Articles

Time to wake up the marketing department
Ethical Corporation - July 26th 2005

Climate change is going to continue to make the news. Companies now need to realise this and begin engaging their customers on the topic, argues Roger Cowe

Imagine we’re back in the 1970s. Sony’s market researchers report that people don’t understand the concept of the Walkman and aren’t interested in it – not surprisingly as it’s a completely new idea. Do the marketing people shrug their shoulders and go back to the drawing board to develop something else? No, they set out to sell their great idea – with resounding success.

That’s what marketing people do – they sell ideas (not always great ideas, it has to be admitted). They use their communications expertise to persuade people that a product which might seem indistinguishable from its rivals is actually a brand with “personality” that marks it out from all the rest. They invest energy (and money) in explaining a product’s attributes and attractions to an often doubting public.

Yet when it comes to climate change, or any other aspect of corporate responsibility, the marketers seem to run scared. Their communications skills, or their courage, desert them. Ask any consumer-oriented company why they aren’t promoting sustainability in their product messages and the answer is usually that consumers aren’t sufficiently interested.

That is true, of course. Research consistently shows that sustainability issues are several places down the hierarchy of what consumers are interested in, behind price, quality, service and key product characteristics. For most people, most of the time, that is unlikely to change. Even those of us who are preoccupied with sustainability rarely have that at the top of our agendas when we are buying groceries, clothes, or even cars. And we represent only a small niche.

But research also consistently shows that there is a substantial group of “consumers who care”. Sustainability may only come third behind price and quality, but it is a factor which can influence their buying decisions. Sales of the Toyota Prius provide hard evidence that it can even overtake price.
Apart from the special cases directly related to climate change - vehicles such as the Prius, or renewable energy, there is a communications vacuum. Marketers seem to be waiting for consumers to demonstrate more concern, while consumers are waiting to have their largely latent concerns activated.

Innovation please

Someone needs to break this “After you Claude” impasse. It is a perfect job for responsible marketers, and there has never been a better time to tackle it because climate change has never been in the headlines as much as it is now, and there is every reason to believe it will continue to make news.

Climate change will be news because of extreme weather events – which make great pictures as well as great stories for the media. But it will also continue to make headlines because it has become such a mainstream political issue.

The outcome of the G8 summit deliberations may well be disappointing, and there is a strong strand of thinking in the European Commission that industrial and economic performance must come first. But that is not the point. The point is that climate change will stay in the headlines – even if environmentalists’ worst fears are realised and there is little political action, it will continue to be a major political topic. And that means it will be higher up many people’s list of concerns, which makes them more open to related marketing messages.

Climate change has always been a significant corporate responsibility issue, even for companies not in sectors such as transport, oil and energy which are most heavily implicated. But it has tended to be an internal issue (about energy management and buying renewables) or a sourcing issue (about specifying materials and products which should lead to lower emissions).

Now perhaps promoting sustainability is part of being a responsible company. In which case it is time to get marketing people involved in communications about climate change which relate to consumers’ hopes and fears, stimulate their interest, and promote products’ sustainability aspects. It doesn’t have to be the focus of TV ads. There are plenty of other communications vehicles to carry this message, from packaging to promotional literature.

There is an opportunity to lead consumer attitudes and create competitive advantage. And there is a risk for companies which lag consumer attitudes that they will be seen as irresponsible for being behind the curve.