The New Rules of Green Marketing. Strategies, Tools, and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding

Citation

Cavicchi, A. (2012), "The New Rules of Green Marketing. Strategies, Tools, and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 310-311. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363761211237380

“Green is now mainstream”. This statement recurs very often along these pages, and in opening this book for the first time for an overview, one would be impressed by the quantity and quality of data used to justify that green is not a niche but rather the real challenge of every market.

But in this book there is more than data. As stated by the author in the title, this book discusses strategies, tools and inspiration for sustainable branding. The basic evidence shows that reality has radically changed, and what a green product was before it is not anymore. “Whatever greener products were available gathered dust on the bottom shelves of health food stores for good reason: they didn't work, they were pricey, and they sported brand names no one had ever heard of” (p. 1).

This book presents the experience of a famous pioneer in green marketing consultancy: Jacquelyn Ottman has a longstanding career as writer on the subject. Some of her titles include: Environmental Consumerism: What Every Marketer Needs to Know (1991), Green Marketing: Challenges and Opportunities for the New Marketing Age (1993), and Green Marketing: Opportunity for Innovation (1998)

Consisting of ten chapters that can be read independently, the book starts with “The 20 new rules of green marketing,” which are explained and sustained in the rest of the text. From my personal point of view, some are very enlightening, summing up in an easy‐to‐understand way the results of scientific research on consumer behavior towards sustainable products, product innovation, and supply chain strategies. But these rules also emerge from the direct experience of work with top leading multinational companies that have radically changed their green strategies over the last 20 years. Some of these rules that I find particularly interesting for those who pay attention to the change in consumers' lifestyles and habits are summarized here.

Green is now “cool and chic” (rule no. 2), and at the same time, a “value” because “today, how products are sourced, manufactured, packaged, disposed of, and even such social aspects as how factory and farm workers are treated, all matter” (rule 5). This search for information is explicated by some questions like “Who makes this brand? “Did they produce this product with high environmental and social standards?”, and “Is it clear that both manufacturer and retailer reputation count now more than ever?” (rule 7). Sustainability is also an integral part of product quality because it is becoming more and more of a need for consumers (rule 10) who today do not necessarily need to own products: Services can meet their needs even better (rule 12). Consumers are also strongly influenced by the recommendations of peers, family, and trusted third parties, and for this reason the role of NGOs and Eco‐labelers is crucial (rule 14). But it seems to me that above all (as Ottman states in the book) “even the greenest consumers no longer buy products just to ‘save the planet’ but to help protect their health, save money, or because they simply work better” (rule 8). What does this mean for enterprises' strategies? That everyone needs to be considered as a corporate stakeholder (rule 18), including environmentalists who are no longer the enemy (rule 17) and thus “radical transparency”, that is “disclosing the good and the bad” (rule 15), “authenticity” (rule 19) and “simplicity” (rule 20) become the fundamentals for modern entrepreneurs.

After this premise, the first chapter reports a short history of how different cohorts, starting with Baby Boomers, can be considered green. Obviously, green behavior is a daily phenomenon for members of Generation Z: for them “sorting paper and plastic for recycling is as natural a daily activity as taking out the trash was for their parents” (p. 7). Statistics say that nowadays Green is a determinant for voters (think Michelle Obama and her “slow food” garden at the White House), for customers, for newspapers readers and even for Hollywood movie watchers (Hollywood celebrities are becoming more and more involved in promoting green behaviours).

But the fact that “Media turns green”, as stated by the author, underlining how green stories now run in all newspapers sections and in many TV formats, cannot be “the” reason for new consumers' purchasing motivations and behaviors, that are outlined in Chapter Two. In fact, if we have a look at the statistics supplied by the “Globescan report on issues and reputation” (p. 34) about whom consumers trust for information on global warming, media and press are the least trusted whilst religious groups, churches and NGOs are the more trustable sources of information. This confirms that grass roots cannot be seen in an antagonistic way, but rather as a partner that can even assist in the development of a green strategy.

Among the attempts at segmentation proposed here, the segmentation by green interests performed by J. Ottman Consulting based on empirical evidence should be underlined. Four segments (resource conservers, outdoor enthusiasts, animal lovers and health fanatics) are featured with an interesting matrix showing their likeliness of belonging to NGOs and cultural associations, their likely environmental behavior, and the sources on the web where it is possible to find information about them.

Chapter Three outlines “The New Green Marketing Paradigm,” where conventional marketing seems to be seen in antithesis to a modern “sustainable branding” in order to avoid the “greenwashing”. This concept is explained by the author (p. 44):

“To successfully market to environmentally and socially aware consumers credibly and with impact requires first that one no longer view people as mere ‘consumers’ with insatiable appetites for material goods, but as human beings looking to lead full, healthy lives. To follow the new rules means to project one's values and to be sensitive to how one's customers, employees, and other stakeholders interact with nature; to be cognizant of how the production and consumption of material goods impacts lives positively as well as negatively, short‐tem as well as long‐term.”

A life‐cycle approach to designing greener products is discussed in Chapter Four that, from my point of view, is one of the most interesting and insightful of the whole book. In fact, after a description of the Life‐cycle Assessment Tool with its pros and cons, Ottman delivers fifteen strategies for sustainable product design to be ideally considered as part of a holistic effort to manage one's brand, and which are well supported by several cases of global brands.

In Chapter Five, through some case studies it is evidenced how green can be a new source of innovation and an inspiring reason for proactive companies to get a competitive advantage by inventing new greener technologies and new business models.

Chapters Six and Seven outline the basics of sustainability communication to counteract the “plethora of green campaigns in so many consumer media” and to establishing credibility and avoiding greenwashing. The question that gives the reader the chance to think about the inefficacy of traditional green campaign is clearly asked by the author: “How many messages have you seen asking you to do it for “Mother Heart” or because “your kids will thank you for it”?” Thus, several guidelines are provided to develop a coherent message with coherent sustainable tools, including third‐party certifications to increase reputation.

Finally, whilst Chapter Eight deals with strategies to be adopted to promote successful partnership with a huge number of environmental and social stakeholders, Chapter Nine describes the cases of two sustainability leaders that, according to the author, superbly address the new rules: The Timberland Company and Starbucks. Chapter Ten is just a two‐page conclusion that briefly summarizes the work.

To sum up, the usefulness of this book for practitioners willing to explore the sustainable marketing paths is undeniable. Some examples? First, every chapter ends with “The New Rules Checklist”, a series of questions addressed to managers and entrepreneurs to check the validity of their green strategies and to give a panoramic view of the factors involved in a green managerial lifestyle. Second, the appendix, “For Further Information,” presents a huge amount of information sources available nowadays: websites, social networks, NGOs, certification and eco‐labeling organizations and books addressed to both academics and experts. And third, throughout the text, it is possible to find easy‐to‐read boxes that synthesize Ottman's thought and experience in a clear and intuitive way.