Pi-Consulting

These days we all talk the green* talk. We just seem less bent on walking the green walk. Could it be that just about everyone is now at least a pale shade of green? In a survey late last year, 83% of Americans said they “…want to protect the environment for the benefit of future generations”. Only 3% disagreed. That sounds like a pretty unanimous voice.

It was not always thus. Decades ago, once the world had accustomed itself to Peaceniks and Bra-Burners, it found itself facing Eco-Warriors too. Green 1.0 was born. Swedish pressure groups forced paper-mills to stop chucking bleach in rivers. Soft drink bottling plants found themselves surrounded by a million “non-returnable” glass bottles. Rubber boats attacked whaling ships. Whatever next?

This strident little group of activists were initially written off as manifestly insane, until they started political parties and began to win seats in Europe’s parliaments. Advertisers were initially dismissive. They finally woke up to the scary realization that they were going to have to take the “loony Greens” more seriously, or lose business.

Market research played a seminal role in the early propagation of green marketing trends. Clipboards filled up with complaints about companies’ callous indifference to the fate of our planet. Of course, what answer you get depends on what question you ask. The prevailing ‘green’ question in early questionnaires seemed to be ‘agree/disagree’ scales on “I would be willing to boycott companies whose products contribute to pollution”.

Unsurprisingly, the result was a torrent of flower-strewn, corporate-credential-polishing advertising which said little more than “We’re Green”, “We’re even Greener”, “New! Greener than ever!” and so on. The focus was on inoculating brands against consumer opprobrium. Even now, whole pods of TV commercials deliver bland and unfocused eco-friendly messages, one after the other, in sectors from household products to automotive to *gasp* big oil. You’ll know the process has become completely sterile the day you see an ad saying “No other brand gives you more Greenness”.

And so we enter the era of Green 2.0. Everyone’s green. Advertisers get it, and start seeing the positive side rather than using their communication platforms to ward of the evil green eye. Suddenly they are using planet-friendly messages as a way of bonding with consumers. This is particularly noticeable in America’s consumer electronics (CE) market, where the industry is grappling with stringent new federal and state legislation to ensure that manufacturers ‘take out the garbage’ as they sell-in new gizmos like HDTV. The issue is a serious one, with the impending switch-off of analogue TV services likely to mean huge numbers of old TV sets getting left on the sidewalk. Yet, far from running for cover, CE brands are now enthusiastically associating themselves with the green movement’s “positive outcomes”. It’s now “fun/cool” to be green. A majority of CE consumers no longer think that “green technology” is a contradiction in terms. They now believe in hi-tech’s ability to solve environmental problems, save energy and boost America’s ailing economy – as well as being “way cool”.

The advent of Green 2.0 means that basic “greenery” is no longer an ideology, just another paving slab in the floor of our collective consciousness. But would the early eco-warriors be proud that “they won” so resoundingly? Not necessarily. There is a growing separation between what “Green Believers” say and what they do, much of which seems to produce unexpected side-effects. Some “eco-fixes” make things worse, not better.

Concern for animal welfare is at unprecedented levels, at least in the West, and is still growing fast. Yet demand for meat has been expanding everywhere. Worldwide meat production has quadrupled since the 1960s, and consumption is set to double again in the next forty years. It is difficult to reconcile the new prevalence of humane thinking with the increasingly carnivorous habits of consumers, and the nasty intensive meat-production methods they directly cause. Meat is increasingly bad for the environment, too. 30% of the earth’s plant-producing surface is already being grazed for livestock production, and the flatulent beasts themselves produce almost a fifth of all greenhouse gases – more than transportation.

What of the new green mantra that the automotive industry should switch to eco-friendly biofuels? Widespread public opinion thinks it’s a no-brainer that corn-based ethanol is the right alternative to fossil fuel. The enthusiasm might be dimmed if everyone realized that veggie ethanol burns a third less efficiently than petrol, corrodes the insides of engines, pushes up the price of corn-based staple foods such as breakfast cereals and tortillas, and ends up pleasing no-one except the farmers who get vast government hand-outs for growing the stuff.

Bizarrely, large numbers of professed American ethanol fanciers still also seem to believe that access to cheap gasoline is their inalienable right, as if guaranteed by the US Constitution. The USA now imports more than half its oil, compared with under a third in 1970. When the price of oil hit $100 per barrel, the sharp intake of American breath was audible around the world. Perhaps that figure would seem less exorbitant when put in context. For comparison, Coca-Cola costs $126 per barrel, Perrier water comes in at a cool $300, Pinot Grigio’s p.b. price is just over $2,000, and Chanel No5 is very reasonable at $1.67 million per barrel. They all sell. Everything is relative.

It seems that perceptions count for more than realities. The new, genuinely scary (for advertisers) learning from recent consumer studies is that a nascent “Green 2.1″ generation will no longer be fobbed off with unsupported claims of “corporate green credentials”. These vocal refuseniks will punish manufacturers less for being insufficiently green than for touting green credentials when their record fails to support their claims. Putting unmerited green tags on products may produce the very backlash that manufacturers feared from the start.

Remember, planet-savers, you read it here at pi-consulting.com. No other consumer insight source delivers more Greenness !!!

*Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Even Pi Goes green!!