Green Marketing

In today’s day and age, everyone is concerned about the environment. Our society is increasingly encouraged to “go green,” to do our part in making the world a cleaner, more eco-friendly place. Green marketing is one major strategy being used to promote such efforts, but is it effective? There is some debate about this concept, including the history of green marketing, the problems with green marketing so far, the effectiveness of marketing schemes like Sunchips and Toyota, and the strategies that could be used to increase the ability of green marketing. While protecting our planet is a noble concept, its execution seems to be a little vague.

How Green Advertisement Works: When creating environmentally centered marketing campaigns, strategies are similar to new product evaluations. Target markets and consumer priorities are much different among those who are concerned with the environment and those who are not. In order to motivate consumers to care about the environment, businesses use the affective approach and showcase beautiful environments and use breathtaking images to create emotional connections between a product and the environment. Another approach is to educate consumers using statistics to tap into the cognitive sensibilities to convince the public that a product makes a difference. The effectiveness of both strategies depends on the product advertised, history of the brand and appropriateness of the medium.

10 Aug 2010. "What is GreenPhone?." GreenPhone. Flipswap, Inc, 2009. Web.

Along with these four points of the green movement, two economic concepts of supply and demand and costs of production are also. The Green movement began with the idea of using less to limit waste and extend the quantity of a product or life of a service. Economics or the science of choice is a strategy generated to place the world on the road to recovery from recession. Consumers view on conserving resources is changed by the market clearly stated is advertising companies have changed their marketing strategies on helping consumers conserve resources to build the economy. The next point, consumers show interest in participating by using electricity, fuel and water in moderation.

Companies are becoming more competitive and consumers are concerned on the environmental problems. The organisations are attracting consumers with promotions of Green technology and services and companies claiming it to be green. In the last several years, there are companies issuing Green claims and accused of Greenwashing. The green products and Greenwash products are labeled to be eco-friendly while they are not and overstatement of high ratings of environmental claims. This also causes confusion and difficult to determine genuine eco-friendly products from a Greenwashing product.

GreenFILE. EBSCO. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. Taylor, David A.

As the cost for sustainable materials and products are on the decline, building green seems to be the most cost effective kind of design and construction. Looking specifically at green materials and their impact on the production of structures, it is evident that they are a prime choice for building material. The use of green materials should be promoted because they are better for the environment, more healthful for the consumer, and better for the economy. The use of green materials is better for the environment because they have a positive impact on the planet. Looking at our environment today we see a place that has been facing a massive climate change.

The second element of having your actions result in the preservation of the environment ultimately means to be sustainable. The term “sustainable” is often misunderstood. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines sustainable as: Sustainable: of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged; of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods. The University of Northern British Columbia applies to these definitions. By definition, UNBC is green because the establishment is concerned wit... ... middle of paper ... ...ty Ranking.

There are many companies out there that claim to be “green”. But are they really and how much impact does it have on the environment? Labels such as “organic”, “biodegradable”, “earth-friendly”, vegan and “Fair Trade” are everywhere in today’s market. These labels are marketing tools used to influence consumers. Greenwashing is defined as “The dissemination of misleading information by an organization to conceal its abuse of the environment in order to present a positive public image ” and “superficial or insincere display of concern for the environment that is shown by an organization ” by thefreedictionary.com.

People want to support companies with a conscious. According to the Salem Press Encyclopedia, the definition of green marketing is “The touting of the environmental benefits of a product, service, or company to bolster its image and encourage sales” (Jenkins and Kähler). With this in mind, corporations did some research and discovered that not only can green marketing help facilitate a positive brand identity, but it can also help reduce costs in the long run (Jenkins and Kähler). This new socially responsible idea seemed genius at the start, but now the trend has hit a wall. This hiatus is a result of lack of customer information about the actual effects of “green” products, confusion and overload in the marketplace regarding vague and un-standardized labels, and the failure of companies to clearly illustrate the added value of their “green” products or services.