The Time Is Right For Brands To Go Green

Richard Fero, insight manager for marketing at Emap Advertising, looks at why the time is right for brands to prove their green credentials to consumers, in order to avoid being left on the shelf…

Climate change is clearly rising up the political agenda, and more brands are starting to think about their green footprint – supermarkets such as Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury’s are demonstrating their environmental credentials to consumers, as are oil companies like BP and Shell.

Despite all this there seems to be a lack of research into consumer attitudes towards the attempts that brands are making to try and be more “green”. With this in mind Emap Advertising conducted a survey among 2,500 consumers on our insight panel The Inside, to look at this issue.

Reassuringly for those brands that are trying to demonstrate their green credentials our research shows consumers don’t yet seem to be cynical about it. Only 10% of our respondents said they don’t care whether a company is environmentally friendly or not, and only 12% said they don’t trust companies who say they act in an environmentally friendly way.

Linked to this was the fact that messages from brands, and in particular advertising, was identified by consumers as one of the most important sources of information about this area. It isn’t just messages from governments, scientists, and reports on the news that are causing consumers to think about what is happening to our planet. Overall the message from consumers was loud and clear: they believe it is important for companies to “do their bit” when it comes to the environment, particularly in the context of a world in which they as individuals are being asked to do more.

Looking at current performance, the evidence suggests that consumers are generally dissatisfied with companies when it comes to discharging their environmental responsibilities – in our survey, supermarkets were the sector that did best, but even in this category only 35% of respondents thought they were performing well. This was ahead of other sectors, for example 18% thought car companies were doing well when it comes to the environment, whilst only 8% thought clothing manufacturers were doing their bit to be green.

So it seems as if companies have some way to go before they can be seen as playing their part in solving the problem, and also means there is plenty of scope for them to carve out a position that differentiates them from their competition.

Of course successfully communicating green messages is a difficult job for brands – whilst on the surface consumer’s attitudes towards the environment are changing, in some cases behaviour patterns are very ingrained, and consumers aren’t quite as environmentally friendly as they would like to think that they are.

Our research showed even consumers who consider themselves to be very “green” aren’t always willing to change their behaviour to cut down their own impact on the environment. A good example of this can be found in the aviation sector, where all the negative press shows no sign of affecting people’s decisions when it comes to their holidays. A significant majority of consumers don’t seem willing to avoid using planes to get to their destination – underlying this reticence is the fact that peoples’ attitudes towards flying haven’t yet been significantly affected by environmental concerns; only 11% of those who fly feel in any way guilty about it.

We found similar behaviour patterns when it came to driving, results which suggest that people seem unable to link their individual behaviour to the possible environmental damage they are causing, or at least they don’t want to make the link. The evidence suggests that in this area there is still a substantial gap between peoples’ surface attitudes and their actual behaviour, and that changing these behavioural patterns is likely to require substantial governmental intervention.

Given this gap, it can be hard for brands to judge what they need to do – how much will being “green” really affect consumers attitudes towards your brand, and their purchasing decisions? An interesting clue came from our work looking at behaviour and attitudes around recycling. This is an area showing clear signs of change; in our survey just over 40% of respondents said they had increased their recycling over the past 12 months. The findings also indicate that rather than people starting to recycle because they become more disposed towards it, their attitudes towards recycling change after they start doing it. In other words, the behaviour drives the attitudes, rather than the other way round – doing the act creates a virtuous circle, whereby attitudes gradually change as the behaviour becomes habitual, which then reinforces the behaviour pattern.

So what does this mean for advertisers? One possible consequence of this behaviour pattern for brands to consider is the danger of being left behind. If a competitor brand innovates their offering from an environmental perspective expectations of the whole sector might well be raised. This could in turn lead to consumers judging other brands in the product sector more harshly.

In short, our findings show the time is right for brands to communicate their environmental credentials. Not only are consumers ready and willing to hear green messages from advertisers, but as government begins to encourage individuals to change their behaviour, consumers will increasingly expect their favourite brands to be doing all they can as well.