As environmental issues continue to grow in today's society, consumers are increasingly taking environmental concerns into account when making purchasing decisions.
While many green ads convey genuine green claims, some companies use advertising as a tool to exaggerate or even falsify the environmental impact of their products.
Organizations that spend more time and money on marketing themselves as environmentally friendly, rather than actually minimizing their environmental impact, are practicing 'greenwashing'.
The energy, finance, food and beverage, fashion, and automobile industries are at the top of the greenwashing list.
According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), green marketing can be defined in 3 ways:
👉 marketing products that are presumed to be environmentally safe
👉 development and marketing of products designed to minimize negative effects on the physical environment or improve its quality
👉 the efforts by organizations to produce, promote, package, and reclaim products in a manner that is sensitive or responsive to ecological concerns.
To meet consumer expectations, businesses need to select the right green marketing strategies. These include:
🌱 green positioning, which involves building brand associations by providing information on environmentally sound product attributes
🌱 focusing on LOHAS (Lifestyle of Health And Sustainability) consumers,
🌱 choosing promotional partners with a good track record in green marketing or preserving the environment,
🌱 selecting advertising messages that consider both the environmental and societal impact of the firm.
Green marketing communication has several particularities, including its strong informative character, educational nature, and the importance of credibility. Effective green marketing is built on credibility, which is determined by the extent to which the public perceives that the statements made by the advertiser are credible and true. Therefore, in order to avoid greenwashing, companies have to comply with the principles of the green marketing communication.
There are 5 advantages to communicating sustainability:
✅ building the brand
✅ creating differentiation
✅ fostering trust and credibility
✅ making real social contribution
✅ strengthening customer relationships
Greenwashing can be eliminated with proper training of what green marketing is. Good compliance training will help employees not only understand the green principles of communication, but also help them embody the principles in their day-to-day work.
Take action now and request a demo.
