This post focuses on the concept of green marketing. You will not be surprised to discover that this concept debates the extent to which marketing has a role to play in the environmental battle. The concept of environmental marketing has been around for a while; but it has recently been subject to a shift in theoretical approach making it far more interesting to the aspiring environmentally conscious marketer.
While corporate efforts to reduce environmental degradation directly associated with business activities have mainly focused on reducing C02 emissions and carbon footprints; there is now a call to action from both theorists and practitioners "for the marketing and advertising community to do their duty and persuade people to change their carbon squandering behaviour" (acquired from Marketing Week).
The proposed idea is that businesses and marketers should start to focus on the consumption process and provide consumers with the tools to consciously change their behaviour. Recycling on its own is not enough as it only addresses post-consumption consumer behaviour and neglects the impacts of sourcing of material, production, distribution and consumption itself. However, in a capitalist society where the key goal is profit maximisation, providing consumers with the tools to change consumption culture is difficult.
In light of this the challenge for marketers is to find a way of changing consumer behaviour in the short term while still allowing profit maximising corporations to join new initiatives.
Combining effective branding strategy with current environmental ventures to exploit consumer behaviour trends is an ideal way to achieve this.
It has long been documented that today's consumer draws upon cultural material such as brand identities, celebrities and films to construct their personal identities. It has also been shown that such insights are particularly strong in sub-cultural segments such as surfing and snow sports. Exploiting these trends through brand messaging and identities, marketers may be able to combine environmental concern with consumers' desire to be greener along with current environmental efforts such as recycling.
TO'B believe that while such assumptions have yet to be proven they have strong potential for success as our work with one of our clients would suggest.
Dirt Republic is a mountain bike apparel brand whose products are made from recycled material sourced from local suppliers and whose identity is built upon a love of mountain biking as well as a desire to preserve the trails around the world along with the environment which bikers enjoy. Dirt Republic's unique, great looking clothing range integrates Repreve recycled fibre technology which is 100% recycled material manufactured by Unifi.
Each DR shirt contains the equivalent of 20 plastic bottles taken directly from landfill sites. In sourcing raw material locally, producing their products out of recycled material and encouraging consumers to buy recycled products while at the same time educating them about the impacts of the consumption process Dirt Republic is helping to make consumers aware of their consumption behaviour.
TO'B has created the branding of this new and promising approach to encourage consumers with particular interests to engage with the brand and do their bit to improve the consumption process.
This business venture is a perfect example of how consumer identities are being targeted by a brand that also displays an intrinsic environmentally-friendly product. In a nutshell, environmental degradation brought about as a result of climate change impacts upon the activities of mountain bikers the world over and Dirt Republic can help fight this change while still also offering classic biking apparel. |
