Green Marketing.  Real or Not Real.

 A sight to behold  Wow.  Did I take a nap and wake up in a green marketer’s paradise?

Who knew 24 months ago that we’d be sitting where we are in the middle of 2007? Hardly a day goes by without another national or regional publication addressing the “greening of America.”   Hybrid car sales are going through the roof while those of some gas guzzlers are going through the floor.  Two years ago I never would have believed that Henry Kravis, the wizard of Wall Street, and his buyout firm KKR, would buy a major Texas energy company, TXU, and force it to shelve plans for coal plants in favor of less environmentally taxing generation—all in the name of sustainability (well, and money too).

Whether it’s the price of gas, the war, a Katrina-Rita wake-up call or something else, the American public is undergoing a major realignment of values.  There is a wave of demand sweeping the country in which consumers are seeking consistency between their behaviors—including purchasing habits—and the values they’ve always had.

Let’s celebrate the good time  Let me be the first to say that this change of tide is appreciated.  From the perspective of someone who has been pursing this agenda with clients and co-workers for the past decade, it’s nice not to have to be swimming upstream.

Of course my own epiphany came years later than I wish it had, and our company’s journey into sustainability in our own operations and in our work for our clients hasn’t always been as robust as it could have been. Nonetheless, having been on a green path for a while, it seems appropriate to take a moment to put my hands together and clap to the sound of the new chorus of environmental voices, and to feel euphoric as more and more companies join in.

The only problem is…Unfortunately, a little voice inside my head keeps holding me back.

I love a lot of what I’m seeing, but I loathe some of it too.  In the rush to green, too many companies are taking the “lite green” approach.  In the world of green “marketing” there’s a jumping on the bandwagon that hasn’t been seen since the height of the dot-com boom.  Companies in the Northwest (and across the county) are putting their energy into figuring out how to badge themselves as “green.”  However, they’re spending more time there than they are working on the substance of greening their business.  They think that just a little green color on the structure that already existed and poof, the problem is solved.  Brown company becomes green company.

Well, that’s not how we see it.  Greening your company is an inside-out issue. While the green epiphany can dawn on an executive or a company with sudden realization, the transformation of the business and its products or services takes more time and effort than that.  Just pulling a green badge off the shelf and trying to catch the fad of green doesn’t really do anything for your business, your customers or your planet.  You might think it does, but customers are smart.  Sooner or later they will see through the superficial claims.

As it is, many consumers are a little suspicious of corporate intentions anyway.  A study reported last month in The Guardian found that 9 out of 10 people are skeptical of claims companies make about what they hear from businesses about efforts to control climate change.  Furthermore, in much the same way that reading the nutrition labels has helped the public understand its food choices better, wrestling with environmental issues at home helps consumers develop a deeper understanding of what is and what isn’t meaningful to the environment.  Together, that makes for some highly tuned BS-meters in a society where your audience is only a click away from being able to see inconsistencies between a company’s claims in marketing and the corporate behavior that can be read about online. 

You have to be it, before you talk it. This is a subject for which façade building doesn’t work.  To realize the real opportunity in going green, you have to allow these environmental and social issues to inform your business.  Done right, sustainability isn’t just a marketing thing, although marketing can play a critical role.  It’s central to your business.  Only then can you achieve the benefit. Culturally, our own exploration of sustainability has been one of the best things for my agency.  It gives us something to rally around.  It gives people another reason to come to work and another dimension in career fulfillment. This internal energy facilitates a creativity and innovative verve that in turn produce ideas and solutions that help in our sustainability efforts and elsewhere.

In some businesses the direct, immediate bottom-line benefits of energy and resource efficiency make this a no-brainer issue totally aside from any potential appeal to consumers.  This becomes more true every day as the cost of energy rises.

For all businesses, when it comes to capturing new markets and new opportunities, few strategies can beat sustainability for helping a business to innovate and produce something that is meaningfully different for both its shareholders and its customers.  But it’s got to be for real, if you want it to really work for you.  You’ve got to really see the light if you want to get the green. 

For a lot of reasons, we need to get this one right  I’m writing this with my business hat on to advise you how to get the green thing right from an economic standpoint.  The half-hearted, off-the-shelf, surface-level approach to greening your business produces pretty shallow financial returns.  But it’s really up to you.  You can either learn this the easy way or the hard way.

With my human hat on, I’m appealing to you as someone who can make a difference to the world we live in.  And by the way this is one of those situations we really can’t afford to get wrong.  In just a handful of years much of the west and even places like Florida will be having water supply issues of one kind or another.  Our water quality is another issue.  The load of chemical contaminants from all kinds of business sources continues to grow, putting at risk our health as well as the health of other species in our food chain and elsewhere.

Then there is the issue of resources running scarce.  You’ve probably heard of peak oil.  And of course the threat of global warming is accelerating every day.

I’m sure you’ve heard of some of these issues before.  The question is, “are we going to respond like business can really do something about it?” 

Why is a damn ad-guy talking to me about this?  I’ve asked myself a variation of that question before.  What can we in marketing really do?  After all, we don’t get to make the product or design the delivery of the service.  We just sell it.  Right?

I think we can do more.  On the agency side we always talk about being “partners” with our clients.  From the broader marketing perspective we’re always striving to give marketing a seat at the executive table equal to operation, manufacturing and sales.  Well, I contend this is a chance to fulfill those promises. It’s not time to simply jump on the green marketing bandwagon and put out a me-too, counterfeited green stamp on the same-old business.  As marketers we are the interface between a business and its customers.  We need to seize upon this role and help our brethren in the other areas of a business understand the bigger, more meaningful ways to connect with a company’s audiences through addressing sustainability.  This is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate how marketing can inform the rest of a business’ operations.

We need to drive, support or champion the innovation that will help our clients and companies capture the real market opportunities and the real environmental benefits of truly embracing sustainability.  It’s a strategy that can bring together the worlds of what’s good for your business and what’s good for your planet. 

As marketers we have the tools to do this work.  Whether it’s market research, critical analyses or the talent to articulate and give voice to real product differentiation, marketing can make a meaningful contribution to the greening of a company.  That’s something you can take to the bank.