Planning Green Ad Campaigns
With increasing numbers of advertisers including green messages in their campaigns, Suzanne Trotter, ad planning executive at Guardian News and Media, discusses how they can target consumers more accurately and avoid the dreaded ‘green wash’…
Over the past few years green and ethical communications have emerged as the hot marketing topic. Advertisers from every industry are featuring green messages in their campaigns while consumers are increasingly demanding companies produce green goods and services. However, it is a potential minefield for advertisers. They have to give careful consideration to their green marketing messages if they are to avoid accusations of ‘green wash’.
Confusion reigns for consumers bombarded with conflicting messages and endless single-issue campaigns. This leads to a lack of confidence in understanding what constitutes green and an ultimate feeling of disempowerment.
In light of this, Guardian News and Media (GNM) in association with Henley Centre Headlight Vision (HCHLV), undertook an extensive research project to provide an essential planning tool for any marketer preparing an environmentally focused campaign.
The first part of our research involved a quantitative study to create green consumer segments. Green Light revealed five distinct consumer groups, characterised by their green attitudes and behaviour. One of the key findings was that contrary to commonly held assumptions the more committed green consumer doesn’t necessarily fall into the younger age bracket or have a female bias and demographics cannot be relied on for planning in this area. To aid this process we have created a full media planning tool by fusing the data with TGI, TGI.net and our proprietary Total Audience study to enable the green segments to be run against media, brand and lifestyle statements.
Segmenting the population:
Onlookers (26% of UK population)
This group is only moderately concerned about ethical and environmental issues. These consumers have no particular desire to live ethically, or even make small changes.
Conveniently Conscious (35% of UK population)
Aware of, and fairly concerned about, environmental issues, this group thinks brands should be penalised for not acting responsibly. They make easy changes to their lifestyle.
Positive choosers (31% of UK population)
There are highly aware of the issues and feel concerned and guilty about their lifestyle. They want to live ethically, regularly buy from ‘good’ companies and boycott ‘bad’ companies.
Principled pioneers (4% of UK population)
The most committed ‘positive choosers’, these consumers go one step further than the rest by installing alternative energy sources or calculating their carbon footprint.
Vocal activists (4% of UK population)
This group is concerned, aware and active ‘positive choosers’. They differ from the other group, however, by vocalising their discontent with brands they consider unethical.
The second part of our study with HCHLV constituted eleven focus groups around the UK, recruited on the basis of the green consumer segments uncovered in the quantitative study. The groups were shown over 100 different green and ethical adverts to investigate how each segment should be communicated to with green messages.
The findings of the focus groups enabled us to create a set of communication guidelines for advertisers considering incorporating any green messaging into their campaigns. The quantitative study showed that 69% of respondents think that industry is to blame for environmental damage so consumers are actively looking for companies to take a lead in combating climate change.
Creative guidelines:
Acknowledge your responsibility
Adverts that conveyed a sense of joint effort between the advertiser and the consumer tested very well, giving the less committed groups a sense of empowerment and the more committed a feeling of empathy towards the brand.
Don’t lecture
While a joint effort approach works, on the flipside any messages that point the finger at the consumer without any steps being taken by the advertiser too did not work. For the less committed groups this leads to push back and disempowerment, while opening up the brand to scrutiny from the more committed.
Keep it upbeat
Although the matter of climate change is a serious one, any messages that were too full of doom and gloom weren’t responded to well. Ads that had a positive message or humorous approach worked much better than those going after a shock reaction which tended to make people feel helpless and disempowered.
Provide a simple action
Adverts that gave a straightforward message containing a simple action worked really well across the groups, invoking feelings of empathy and empowerment.
Avoid one-upmanship
Adverts where one company compared themselves to another company, particularly in the travel sector, did not test well with many respondents saying that it smacked of ‘green wash’. Companies should set out their green credentials by all means but not shoot down another companies efforts at the same time.
Knowing when to lead with ‘green’
After looking at the creative guidelines and motivations to ‘go green’ across the green segments, it became clear that there is a time to lead with ‘green’ and a time to include as a secondary message. The less committed groups respond better to other messages first, eg cost saving, with green as an ‘and also’ message. Whereas for the more committed groups ‘green’ is a primary purchase consideration and they are actively looking for information in this area to inform their purchasing habits so are open to more detailed green messages.