5 Top Tips For Low Carbon Marketing

Challenge your assumptions on how to market your low carbon product. 5 top tips based on international primary research data. 28-minute presentation originally delivered to the SustainabilityLive! conference in Birmingham, England on April 21, 2010. Includes introduction about how an Icelandic volcano disrupted our plans, and how we came to use Brainshark.

This content was provided by Haddock Research & Branding, Inc. Visit their website at haddock-research.com.

How Climate Change Concern Can Motivate People To Be Interested In Your Offering

by Peter Winters, President, Haddock Research & Branding

Climate change is stimulating unmet emotional desires within consumer society. In this study, a simple factual description of a new microgeneration product was presented to respondents - and the best predictor of enthusiasm for the product was whether the individual was very concerned about climate change, or not. As cleantech companies gear up for mass-market roll-out of their low-carbon products, we should expect those most concerned about climate change to be driving early adoption. Read Article »

For your low-carbon product, do you really want to charge people extra for ‘being green’?

by Peter Winters, President, Haddock Research & Branding

There is sometimes a sense that green products should be charged at a price premium. But how often is this the right approach? Instead consider, for your green product, whether it can be positioned as being both greener and better value than competitors. Also, think what could be done to enhance each customer’s post-purchase satisfaction. Read Article »

Businesses must think about the unmet needs of their customers

by Peter Winters, President, Haddock Research & Branding

When governmental bodies try and get people to reduce their environmental impact, they sometimes talk about an ‘attitude-behaviour gap’. Instead, why not consider it as an ‘unmet need’, where consumers ‘low-carbon desires’ are not met by current ‘high-carbon behaviour’. This should move some of the responsibility away from ‘the consumer’, and onto businesses to think creatively about providing compelling low-carbon products and services. Read Article »

Anticipate resistance to your low-carbon initiative from ‘critical older men’

by Peter Winters, President, Haddock Research & Branding

Internationally, those who oppose government support for green initiatives tend to be older men. The similarity of this pattern between countries suggests that this goes beyond a national, cultural phenomenon – and one hypothesis is that it is to do with the more anti-social values of older men. For cleantech businesses, it is important to understand this demographic since investment risk in cleantech is so closely tied to the political risk of whether specific government green policies get implemented. Read Article »

Telepresence companies that employ ‘green positioning’ must do their market testing

by Peter Winters, President, Haddock Research & Branding

Some element of green positioning is ubiquitous for telepresence companies, and research shows that this is a real benefit for those business flyers who are very concerned about climate change. In the US, the 30% of business flyers who are Climate Citizens already tend to fly less, and tend to be more interested in telepresence. Yet, telepresence companies also need to consider how to communicate with those less concerned about climate change, how to make their services meet specific business needs, and how to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Read Article »

Monitor the discussion points – and take account of them in your media plans

by Peter Winters, President, Haddock Research & Branding

The role of market research is all about providing consumer perspectives to businesses in useful and reliable ways, since the view from the boardroom is almost inevitably different from that of their customers. What may seem consistent and reasonable to Al Gore, may not appear so to some of the public. For companies promoting low-carbon products, the key issue is to take a holistic view of how different types of people will view your communication messages. As a valuable addition to existing strategies, companies should monitor social media forums and take account of discussion points within their media plans. Read Article »

When distance is dead, it pays to consider global patterns first

by Peter Winters, President, Haddock Research & Branding

Whilst the communications technologies of 150 years ago helped establish many modern nation states, current technologies are undermining their relevance to business and social affairs. For market intelligence to be useful to business in a world where ‘distance is dead’, it should avoid making single national characterizations, consider global patterns before looking at regional variations, and adopt a detective/problem-solving approach. Read Article »

When it comes to risk, businesses must be more open with their customers

by Peter Winters, President, Haddock Research & Branding

The notion of ‘managing risk’ is a powerful framework for decision-making. What really differentiates how actively people are engaged with climate change is not their awareness or belief in it, but their attitudes towards how the risks should be tackled. Businesses, and governments, are being encouraged to take account of climate change risk. Maplecroft provides global non-financial risks information, and their analysis indicates that companies which are successful in implementing climate change innovations, tend to have better financial performance. Alex Bogusky argues that companies can better manage reputational risk by being more transparent with their customers. Read Article »