Total Marketing Solutions

Sustainable marketing is good, Greenwash is bad. That seems to be the gist of recent articles on this blog and elsewhere including the Sunday Times. So how exactly do they differ? How do you undertake marketing without running the risk of tokenism?
Most of the targets of activists are large corporate organisations, who generally use a product launch to boast about its green credentials without considering the company’s wider environmental strategy. Environmentalists, and many customers, find it difficult to reconcile the “green” messages with the company’s other activities or its history. One of the great rules of marketing is that you have to deliver on your promise and customers do not see these companies delivering.
So as a marketing consultant there are a few simples rules that I recommend to clients undertaking sustainable marketing :
- Try to make it more than a gimmick. Take steps to make sustainability a strategy of your organisation, not a marketing tactic. Customer s will see through anything less.
- Make sure it’s real. If you promise to offset your carbon emissions, then do it.
- And don’t let concerns about greenwash put you off from doing the right thing. That’s akin to not recycling your newspapers because you’re worried that you drive a 4×4. So if in doubt, just do it!