Understanding Today’s Environmentally-Striving Consumers
Can we all safely say that consumers ARE changing the way they buy, even if just a bit or slowly, toward a more sustainably-oriented perspective? I think so - but, certainly, there are studies that show it both ways (that green-ness affects purchase decisions or it doesn’t).
However, if you are one of those brands that does want to address or start to work toward a more sustainable existence and product line, what’s one easy way to get the pulse of your market? Read what they are reading! Go to the source(s) - where your customers regularly go for information.
Diane MacEachern’s moments-from-being-released book, Big Green Purse, should be one you review carefully. This is what a lot of women in the U.S. will be reading in the coming months to help guide them toward more environmentally conscious purchase decisions. Not just another outline of the problem and call-to-(general) action, Big Green Purse is an everyday consumer’s resource - almost like a phone book’s worth of information. It is a well -organized and easy to read guide that offers do-able suggestions for buying everything from beauty products to cars, cleaning products and food.
Big Green Purse is not only a wealth of information for consumers who want to tweak away at their not-so-sustainable lifestyles, it is a secret trove of new thinking for brands that want to live up to what will likely become the expected standards of sustainable consuming (to whatever degree that is possible).
How might you use this book for your business? Let’s say you are a skincare brand
that sees the writing on the wall - your customers are starting to
veer toward sustainable products and packaging. Yikes! Take a look at
the chapter on beauty to see what Diane has to say about it… and
where she’s pointing consumers. Then, start to address the weak points
in your ingredients and so on, based on that.
And, no - I did not get paid to write this post. Rather, I met Diane last year, and was very happy to know that someone of her experience and knowledge had taken on the huge project of putting this sort of information together for the average consumer. The brand-guiding gold that resides in Big Green Purse is simply an unexpected bonus.
P.S. For even more ideas on serving today’s green-striving consumer, check out:
1) "For ‘Eco-Moms,’ Saving Earth Begins at Home," a recent New York Times article by Patricia Leigh Brown.
2) The recently published 2nd Issue of the MAP Report from Getty Images. This issue is entitled AspEn, for "aspiring environmentalism." The chapter that really caught my eye was "Near" - all about how the local is connected with the global, and how your at-home/close proximity decisions actually do relate to global issues. Here’s a quote:
"Being connected is not just about having your profile on Facebook, though that’s a part of it. It’s about how each purchasing decision, each choice - from what to do with packaging, to what kind of TV screen to watch (the eco-disaster plasma or LCD?), to the choice of paint - has demonstrably far-reaching consequences, connecting you to people and economies around the world. It’s the consumer end of globalization, and it’s why green is linked with emotional-political initiatives like fair trade, which suddenly brings a whole lot more into your home shopping bag than you ever would’ve imagined."
February 28th, 2008 at 11:04 am
It can really be a challenge. Try avoiding plastic bags at the grocery for a week — you have to talk fast or your stuff is already shoved into one.