Good Sustainability Marketing avoids greenwashing
Today I woke up to the news that Ryanair adverts had effectively been accused of greenwashing. Nowadays, this is a major concern for companies investing in increased sustainability and Corporate Responsibility. Most question, despite their wanting to help make the world a better place, whether all the extra work and money will matter to their customers. Some even wonder if it can hurt them. The answer to both those questions is yes.
Research is clearly showing that customers want the companies they buy from to be responsible and ethical. The UK Ethical Consumer reports demonstrate increased demand for sustainable products and services which are, in turn, supported by evidence and responsible advertising that can clearly been proven. This is no longer a minority of consumers either. For example:
“Back in 1999, the total size of ethical consumer markets in the UK was just £11.2bn. Today, on a conservative basis, the figure is almost four times that at £41.1bn.“
Experience also shows that when companies get this approach “wrong” they often have to face accusations and intense scrutiny. Sometimes boycotts even occur in the worst case scenarios. Having an expert Sustainability Marketing Consultant, helps to avoid this by ensuring you clearly communicate what you have done and will do and how customers can find out more of the details about this if they are interested to find out more. Further details are important to provide in the area of Sustainability Marketing in a way that it never was before because responsible businesses attract responsible customers. Responsible customers read the small print and expect it to tell them everything they need to know in order to make an informed decision.
This is also important because these types of scenarios are also becoming more likely. It used to be that effective advertising had an effective “hook” or tagline. Something that summarised the company ethos and told customers what they were about. Branding helped support that message with visual motifs and colour. The most effective advertising used to be one-way and short enough to be memorable. That is no longer enough. Slick advertising campaigns and packaging are understood as superficial very quickly by customers if there is nothing to support them. Customers nowadays - especially Millennials - expect depth and interaction.
What this means for telling your business sustainability story is that any claims you make need to be backed up with easily accessible evidence. It is for this reason that the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) in the UK has ruled that the airline company broke its rules in their September 2019 TV, radio and print campaigns. Ryanair made claims that they did not define and evidence properly.
While from afar this seems a very clear mistake, many business owners and marketing departments find themselves making similar mistakes: they do not provide evidence to back up claims they make publicly. We are in the midst of a major change in the way customers perceive advertising.
Previously, companies were assumed to be trustworthy. Therefore, previously there was something potentially libelous or which could cause lose customers money due to purposeful misinformation, a certain amount of exagerration and was almost expected in marketing. That is not longer the case. Customers are beginning to read the small print and search for information to verify claims that companies make in their advertising.
What this means for businesses is that they now have to provide demonstrable evidence to back up any marketing claims. Ideally, customers prefer to be able to easily customers access this all now online. Keep these expectations in mind when developing your business strategies with regards to Sustainability Marketing. If you are going to claim to be eco-friendly, you not only have to figure out how to sell the message, you now also need to make sure you figure out how you will provide clear evidence to prove that you are telling a true story and be able to communicate it in easy-to-digest ways (data visualisation).
ASA “said that customers would interpret the ads' claims to mean travelling with Ryanair would mean they were contributing less CO2 than travelling with other airlines, which could not be proved.
The ASA added: ‘We told Ryanair to ensure that when making environmental claims, they held adequate evidence to substantiate them and to ensure the basis of those claims were made clear.’”
Sustainability Marketing helps avoid greenwashing
For most businesses, one of their major aims behind supporting increased sustainability and Corporate Responsibility is to increase their reputation, sales and customer loyalty. In a media and advertising-savvy age where they are increasingly viewed with skepticism, businesses cannot simply tell a good “story” anymore to achieve these goals. They need to provide evidence for their claims.
A Sustainability Marketing Consultant often helps companies to clarify their Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility strategy. The Consultant also often oversees evidence and research collection for what the company has already done and what it wants to do. One of the most important steps Sustainability Marketing Consultants do once the strategy, evidence, story and marketing campaigns have been decided is to ensure that there is a publicly accessible archive of definitions and evidence which support any claims made.
In future posts, I’ll explore what greenwashing is understood as and also how companies can avoid these claims through diffferent ways of providing evidence. In order to clarify those accessible archives of definitions and evidence mentioned above, I will provide a series of future posts with Case Studies of different approaches.
"green" by illpig is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
Research is clearly showing that customers want the companies they buy from to be responsible and ethical. The UK Ethical Consumer reports demonstrate increased demand for sustainable products and services which are, in turn, supported by evidence and responsible advertising that can clearly been proven. This is no longer a minority of consumers either. For example:
“Back in 1999, the total size of ethical consumer markets in the UK was just £11.2bn. Today, on a conservative basis, the figure is almost four times that at £41.1bn.“
Experience also shows that when companies get this approach “wrong” they often have to face accusations and intense scrutiny. Sometimes boycotts even occur in the worst case scenarios. Having an expert Sustainability Marketing Consultant, helps to avoid this by ensuring you clearly communicate what you have done and will do and how customers can find out more of the details about this if they are interested to find out more. Further details are important to provide in the area of Sustainability Marketing in a way that it never was before because responsible businesses attract responsible customers. Responsible customers read the small print and expect it to tell them everything they need to know in order to make an informed decision.
This is also important because these types of scenarios are also becoming more likely. It used to be that effective advertising had an effective “hook” or tagline. Something that summarised the company ethos and told customers what they were about. Branding helped support that message with visual motifs and colour. The most effective advertising used to be one-way and short enough to be memorable. That is no longer enough. Slick advertising campaigns and packaging are understood as superficial very quickly by customers if there is nothing to support them. Customers nowadays - especially Millennials - expect depth and interaction.
What this means for telling your business sustainability story is that any claims you make need to be backed up with easily accessible evidence. It is for this reason that the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) in the UK has ruled that the airline company broke its rules in their September 2019 TV, radio and print campaigns. Ryanair made claims that they did not define and evidence properly.
While from afar this seems a very clear mistake, many business owners and marketing departments find themselves making similar mistakes: they do not provide evidence to back up claims they make publicly. We are in the midst of a major change in the way customers perceive advertising.
Previously, companies were assumed to be trustworthy. Therefore, previously there was something potentially libelous or which could cause lose customers money due to purposeful misinformation, a certain amount of exagerration and was almost expected in marketing. That is not longer the case. Customers are beginning to read the small print and search for information to verify claims that companies make in their advertising.
What this means for businesses is that they now have to provide demonstrable evidence to back up any marketing claims. Ideally, customers prefer to be able to easily customers access this all now online. Keep these expectations in mind when developing your business strategies with regards to Sustainability Marketing. If you are going to claim to be eco-friendly, you not only have to figure out how to sell the message, you now also need to make sure you figure out how you will provide clear evidence to prove that you are telling a true story and be able to communicate it in easy-to-digest ways (data visualisation).
"airplane" by shyb is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
ASA “said that customers would interpret the ads' claims to mean travelling with Ryanair would mean they were contributing less CO2 than travelling with other airlines, which could not be proved.
The ASA added: ‘We told Ryanair to ensure that when making environmental claims, they held adequate evidence to substantiate them and to ensure the basis of those claims were made clear.’”
Sustainability Marketing helps avoid greenwashing
For most businesses, one of their major aims behind supporting increased sustainability and Corporate Responsibility is to increase their reputation, sales and customer loyalty. In a media and advertising-savvy age where they are increasingly viewed with skepticism, businesses cannot simply tell a good “story” anymore to achieve these goals. They need to provide evidence for their claims.
A Sustainability Marketing Consultant often helps companies to clarify their Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility strategy. The Consultant also often oversees evidence and research collection for what the company has already done and what it wants to do. One of the most important steps Sustainability Marketing Consultants do once the strategy, evidence, story and marketing campaigns have been decided is to ensure that there is a publicly accessible archive of definitions and evidence which support any claims made.
In future posts, I’ll explore what greenwashing is understood as and also how companies can avoid these claims through diffferent ways of providing evidence. In order to clarify those accessible archives of definitions and evidence mentioned above, I will provide a series of future posts with Case Studies of different approaches.
