Green Messaging: A Survey of Marketers

Green/Sustainability

January 7, 2010 -- A newly-released report “Green Marketing: What Works & What Doesn’t – A Marketing Study of Practitioners,”  says that marketers who have experimented with green marketing messages generally found them more effective than standard marketing fare.

The study is based on a series of surveys conducted by the trade publication Environmental Leader along with trade publications including MarketingCharts, MarketingVOX, and MediaBuyerPlanner. 

Key findings:

• More than 80% of the 370 respondents indicated they expect their companies to spend more on green marketing in the future. Among manufacturers, that number is significantly higher.
   

• Close to 30% of marketers surveyed think green marketing is more effective than other marketing messages, compared to 6% of marketers who think it is less effective. According to the study, management is even more optimistic, with 46% indicating a belief that green marketing is more efficacious.
  
  

• Companies with smaller marketing budgets tend to spend more on green marketing.  Firms with a marketing budget of under $250,000 spend just over 26% on green marketing, while those with budgets of more than $50 million spend 6% on green marketing.
   

• The most popular mediums for green marketing, as reported by respondents who have spent money on this technique, are the Internet (75%), followed by print (50%) and direct mail (40%).
  
  
  
  Source: Environmental Leader
   
• When split into groups that do or don’t measure advertising results, media-measuring companies tend to spend more on their green efforts, according to the survey.
  
  

• Marketers that track marketing spend and its relation to sales believe consumers will pay more for green products.  When asked if customers would pay more for green products or to a green company, it was the direct-oriented media that showed the more positive results. Of the people who used the two least trackable media, TV and outdoor, only 29% and 25% respectively indicated that customers would pay more. That compares to 44%, 42% and 46% for Internet, print and direct respectively.
   

• In terms of actual green actions, about half of companies reported that they are consciously taking steps to become greener. The most popular actions are conserving energy in operations, at 59%, and changing products to reflect greener values (such as changing ingredients, packaging or intended use), at 54%.
   

• Companies with decision-makers who have a low regard for green marketing tend to be those with the larger marketing budgets, especially in the budgets between $10 million and $50 million per year, where more than a quarter indicated that their decision-makers held green marketing in low regard. This indicates that smaller companies may believe green marketing to be more effective than larger companies do.

Sources:  BusinessWire, Customers Reward Marketing and Advertising that Employs 'Green' Messages, According to Report from Environmental Leader, January 7, 2009, and Environmental Leader, Green Marketing: What Works; What Doesn’t - A Marketing Study of Practitioners.