According to Ad Age today, green is showing signs of being recession proof. Consumer goods with packaging containing the words, "sustainable, environmentally friendly or eco-friendly" are holding their own.
Tom Vierhile, general manager at Data Product Launch Analytics noted, "It looks like the green trend is going to survive the recession."
Green Trend?!? This isn't a trend, this is a way of business life. It's a foregone conclusion that unless global catastrophe happens, the capitalistic world will turn green. You might as well say that capitalism is a trend.
The article continues talking about green as if it's the latest fashion phase. I find that level of conversation annoying. I expect more from Ad Age. The research validated common sense, i.e. talk about something more, advertise it more, put it on the packaging more and golly consumers start buying it more. Go figure. It's the same reason that millions of Snugglies sold over the holidays (those blankets with arms otherwise known as robes worn backwards), repetition works.
That rant said, it's good to see Ad Age picking up the drum beat. The more that business talks about it in mainline public, the more that companies will compete trying to be greener, safer, nicer, more durable than the next. This morning I noticed that the Today Show changed their screen bug to green, probably for the sake of Earth Day, but nice to see them coming on board. Every message counts and helps to reconfigure society.
The article provided 4 tips for green consumer markets:
1. Combine environmental with Economic sustainability: add in social causes to the your environmental attributes.
2. Retailer support matters: There are 298 different environmental certifications for consumer brands, and consumers aren't buying it - not yet anyway. What they do trust is the retailer making the pre-buying decisions for them.
3. Opportunities remain: Health and Sustainability consumers are on the upswing and will need more products in their "like" range.
4. Consumers think that the quality of the products is lower as the price goes higher. They more or less trust what is being said, but think that the product won't perform as well
Read the full article here.
If there is a trend to be had, it's the trend that Ad Age and others are starting to merge the "green buyer" with the "pink" buyer. The green consumer isn't uni-gender - it's dominately female. The buyer doesn't change just because the packaging message did. Up until recently, most of the green consumer research I read contained 50/50 studies of men and women.
As trend spotting goes, that's exceptional news. It means that green has gone mainstream and as consumer maven, Martha Stewart would say, "That's a good thing." The green tide will keep rising.
