Welcome to the diary of a conflicted marketer

I have just uploaded the contents of my diary from last week. I have never really kept one before, but after a conversation I had with my wife last weekend, about what I do for a living, I thought it was about time I started. I would love to hear you feedback.





Monday

The wife’s buggered off to see her parents for a week. But on Friday night, after a few glasses of Tesco’s organic vino tinto, we have a ding-dong about human consumption and my job.

Here’s the deal. She’s convinced if consumers want to be ‘greener’ and behave more ethically, in my role as a marketer I should be taking an active stance to make it easier for them.

Her point is that consumers are constantly being told about the impact of climate change, and the impact they are having on it through over consumption. Yet she thinks the marketing industry is guilty for making things worse for encouraging this over-consumption, and making consumers confused about what they can do to make a difference.

After a prolonged lecture she goes to bed, then vanishes to the Midlands early Saturday. I hate it when she consumes so much wine.

But she’s got my attention. If everything consumers do in their daily lives impacts on the environment, perhaps we should be helping them out to make better choices either consciously, or subconsciously.


After a troubled Sunday night’s sleep, I head into the office early on Monday morning and print off a full colour, 46-page PDF entitled: Tipping Point or Turning Point: Social Marketing & Climate Change.


The newspaper headlines in the exec summary have got me thinking long and hard, not least why did I not print this document in black and white (maybe I shouldn’t have printed it at all):

‘Extreme weather: forecasters warn of more to come’ (Independent, 01 July 2007); ‘Climate change blamed for the rise in asthma and hay fever’ (Times, 13 May 2007); ‘Pay up … or the planet gets it’ (Sun, 30 October 2006); ‘British armies must ready for global warming’ (Mirror, 25 June 2007).

Crikey! If this report is anything to go by, if we don’t start making some big changes we are all gonna be fu**ed.

I feel that working in marketing has more than likely contributed to its part of the problem of the consumers’ increased consumption levels, and in turn should feel a degree of responsibility for climate change. Perhaps we should now be thinking about how we can contribute to becoming part of the solution.

I’m convinced (the wife is rarely wrong) that we’ve got to do something, but what can feasibly be done in an industry that exists to sell ‘stuff’ to people? If we are honest with ourselves about the damage we’re inflicting on the planet internally, and face up to the challenges of responsible (or irresponsible) consumption of consumers externally, maybe we can really do something to turn the climate change clock back?

Before I leave work, I asked IT how to print double sided. It is very easy.







Tuesday

Now the wife has planted this seed in my head (and is in a mood with me, plus not talking to me after our bun fight), I thought I should do a little straw poll down at the pub to see what my ‘media type’ mates think about this little conundrum.

In the purposes of research, I suggest that the beers are ‘on me’ quite forgetting Dave and Mark’s appetite for booze after a gruelling day at the office. We end up getting hammered … on a school night.

I ask them if, as marketers, we should be looking at green marketing as an opportunity to do good business, in both senses of the word? Does it offer us a chance to be more creative product-wise or even create a better environment for future generations?

As usual, Dave is straight in there. ‘The media has created a culture of ‘green guilt’. At the end of the day it comes down to cash. Most consumers will still opt for value over ethics when it comes to buying their groceries or anything else. It will be a long time before green becomes part of the norm in business language’.

Andy agrees. He says: ‘Ethics and CSR come much further down the pecking order. But times are changing. Now that green and organic products are no longer associated with inferior quality and beardy weirdy types (with dogs on bits of string), people are beginning to see the value of paying something more for a product. You only have to look at the rise of organic foods.’


I wonder if going green doesn’t have to involve an all-out change in philosophy. There’s a lot to be said for taking baby steps and observing how they affect a business, its customers, and even the employees. With words such as trust (and distrust), transparency, openness and even authenticity being bandied around in everyday conversation, any company that does consider green marketing would surely be foolish?

‘You just have to be careful not to be seen to be ‘greenwashing’ your company’, explains Charlie. ‘Consumers are a cynical bunch and can smell a rat a mile off. You are better off building green into your business at its core. If your consumer finds out that it is green without you telling them that they have to do something to prevent climate change, all the better.’

‘Small changes for consumers and brands will be the most important ones,’ says Dave. ‘Make people feel better about themselves for making the right choices, not guilty for making the wrong ones. I do think we could cut down the amount of stuff we use in the office – paper, plastics, energy, that sort of thing. I’ve been on about 10 long haul flights to see clients in the last six months. That can’t be good?’

Mark who is drunk, and has been quiet to this point, slurs: ‘I still don’t think most people give a shit. If I was living on a council estate in Stockport and was given the choice of an expensive ethical product or an own brand, I would go for the own brand every day of the week’. Everyone tells him to shut up, but he might have a point. I ask them why they are not doing more in their own businesses.

‘We simply can’t afford it’. Rubbish. It doesn’t cost anything to recycle, print less, or use less in the office.

‘It is not relevant to our consumers’. Nonsense. Consumers are showing an overwhelming desire for us to do something better for the planet

‘We will try and do something soon’. But why not today? As the old Chinese proverb points out: ‘Even the longest journey starts with one small step’.

‘It’s far too complicated to make all the necessary changes’. You don’t have to change everything you do. Why not cut down on a few of those flights. Surely more business can be done over the telephone or by email?

‘There are more important things for our company to focus on?’ Like what, making more money? You can still make a lot of money and be greener.

‘How do we do it?’ There are loads of companies out there, like the Carbon Trust, that can give businesses help to go greener. Why not start having a look on the Internet?

‘How can a single company make a difference to the future of the planet?’ You can but you won’t know until you try.

‘The government should do more?’ Maybe so, but if businesses show that being greener is a big issue for them perhaps they will do more to help?

‘What’s in it for me?’ Consumers will probably love you for it, and in turn you’ll probably feel better about yourself.

These sound like a load of pointless excuses to me. I am going to try to talk some other people about it, perhaps companies that have won by embracing green marketing.

How can we expect consumers to live in a sustainable way if we do not take any action ourselves? Surely it is better to do something than do nothing at all. I am convinced that companies that show leadership will rewarded, if not in heaven, but in consumer loyalty and profit margins.

Companies such as E.ON, Waitrose, Virgin and Levi’s are all offering their customers some green(er) product ranges. None of them have promised that they have got everything 100% sorted, but all demonstrate a willingness to change for the better.

I knew I could rely on my mates to confuse me more than I already was. I am going to put a few questions forward to a BMRB Omnibus survey, to find out what Joe Public thinks, I should get the results back on Thursday.

Asked kitchen facilities if we could stop using disposable plastic cups in the canteen. They said yes! We will now be using mugs like everyone else.





Wednesday

I have spent the day trawling the Internet, having a look at some interesting stuff that people are doing in marketing. I have also been lucky enough to chat to a few key industry leaders in ethical product development and marketing – I will upload what they said onto my blog.

What is clear to me is to succeed in the green space is not about stopping people buying stuff, but replacing conventional buying habits with something equally, or more satisfying and attractive. It seems quite old skool thinking, almost like a return to the values of the 1950s and ‘60s. I think we could learn a lot from some of these guys.

Take my favourite clothing brand as an example. Howies clothes are hard wearing, brilliantly designed and address environmental issues at the same time (not that you would know it from looking at them). Everything is produced in ‘happy’ factories and made from organic cotton, and where possible the clothes are made in the UK to cut down on air miles and pollution. Howies is a fan of neither. Unlike a lot of fast fashions out there, they don’t end up in landfill after you wear them four or five times.

Or what about Omlet? These guys created the Eglu, an urban style chicken run, in the knowledge that people were increasingly questioning where their food comes from. Rather than being about ‘urban farming’, they thought that having chickens in an urban environment would help consumers understand the benefits of fresh produce, and get them recycle household food leftovers subconsciously and guilt free. It’s about having fun in the garden, getting a few eggs in the process, rather than leading a purist organic lifestyle.

Why is it that so many companies that succeed in this area are small? Maybe speed and agility are key to making green marketing work?

Perhaps you just need to be more stylish?


I was wandering around Tesco and came across Method – an all natural, biodegradable and stylish-lookinghousehold cleaning range. Instead of shouting about its green and ethical stance, Method just offers highly designed products for people who want to do the right thing but don’t want to have to wear a pair of Birkenstocks to do so. In a very bland supermarket aisle, it stands out a mile.

And it smells good too. While most cleaning product companies believe that ammonia or bleach are the smell of clean, Method doesn’t. It thinks smells like the smell of flowers, of different fruit, herbs such as lavender or Magnolia, are much better. Just because it smells strong, does not mean it will clean any better. No wonder it is one of the fastest growing companies in the US.

Another brand that works by turning conventional thinking on its head is Remarkable. On the whole stationery is a really boring thing to buy, but Remarkable succeeds by making stylish products out of recycled objects. The guy who set it up began by experimenting with plastic cups with the aim of trying to turn one plastic cup into a pencil. Why? Because it had never been done before and it would prove to the world that you could take one everyday, throwaway item that would usually just go straight to landfill and, instead, turn it into a new product which was fun, functional and had a long second life.

Using the fascination of what an item once was is a brilliant and fun way of communicating the recycled message. Even better, Remarkable’s stuff doesn’t cost much more than something from Viking Direct!

From a marketing point of view, Green Thing is an internet-based marketing initiative which aims to tap into the consumer desire for change but by taking it away from being a chore and an obligation, and turning it into more of a pleasure. This is a not-for-profit, monthly ‘thing’ that is meant to be simple and fun - encouraging a social movement by doing small things that might lead to bigger behavioural changes among its consumers. I love the idea that it congratulates peoples for doing good things, not saying it is bad that you have not done anything.

There’s many other examples of people doing good stuff out there – even Tesco has done a range of Ethical clothing called Choose Love with eco queen Katherine Hamnett. Why do they work? Well, there’s no finger pointing, no guilt, no images of polar bears drowning. Instead they are all based on fantastically designed products that are easy to understand, aspirational and better for peoples’ lives whether they know it or not. Bigger businesses should take notice.

I have managed to get work to use Remarkable stationery in all of our meeting rooms. I will see if I can get the bigwigs to go further and buy into its products wholesale. Fingers crossed.





Thursday

I have just had the results of my BMRB Omnibus survey and I am delighted to say that it shows that there really is an appetite for change among the consumers polled (despite what my mates thought). There are some clear lessons to be learnt.

Initially, over half of the poll suggested that companies and brands need to make it easier for them to buy ‘green’ products. For this thing to work we need to make it clear which products are better for the environment, and also why. With over 50% of the consumers spoken to suggesting that the media is consistently making them feel guilty about climate change, there is an overwhelming feeling that if we made things simpler to understand, and placedless emphasis on them to make a difference, they would consider changing what they bought for products with a greener stance.

An incredible 86% of the people we spoke to said that if they did not need to compromise on price or quality, they would be willing to change their purchasing habits to buy products that could help save the planet. This shot up to a massive 96% among these aged under 45 years of age. This figure dropped down to 67% among those consumers over 65 years old. Maybe all the media hype that green is a young person’s market is, after all, correct.

Interestingly, 57% said that they would be willing to compromise on quality to buy products that helped save the planet. This rises to 71% for those people spoken to under the age of 24.

Despite the fact that many consumers suggest that they are always looking for the cheapest brands and products to buy, 67% of respondents agreed that they would be willing to pay more for products that could help save the planet. (I knew my mates were wrong). People don’t just want to buy products, they seem to want solutions to what they increasingly see as problem.

On a slightly more worrying note, 62% of consumers currently think that brands and companies don’t actually care about climate change. With a further 64% saying that the companies and brands that refuse to help save the planet will become less successful, it’s clear that the buck stops with us in business and marketing.

We need to take extra steps to prove that we do care, that we do want to make a difference, that we understand what needs to done to sort out a problem people think that they are stuck with. Let’s work with consumers to sort this out together – they certainly seem to want to.

Facilities have agreed to change all the existing light bulbs with energy efficient ones. IT has agreed to switch off all computers left on standby at 10pm.







Friday

The wife’s back tonight. If she’s still talking to me, I think she’ll be impressed. I feel better as a person as the penny has properly dropped.

In my opinion, working in marketing, my primary responsibility is to help consumers make sustainable choices, not to tell them what to do. There are many conflicted consumers out there – who continue to buy products while doubting their ethical reputation – but it is becoming increasingly clear that if people were aware of ‘better’ alternatives then they would probably buy them, or even recommend them to others, over their existing choices.

I have come up with a few questions that I will be asking myself when I am thinking about green marketing, and my job on the whole. I am going to run them past the wife, before I mention them to any one at work. If she thinks they work, then I’m bound to be on a winner. Here we go:

1. Is it good? We should be creating products that are better than the ones that already exist out there. We should be thinking about creating things that are longer lasting, harder wearing and more user friendly.

2. Are we being fun? This does not have to be serious. Forget the finger pointing blame game, let us bring a little bit of joy to people’s lives.

3. Does it look good? Just because it is green does not mean that it has to look crap. Let’s try and make these things sexy, mainstream and cool. Basically, forget the images of wildlife and polar bears.

4. Is it simple? Let’s keep it relevant and simple for consumers to understand. The simpler it is the more likely it is that consumers will engage with it.

5. Is it green(er)? We should be highlighting the direct benefits of buying greener stuff to the consumer. We do not have to say that we are perfect. We are just trying to help consumers make better choices in the least patronising way possible.

6. Are we being honest and open? We have to instil a sense of trust with the consumer. Do this and they will pass it on to friends, family and beyond.

7. Is it populist? If fashion and interior design can be democratised, why can’t ethics? The more people that get on board the better it will be for the planet and sales alike.


Our job as creative marketing people is to make choosing green intuitive, second nature, and good old common sense. Everyone – brands and consumers alike – can become winners if we all just take a small leap of the imagination into believing that change for the better is possible.

Have convinced work to get a load of speakers in to talk about best business practice when it comes to engaging with consumers on green issues. Let’s hope people start listening.