Clicksharp Marketing

There’s a lot of buzz about “green” products, and at Clicksharp, we couldn’t agree more. It’s about time our consumer society underwent a paradigm shift, and understood that a world with unlimited resources is a mirage.

Sometimes, in reacting to perceived trends in consumer demand, businesses can get out of hand in chasing the holy grail. It’s important to be aware just how deep-rooted these trends really are.

A green consumer — but
what’s this about sustainability?

(Photo by ir0cko)

Consider this trio of recent articles in Brandweek:

“Green” is becoming a bigger part of the new product marketplace. Mintel, the Chicago based firm at the forefront of new consumer product rollouts, claims that the number of new products deemed to be “green” has doubled since 2005.

Large corporations are investing massive sums of money in further “sustainable” product development. Consumer products mammoth Procter & Gamble has planned $20 billion in “sustainable” product launches in through 2013.

But do consumers really know what they’re buying? A study by New York-based research firm BuzzBack found that the majority of consumers still are not familiar with the concept of sustainability.

The obvious truth is that corporations do not spew out product after product without doing their market research (not if they plan to survive the next fiscal year). The equally obvious truth is that they’re launching all these green products because the marketplace is clamoring for them.

The not-so-obvious culmination of these insights is that a consumer doesn’t necessarily have to understand, grasp, relate to or buy into the story behind the product, to give it a try. With one purchase, they now become a stakeholder of much more than that product. They’ll be scrutinizing your customer service, your prices, your competitive edge… whether or not they have ever heard of the particular rainforest you are trying to save.

So once you reel people in with a concise message, don’t overstate it. In the green economy, the rules of business remain the same.

A text ad in a search engine usually gives you a dozen words to communicate your message, give or take. Yeah, that ought to be enough.

~~~~~

Paul Burani
Clicksharp Marketing
New York, NY

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 @ 5:19 pm on the category Marketing Theory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.


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