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Recent Posts by David Wigder
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Interview with Adam Capage, Director, Utility Partnerships, 3Degrees With the #1 renewable energy program in the US, the City of Palo Alto Utilities (CPAU) must be doing something right. In fact, despite a formidable price hurdle, CPAU has managed to sign up over 20% of Palo Alto residents for clean energy, and is not finished yet. Notably, when CPAU decided to aggressively market renewable energy to its customers, it decided to reach beyond traditional utility circles to engage the right marketing partner. For that, CPAU turned to 3Degrees to educate consumers and convert them to clean energy. Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with Adam Capage, Director of Utility Partnerships at 3Degrees. We spoke of the challenges that marketers face when
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Interview with Tom Auzenne, Assistant Director, City of Palo Alto Utilities Electrical power generation accounts for 40% of total annual greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in the US. Such a high concentration of GHGs is due to our reliance on highly polluting fossil fuels, especially domestic coal. Yet, while the popular press focuses on the recent growth in renewable energy, it still provides only 2% of our total electrical needs today. Until recently, many arguments have been made for why adoption of clean energy remains slow. Certainty, price ranks as the #1 barrier to broader adoption. Other factors include reliability concerns and lack of education about the technologies. Interestingly, Palo Alto, California has bucked this trend. Over the course of
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Marketing green can be a challenge for even the most seasoned professional. There are many reasons for this of course: consumer beliefs are still evolving; demand is not well established; and even where it is, purchase behavior tends to be inconsistent (e.g., the same consumer buys the hybrid and the SUV). For green marketers to be successful, they must effectively and efficiently target their audience when and where consumers are most receptive to green messaging. For marketers, this is no easy task. While green content sites or periodicals may seem like a natural fit, advertisers must remember that consumers come in all shades of green. As such, focused periodicals may only reach “deep greens” which today represent only a fraction of the total population
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While creating and sharing user-generated content is an effective way to facilitate consumer engagement and viral marketing, it is not the only approach that marketers can take. Professionally produced original content is another proven way. Increasingly, agencies or production studios create and seed content on behalf of their clients for consumers to view and share online. One such shop is Free Range Studios which has produced several original videos that have generated significant buzz and viral impact in the green space. Calling its approach “socially conscious viral entertainment”, Free Range tries to “distill a complicated message into a fun or moving short story” while engaging its viewers by allowing them “to write the end of that story by taking action or
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Tapping social media to engage consumers as well as facilitate viral marketing has the potential to generate significant results for marketers. Not only can this drive greater brand impact but it can significantly increase reach to a receptive audience at little, if any, incremental cost. Today, more and more marketers are trying to launch campaigns that have the twin goals of increasing consumer engagement and viral marketing impact. For many marketers, it often appears that achieving these goals is more a matter of art. Yet, platforms such as Brickfish are emerging that are rapidly turning such an approach into a science. Brickfish is an online marketing platform that rewards participants for engaging with brands. The idea is quite simple:
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These days, green marketers are challenged to efficiently reach consumers and effectively impact their attitudes and behaviors. There are many reasons for this of course: consumer attitudes are still evolving, familiarity with green products is just emerging and purchase behavior is inconsistent within and across categories. As such, marketers tend to look for targetable demographic groups or behaviors that have a higher propensity for green.
In this political year, it is interesting to examine whether political ideology, and more specifically, party identification as a Democrat or Republican is an indicator of interest in green.
Today, there is a common perception that Democrats are more pro-environment than Republicans. Indeed, on issues like global warming, it is not hard to see why. According to a recent Porter Novelli/George Mason University consumer survey, Democrats consider global warming a “serious problem” nearly 2:1 over Republicans. Additionally, only half as many Republicans as Democrats feel that by taking action they can impact global warming.
Beliefs Regarding Global Warming by Political Affiliation
Yet, this perception may not necessarily reflect behavior. In fact, when it comes to taking action, Republicans act more similar to Democrats than their views on the environment may suggest. In fact, Democrats perform, on average, only one more green action (from a list of 14 that includes using less energy, recycling, buying energy-efficient appliances, and buying organic food) than Republicans.
For marketers, this observation may provide an opportunity. Republicans may be as receptive to green as Democrats if marketers can reframe the underlying environmental issue and the messaging that is communicated to them. Attitudinal research based on political party affiliation may provide clues to how this may be done. Here are a few examples that marketers may want to consider:
Reinforce local benefits: At the recent conference, Professors David Konisky, Jeff Milyo and Lilliard Richardson at the University of Missouri presented research that examines how attitudes toward government involvement change based on the type (ie, pollution, resource preservation, global warming) and geographic scale (ie, local, national, global) of the environmental issue.
Based on their research, Konisky et. al., determined that “party identification and political ideology are the strongest predictors of environmental attitudes”. More specifically, “Republicans are much less likely to support further government efforts to address environmental issues.”
Interestingly, Republicans were much more apt to favor governmental intervention if the issue affected people locally, or even nationally, rather than globally. In speaking with Professor Konisky last week, he expressed his belief that “people tend to want the government to address proximate problems.” One way to increase interest is by “reframing the climate change issue as one of local impacts [to] generate more concern for this issue relative to other issues.”
While Konisky et. al., focused on attitudes toward governmental action, marketers should test the hypothesis that sentiment will carry over to campaigns that build awareness regarding climate change as well as influence purchase behavior.
Position as a leader: A recent national survey conducted on behalf of the Civil Society Institute and its Results for America project (CSI/RFA) indicates that Republicans are more apt to favor action on global warming if the US is positioned “to lead – not follow – other nations” on both climate policy and clean tech. In fact, while only 45% of Republicans (vs. 86% of Democrats) agree that we need “national leadership on global warming,” two-thirds of Republicans want American to take the lead on policy and technology development.
As such, marketers have an opportunity to test a leadership message when communicating with consumers regarding green. Such a message may resonate well with consumers, and especially in categories in which a company is in a leadership position today (eg, General Electric, Toyota) or in which no clear established leader exists globally (eg, renewable energy, electric cars). One recent example is Tesla, the California-based automotive up-start that established itself arguably as the leading electric car company with its weekend launch of a car that can go 225 miles without recharging and 0 to 60 in 4 seconds.
Focus on measurable impact: Across the political spectrum, the “number of ‘green’ actions” is not strongly correlated with political party affiliation, but rather level of concern about climate change. According to the CRI/RIA survey, those that believe that both global warming is dangerous and that action to mitigate it is efficacious perform more than 40% more green actions than those who do not – regardless of political persuasion.
Marketers should consider a duel message to clarify not only the impact of global warming as well as the effectiveness of measures to mitigate it.
One example, laundry detergent, was mentioned by Joel Makower in his presentation at the Green and Good conference late last year. Many brands focus on the environmental impact of the formula itself, advertising that a consumer can reduce his/her footprint by using a formula with a less burdensome manufacturing process and chemical makeup.
Yet, as Makower pointed out, most of the impact from washing clothing is not from the manufacturing or distribution of the detergent but the heating of the water (according to GreenYour, this ranges from 85-90% of the total energy required for the washing). As such, Tide and other brands that offer a cold water formula have an opportunity to message not only how well their products clean clothes but that they greatly reduce the carbon footprint from washing simply by not heating the water.
1 Konisky, David, Jeff Milyo, and Lilliard Richardson, “Environmental Policy Attitudes, Political Trust, and Geographic Scale,” abstract presented at the Western Political Science Association annual meeting, March 20-22, 2008.
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