How To: Advertising to Environmentally Conscious Consumers

Advertising is a very tricky thing when trying to make it both effective and real, and i've found that it works best when you fully believe in your product or service and you can truly just talk about it, without having to embellish. Advertising can be made easy by being transparent, but some companies just can’t do that, because it’s too appealing to just stretch the truth a bit more to make themselves seem like something they aren’t. Stretching the truth or making things seem too good to be true is the game for many advertisers, but it doesn’t have to be if your product or service truly is great, because it will speak for itself.

Many companies will try and go for an environmentally conscious consumer target group and just label their new advertisements with key words like “green” or “sustainable” or “environmentally friendly“, when they have done nothing to support those words. This is called green washing, and it finds its way into advertising all too often when dealing with the world of sustainability. Environmentally friendly consumers often want to know a few key things when buying a product, as they are definitely more active and researched of a consumer group. The first thing that an environmentally conscious consumer looks for in a product is the material that it’s made out of. This is more typical for Products like clothes or cleaning supplies or even food packaging, things that are used more often and purchased more frequently than other things. What they really are looking for is something that is recyclable or was recycled or reused from something else, which is a very sustainable way to make things. Great example of this is a company called Bureo who partnered with Patagonia to make hats, surfboard fins, and sunglasses out of recycled fishing nets. This is such a great thing this company is doing because fishing nets are often discarded into the ocean and even if they are collected to get them out of the marine environment they are just thrown out. This company is giving them new life by making them into something useful that they can sell. This is also a great business model because the more nets that they get out of the water to make their products the more money they make, and the more money they make the more nets they can get out of the water which is a great cycle. This is exactly what an environmentally conscious consumer would look for in a product, and this brings us to our second key point for this consumer group, which is where the material came from. Many people especially in this group like to know where the material of their product came from. In today’s day and age there is a lot of controversy over where resources are being taken from. Many countries have resources that we are using for our products, but the country they are coming from need way more than we do, and many people just don’t know that. Environmentally conscious consumers however definitely put in the time to research this to find out where their products materials come from. For instance, my wallet looks just like any other normal wallet but it was made from recycled rice bags by a women’s crisis center in Indonesia. While a normal consumer might look at the wallet and just like the way it looks, an environmentally conscious consumer like myself looks into it to see where and how it was made and if that was sustainable. This is exactly what advertisers use to drive their advertisements, key facts like how recyclable the product is or how sustainable the material is or how helpful the process of making it can be for the area it was made in. Where the material is sourced can also be overlooked by many companies, or even hidden. Many large companies have different manufacturing plants all across the world, and while some of those can be pretty sustainable others could be absolutely horrible for sustainability. What advertisers are doing from these companies is only highlighting those manufacturing plants that are the most sustainable to attract these consumers. For the average consumer this is fine, they see this at face value and accept it as something good, but for those that are more well researched like this consumer group, they will see past the advertising facade into the truth. Where the material comes from and how it’s made is almost just as important as the product itself.

The actual wording of the advertisements for an environmentally conscious consumer is very important as well. Whereas normal ads need to be catchy or extremely visually appealing, these kinds of advertisements need to focus more on being real and less gimmicky. These advertisements will not focus on coupons or deals or being cheap necessarily, but will focus more on quality and product details. The smart consumer can typically tell the difference pretty quickly between an advertisement that is trying to persuade them rather than just inform them. The advertisements that are trying to persuade the consumer typically aren’t as trustworthy as the advertisements that are just trying to inform the consumer to make their own decision rather than having the decision made for them. An advertisement that is trying to persuade will sound something like this “Buy now and save 30% on your next order!” while an advertisement that is trying to inform will sound like this “This product was made from 100% recycled materials”, see the difference? This is something that’s extremely important to keep in mind while making an advertisement that you want to appeal to this consumer group. This idea of being transparent and open about your products shows that you are trustworthy. Companies that try to get around this will just throw keywords on their advertisements like discussed before, and that is a very easy way to gain some of this consumer group because they will see those words and be more attracted to it, but the true researchers are going to look into the company and find that they can not back any of those claims with any real proof. One example of this is Volkswagen, a massive company that has had their issues in the past, but prides themselves on being extremely sustainable and environmentally conscious. Volkswagen has many advertisements that show how environmentally conscious they are and how much they’ve changed regarding their emissions in their cars. They talk a lot about their new policies and their new standards for omissions and how they’ve become devoted to the environment and controlling everything that they do that might negatively impact the environment. I was researching their website to find the cold hard facts behind these statements that were listed on many of their advertisements and I visited the policy page to see what policies they have enacted regarding sustainability. What I found was pretty shocking considering they had about 20 different folders on stakeholder guidelines from 1948 to 2016, and about 20 folders of corporate guidelines whereas the sustainability model there is only one made in 2002. This is very shocking considering the Volkswagen emission scandal began in September 2015. On top of this is the Sustainability model listed on their website, when download it is only in German while all of the other guidelines are in English. This is just strange to me, and seems like a barrier that should not necessarily be there, making it more difficult for consumers to see the facts behind their statements. This is just one example of companies trying to make it difficult to find out the specifics of what they are doing, when they are advertising very vague information regarding sustainability. These companies should be upfront with what they are selling and should not have to hide anything if they are truly being sustainable as they say. If a company has something to hide and needs to be vague and they are definitely not worthy of the title of being a sustainable business.

Another huge advertising pull for this specialized consumer target group is advertising that you are giving back, and giving back to something that matters. There’s a big difference between giving back and getting back to something that matters. If a company just says that they’re donating money to a cause then that could mean they’re donating the smallest amount possible to be able to get money back on taxes. If a company states that they are giving to an organization that helps clean up the oceans however then this is something worth looking into. One easy way to advertise that you are giving back to a cause that matters is to have a company like 1% For The Planet or Climate Neutral endorse your business, both of which are excellent additions to any advertising campaign. Both of these companies are designed to ensure that if you are giving back that you are giving back to a cause that matters and you were giving enough to make a difference. Having these companies logos on your advertisements are a telltale way that you can be sure to trust these companies that they are doing their part. In the case for 1% For The Planet, if a company is giving 1% of their sales to 1% For The Planet then you can be sure that that 1% of their sales is going to be used for an excellent environmentally focused group. Climate Neutral is another excellent organization that measures the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that the company creates during their normal operations. Climate Neutral will then help the company offset their entire carbon emission footprint with carbon credits and helping to fund projects that will eliminate emissions from all over the world. With both of these certifications being advertised you can be sure that the company you are buying from is giving back to a great cause, and is working to reduce not only their overall carbon footprint, but the worlds. These are both great company endorsements that will make any consumer feel confident in purchasing from your company if advertised. Advertisements that Say that the company is giving back or say that the company is reducing their carbon footprint could be great but if they are already advertising that then why not get certified by one of these companies so that it can be set in stone that they are actually doing that. If they aren’t certified by one of these companies then it could just be greenwashing and just saying that when it could just not be true at all. Having endorsement by these companies is really the only way to know when a company is being truthful without having to do a ton of research which no one really wants to have to do.

Advertising if done correctly will attract a ton of business to any company, and if your company is trying to attract environmentally conscious consumers then there is an established route that you need to take. This route needs to be paved by the fact that you truly believe in your product or service and the mission your company stands for. If advertising is transparent and real then it can be extremely successful. If advertising is full of embellishment and lies then it will not work. In the end, companies need to realize that if your product or service truly is amazing, then it will speak for itself and will not need to be over advertised.