia. Nowhere is marketers’ amnesia more in display than with the so called ‘green market’ . Here to remind us once more of that important marketing premise, are some excerpts from a recent article from Steven Bishop, Sustainability Domain Lead at IDEO, in the Harvard Business Review.
It seems so logical on the face of it. A company wishing to go green should focus on the green consumer, right? Not so. Marketing to the green consumer has proved difficult, even downright dangerous, for companies large and small. Here’s why.
Established companies fear alienating their base of mainstream consumers by appealing to the green consumer, and rightly so. The majority of consumers seek to satisfy their personal needs before considering those of the planet. Green for green’s sake products often don’t meet the basic needs that most people require from their products. Take hemp clothing, for example. If green for green’s sake products could go mainstream, we’d all be wearing hemp sweaters and be happy about it.
Small, streamlined green brands that truly appeal to the environmentalist consumer can’t reach the mainstream. Those companies get stuck in a green ghetto—virtuous, but limited in scope.
The result is that most companies are stuck somewhere in the middle—and that turns out to be a very dangerous place indeed. We’ve all watched a company take a traditional product and tout its green virtues. When the approach doesn’t work all that well, they simply take out a bigger megaphone. Hence the green-washing epidemic we have today.
So while the traditional marketing answer to the question, Should we market to the green consumer? has been yes, the better answer is this: Instead of focusing on a green niche, focus on green behaviors that everyone can aspire to.
When we helped Shimano, an international manufacturer of bike parts, create a new bike platform, we didn’t focus on cycling enthusiasts—the biggest segment in this market—or on the green niche. Instead we focused on a growth strategy with a “green outcome”—more people riding bikes and enjoying it. As a result, we turned our attention to the 161 million Americans who don’t ride at all.
Our work with Shimano yielded two insights: 1) everyone fondly remembers biking as a kid; 2) highly technical sports bikes and lycra-clad salespeople in bike stores put off would-be everyday riders. So Shimano pitched a concept bike to manufacturers that was intuitive and inviting. Mechanical components were hidden, handlebars were stripped of complex controls, and pedals, were well, just pedals.
They called it the “Coasting” bike. Nothing to learn, just jump on and go, like when you were a kid. That’s what gets people riding.
So where’s the environmental story here? Well, there isn’t an explicit one. Shimano is addressing a human problem, not an environmental one. By seeking the truth about what really matters to people and creating a great experience for them, the company is appealing to a mass market increasingly aware of our impact on the planet. Coasting bikes tell the green story implicitly by inviting people to engage in new, positive behaviors—like reducing greenhouse gases by pedaling—instead of driving.
For a company that wants to go green, then, the green consumer niche is almost irrelevant. I’m reminded of HBS professor Ted Levitt‘s old marketing axiom that people who buy drills don’t need drills; they need holes. Consumers—whether they are green or mainstream—don’t simply want green products, they want solutions to their day-to-day problems that also make sense for our environment.
The bottom line: Marketing needs to define what sustainability means for their company and then decide how to express those values in their offerings. Companies should stop trying to appeal to green consumers by building green myths into the products they have and start creating something real—products that tell their environmental story for them.
Bottom line is, green marketers, beware of marketing amnesia. To help, I suggest you print a copy of Ted Levitt‘s classic article, Marketing Myopia, and that you read it again every time you think of launching a new product.
La Marguerite 
keen and green as usual Marguerite. this is a very encouraging perspective..
no need to push the green when you can sell the appeal.
this is the very reason why the environmentalists have taken so long to bring the problems to the mainstream surface .
they were pushing hard on the problems instead of soft selling the solutions.
To begin, I should say that I agree with many aspects of what’s being said in the body of the post and via the example, to a degree. And, the post itself is great and very helpful.
That said, being both a human (first and foremost) and also a person with much experience in marketing, market research, and so forth, I’d like to offer a few observations, for what they’re worth.
First, a point about terminology: I think (and hope) the days of referring to people as “consumers” will soon be over. The terminology, in my view, should be seen some day, in the future, as an aspect of cultural history that hit its peak in the 20th century and then died out soon thereafter. I know that this comment may draw some criticism, but I think that most people (including those in marketing) understand where I’m coming from. At least, I hope they do. I also understand that the term is standard and most often used innocently, but it carries with it an entire way of thinking which can, in some cases, be damaging.
Second, I think the question is one of addressing (and filling) real human needs or real human problems in environment-friendly, sustainable ways. In many ways, it’s the “functionality” of the product, in the very broad sense of the word, that counts, subordinate of course to the human need being filled in the first place (e.g., the hole rather than the drill). We don’t need useless green products, of course. We need products that fill real human needs in genuine green ways. But, in my view, that needs to be a key focus. A paradigm shift. Rather than having an unnecessary product and making it green, so we now have a green but unnecessary product, or rather than having a necessary (or unnecessary) product that isn’t at all green, we need necessary and helpful products that are, as I mentioned, environment-friendly and sustainable. This notion causes some companies heartburn, of course: Those whose products are not really necessary or helpful in the first place, and those who have helpful products that are far, far away from being environment-friendly and sustainable.
I’ve worked in marketing and marketing-related functions for years. During a certain portion of my career, in a small group of marketers consisting mainly of some very bright marketers formerly from P&G, I marketed electric ride-on vehicles for children less than six years old. Although the vehicles were very fun, and I enjoyed the challenge (and the people involved), I now wonder (to put it mildly) whether four-year-olds really “need” big plastic electric ride-on Corvettes and Jeeps and so forth. Of course, they don’t. Many “needs” or “wants” today are created needs, created wants, enticed, prompted, encouraged, invented, and so forth. And, there is a difference, of course, between simply making someone aware that a product is available and trying to convince them that they need or want the product. I think, as a culture, we need to wrestle with some of those types of questions, at some point. Whatever comes out of that reflection and wrestling should “inform” what products we create, how we market them, and what we buy as individuals.
I understand that some of these comments may be misinterpreted or overinterpreted and that they may be magnets for criticism. But, when you spend a few years of life marketing $150 electric ride-on Barbie Corvettes to young children and their parents, and when a common term is “kid request”, and when you want the “kid” to request the car so much that her mom and dad will get one, and then you later learn about an issue such as global warming, you necessarily question some things, if you’re human.
So, there you have it, a part of my confession.
how positively interesting and I have to agree – marketing in my niche as an expert in wellness in greenness and in nutrition has always been against the grain – definitely not mainstream and definitely always educating and enrolling – our company ” green ” way before it’s time and in a time when it wasn’t popular still stands strong and deeply rooted – however we are still a best kept secret – endorsements from iconic superstars like oprah certainly help – if you watch oprah that is !!
I often say are you ready for what I have to offer to my clients, it’s such a wow when folks discover it
* you affected by the horrific weather??
Mother Earth aka Karen Hanrahan
http://www.bestwellnessconsultant.com
Like you all, I am delighted to see a conversation starting on this most important topic. Jeff, I could not agree more with you about the need for a paradigm shift. And I have similar stories to tell about my earlier days in advertising, working hard at getting moms convinced of the wholesomeness of granola bars, while knowing full well that the things were full of saturated fats and sugar. This is why I am so excited now, to be a part of the new wave of conscious marketers. We are living in a time when marketing, economics, sustainability, morality, ethics, democracy, capitalism, citizenry, can all work together to create this new shift you are alluding to.
Dear Marguerite,
I agree with your points in post #4. And, I think many of those things you list in your last sentence will (or should) undergo some degree of reinvention or substantial enlightenment in the not-too-distant future. But, it’ll require lots of honest discussion.
Also, sometimes, the truth hurts: For example, to this day, I’ve thought that granola bars were completely wholesome!
Yes, more discussion needs to take place amidst marketing/advertising professionals. Ethics are a huge issue, that is becoming more apparent as sustainability is becoming more mainstream in the business world.