Green Around the Globe » Case Studies

Green: A Gift with Purchase or Emotional Goldmine?

Keith — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:34:39 +0000

Gift with purchase, that is how I use to describe green marketing when I began working with new business partners. I took this approach as it supported the widely held belief that the main-stream American consumer is not going to sacrifice product performance and is unwilling to pay any significant premium for a more sustainable product or service. Witness the SunChips compostable, but noisy packaging disaster from just 2 years ago. Hence, I thought of green product benefits as a “gift with purchase,” a free bonus for choosing one product over another, but not something that can represent a trade off. I had wanted my partners to think of green as the “tie-breaker”, allowing their brands to win the toss-up.

Today, I want to officially call B.S. on this logic.

The fatal flaw in this idea is that it assumes consumers are taking the time to full evaluate primary product benefits, make the determination that they are equal, and then move on to the secondary benefits. I don’t buy it. Focused and singular communications are the most impactful. Cluttered multi-benefit messages get lost and consumers’ quickly lose interest trying to wade through it all. If you have not seen the video below depicting the result of Microsoft designing the iPod box, it is a great example of this effect and worth a quick view. Just imagine how many eco-logos could be slapped on there today!

So if green is not a secondary communication tie-breaker, and it is not a primary product benefit communication for the general market, where does that leave sustainability and green marketing? I think it leaves green marketers promoting more sustainable products in a tremendous position, because let’s face it, being a tie-breaker is not that enviable of a position.

Inspiration recently came to me at the wine store as I reached for the “The Big Green Box” by Pepperwood Grove, a brand from Don Sebastiani & Sons.

The story I told myself as I bought the Big Green Box was that I wanted the very functional benefit common to all boxed wines, the ability to enjoy a glass or two at night without leaving half a bottle in the fridge, becoming slightly oxidized overnight and losing the tastiest aspects of the wine. Most bag-in-the-box wines allow you to enjoy the wine over 4 weeks from when you initially open it with no oxidation. While a nice benefit, the real reason I have recently adopted bag-in-box wines is not an increase in functionality – after all the original box wine, Franzia, has had an identical benefit for the last 25 years. Heck they even trademarked it with WineTap(R). Rather, it is the signal of quality and sophistication that a boxed wine positioned as a more sustainable and greener alternative tells me as the consumer, “you can trust me, I’ll taste good, look how enlightened I am in my eco-conscious packaging.”

I want to make the case that it is these higher order emotional benefits that are the real opportunity for green marketing to shine. Just as a higher price can be a signal of quality, so too can green benefits.

Besides box wine I have another example closer to my work at Johnson & Johnson, that of reprocessed single-use surgical devices. In this category the main functional benefit for hospital customers is significant savings, in many cases up to 50% versus purchasing new devices. And while that is a compelling case for any resource constrained hospital, it seems that the emotional benefit of reducing waste going to landfills and contributing to more sustainable operations is what wins hospitals’ hearts and minds, as evidenced by the category leader Styker Sustainability Solution’s current marketing, website and blog.

With appropriate customer targeting, a green message can allow brands to strike emotional gold.

What categories have you seen where green has or could be used to signal quality and help deliver an emotional benefit for customers?

Touring a Green Bakery

Keith — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:51:55 +0000

After 13 years living in Philadelphia, there are a couple of local specialties I have come to love. I even promoted one of my favorites, scrapple (a delicious Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast meat), as we traveled. With room for only three t-shirts in my backpack, I purposely chose one from my favorite restaurant in Reading Terminal Market, Down Home Diner, that promotes eating more scrapple. Below is a snapshot of me in my scrapple-promoting shirt on the banks of the Nile River in Luxor, Egypt.

So while I may have grown up in Cincinnati eating Little Debbie’s in my lunches, once I got to Philadelphia I had no choice but to embrace Tastykakes. I am especially fond of the fruit pies, but the chocolate cupcakes are delicious with a glass of milk. So when I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to tour the new Green Tastykake bakery in the Navy Yard I jumped at the chance. The private tour for the Philadelphia Harvard and Wharton Alumni associations, was led by Autumn R. Bayles, Senior Vice President – Strategic Operations.

Autumn led us from the spacious new lobby to the mezzanine level that is designed to eventually allow the public to tour and view the workings of the bakery. And while they do not allow pictures of the great overhead views you get of the machines and bakery operations, there are great signs and multi-media displays discussing the history of the company in Philadelphia and the Green aspects of the building. It reminded me of the SPAM Museum we visited as we traveled through Minnesota earlier this year. Both brands have very loyal followings and have tapped into that consumer passion by celebrating their products and brands.

After touring the bakery and seeing how Tastykake is strategically using their sustainability practices to guide capital investments and their marketing on packaging, and how Tastykake is increasing transparency to consumers (despite the prohibition of pictures on the mezzanine), it is clear that they understand how to use sustainability as a way to drive their business and their brand. When they do open the bakery to the public, I recommend a trip down to the Navy Yard to check out the bakery and have lunch at URBN’s public cafeteria.

Key Tastycake Bakery Green Features:

Targeting LEED-Silver certification, awaiting USGBC final certification.
A white, reflective roof, which minimizes heat-absorbing surfaces that contribute to global warming.
No-mow, drought-resistant grass that uses less water.
All wood doors and half of the wood used in the building come from certified sustainable sources that work to conserve trees.
Paints and carpeting with low chemical content that reduce ear, nose and throat irritation.
Refrigeration equipment using environmentally friendly refrigerants to minimize emissions that contribute to global warming.
Heat-recycling system, which reduces the amount of energy needed to produce products.
All products are packed in recyclable cartons and cases to save trees.
Solar panels on the roof that provide power to several of the building’s systems.

Case Study #4: Cambodian Sustainability

Keith — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 10:00:23 +0000

We are pleased to present our 4th Sustainability Case Study today. It is a more detailed account of the three organizations (Bloom, SME-RE and RE-I) we thanked for their time here. We are also happy to showcase the Google PDF viewer we have rolled out on the site so that our readers can view Case Studies without having to download a PDF (although the resolution is better when you download).

We welcome your thoughts, opinions or additional questions about our experiences in Cambodia. Also if you know of a higher resolution PDF viewer option for WordPress please it in the comments below.

Download (PDF, 827.11KB)

Our Second Sustainability Case Study

Keith — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 02:08:37 +0000

The second case study is now complete! While the quick service oil change industry was not the first place I thought to look for examples of sustainability efforts driving business growth, Lube Stop is a regional company that has done just that in a very challenging category.

The case study highlights my interview with the President of the company, Tom Morley and his efforts to integrate sustainability into the core of Lube Stop operations and recent new product innovation. Be sure to click through the link above or on the Case Study page to check it out and leave your comments.

Our Experience with Biomimicry

admin — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 13:01:56 +0000

The lobby of the Hearst Tower in New York City

Hidden Falls, Grand Teton National Park

I think this is what the Hearst Tower was going for. Standing in front of the falls on a hot sunny day you can feel the rush of cool air come at you: nature’s air conditioning at your service as you hike up the Tetons.

Do you know of any bio-mimicry examples? It does not have to be a building, it could be a product or even a service, be sure to share them below in comments. And please don’t foget to sign up for the RSS feed to keep up with the latest updates here.

Our Second Sustainability Case Study