Study reveals Why the 'green' branding campaigns are missing the mark

(April 2008) The latest installment of Ci's SHIFT Report – a new online poll of 5,000 North Americans – reveals that contrary to the huge amount of hype that surrounds 'green' messaging, environmental sustainability is not the most important sustainability issue for consumers.

Informed by the SHIFT Report’s preliminary qualitative research, the study finds that personal and social sustainability issues such as Community Engagement, Fair Trade Employee Treatment and Supporting Locally Based Business rank higher than environmental issues including Global Warming, Pollution and Buying Organic.

"Our research showed there were four areas where people articulated their ideas and ideals around social responsibility and sustainability: personal, social, environmental, and spiritual sustainability. Ci calls them the Four Pillars of Sustainability. While this insight may seem to complicate the challenge of marketing sustainability" says Ci's CEO, Kierstin De West "It actually opens the door for much more opportunity to communicate more accurately and successfully to a marketers audience".

This solid insight comes at a time when a number of studies – focused on the effectiveness of 'green' messaging – reveal that 'eco' advertising campaigns are lacking impact, raising doubts and leading to consumer fatigue. The SHIFT Report confirms that the majority of 'green' campaigns are not packing the punch – or the detail - to make it meaningful to consumers. Seventy-two percent of North Americans want to know the socially responsible behaviour of the brands that they buy – YET the majority of the population answer “I Don’t Know” when asked to identify a list of leading companies as socially responsible or not. Brands such as Wal-mart and General Electric have spent heavily in a bid to communicate their environmental and social initiatives are missing the mark. However, only 19% of people identify both Wal-mart and GE as socially responsible companies. And only 6.5% of respondents identified Bank of America – another big spending marketer - as a socially responsible company. What's more, a lot of green advertising these days lacks enough detail to make it meaningful to consumers.

No matter how smart and original, uplifting and hopeful an advertising campaign might be – by itself, it is not enough. Consumers are looking at a broad range of brand characteristics to determine whether a brand is socially responsible, or not. Sixty-five percent of North Americans looked to product design and lifecycle as an indicator, 64% used packaging and as many 57% looked to see if it was produced locally or sold by a local based business. While not at the top of the list, affiliation with a not-for-profit or charitable cause is important to 41% of the population.

"A lot of companies jump on the green bandwagon when often that isn't their most powerful sustainability story," De West says "Maybe they're doing a lot of powerful and interesting things in fair trade and employee engagement".

Moving forward, brands are advised to take an in-depth look at what 'sustainability' really means to their customers. Avoiding the obvious and demonstrating authentic insight into the lives of your customers has always been the right thing to do.

Methodology: These reports are based on data and insights from The SHIFT Report™ online survey of 5,000 North Americans (US/ Canada) general population adults fielded in April 2008 by Survey.com. The results are nationally representative of the North American adult population, and tested for significance at a 95% confidence level. Survey.com was selected to work with Ci in part due to their sustainability commitments from eco-office policies to client screening criteria. 

Projected Growth Categories: Opportunity for business.

One of the many insights from the qualitative research was the fact that people engage in a strategy of 'cherry picking' specific areas to bring their attitudes about the importance of social responsibility to life. To gauge the areas that people have already made socially responsible or sustainable choices, we presented 5,000 people with a list of 15 areas to consider.

Looking first at areas people say they have already made socially responsible and sustainable choices, Food choices topped the list with as many as 78% of North Americans confirming it was an area they had made a socially responsible choice. This was followed by Home Cleaning (74%), Home Energy (71%), Garden or yard work (59%) and Clothing (54%). All in all, these 'Have made' choices represented categories of relatively low investments regarding time/ thought, and are areas where we have seen significant growth over the past few years.

To uncover potential opportunities for business and entrepreneurs, we also asked the respondents the areas that they planned to make socially responsible or sustainable choices. These areas demonstrate a shift for consumers as they upgrade their investments in terms of price, time and knowledge. Interestingly, Vacation Choices topped the poll with 47% of respondents planning to make a socially responsible choice. This is closely followed by Financial Investments (45%), Choices related to my Car (43%), Home Decorating (42%) and Daily Transportation (excluding my car) (36%).

Looking at these growth areas and cross tabbing them against the overall study including demographic breakdown, marketing vehicles, lifestyle choices, leisure activities and more we can determine the specific opportunity that exists for businesses in this area. Rich stuff.

 Is Industrial Design the new Advertising?

Traditionally consumers have looked to advertising to determine what a brand stands for. However, in the age of product obsolescence, people are also taking the time to consider other brand characteristics including what things are made of and how well they are made.  And rightfully so. Consumers are becoming more critical and looking behind slick campaigns before they buy that extra pair of shoes or replace their laptop computer.  So the question we are asking at Ci: is industrial design is the new advertising?

The latest installment of The SHIFT Report (April, 2008) finds that 65% of North Americans look at product design and lifecycle to determine if products they buy are socially responsible, or not.  This finding only further supports the fact that consumers are becoming savvier when it comes to bringing new objects into their lives.  As industrial designer Karim Rashid put it "Objects do not have meaning. But if an object is thoughtful we project meaning onto it in daily life." We are all looking for meaning in our daily lives whether it is through social, emotional or material connections.  As sustainable design gains momentum across all product categories, from consumer electronics to furniture to transportation, the 'thoughtfulness' that Rashid refers to must consider the whole lifecycle of the product from material extraction to production to distribution and purchase to use and maintenance to end of life, or even better – new life.

That's not to say that traditional marketing and advertising doesn't have a place. Across ages, genders, cities, mainstream consumers and trendsetters, there was a clear request for brands to spend the time, effort and money communicating these CSR efforts. There was a perception that if brands "really cared" and "were truly socially responsible" they would want to tell people. Doing so removes the barrier of time and knowledge. It's simply about coordinating an effort where all consumer touch points (packaging, retail, advertising, word or mouth) are on message. What's the point of investing heavily in an uplifting, wholesome ad campaign when direct contact with the product contradicts the story?  

Ci Uncrunches North America's leading organic online grocer. Last year, Ci was selected to develop a new identity for Spud! – North America's leading online organic grocer.

The brief was about evolution - moving the brand from a service and values-based company to a lifestyle editor whose values are in sync with what mainstream consumers crave: conscious consumption for a sustainable life where sustainability isn't occasional and real food doesn't mean sacrifice.

The newly evolved identity captures the roots of the brand with a modern sensibility. We kept the quirky, off beat personality of the brand epitomized with their signature colour – purple; we kept the circle as a symbol of sustainability (no beginning, no end); we captured the positive energy of the brand by transforming the name SPUD (An acronym for Small Potatoes Urban Delivery) from a noun into a verb with the simple addition of an exclamation mark; and we anchored the brand with a simple life statement tagline – 'Eat. Live. Be Happy'.

We helped develop the new look across a range of consumer touch points including livery vehicles, newsletter, stationary, brochure and of course their new website – spud.com.

Congratulations to all those at spud! as they expand their service into San Francisco and Los Angeles.