greenwashing

Nov

2019

It’s Eco Brands’ Time to Step up, Step out, and Educate

Eco eCommerce stores have been popping up since the early 2000s and have grown with the high demand for more environmentally conscious products. It’s easier than ever to source the items you need for a cleaner, greener lifestyle. Here are 5 of the Top Eco eCommerce stores that have created a loyal following, some of which might surprise you.

1. Tiny Yellow Bungalow

2. Wild Minimalist

3. Package Free Shop

4. Tesla

5. AltE Store

Products with harmful eco footprints that have been dominating the markets are finally seeing a dip in sales as consumers demand healthier, more sustainable products. People are starting to question if the items they buy are contributing to the harm of the planet. Product packaging is also under some well-deserved scrutiny, leaving the scientific world to examine the health and ecological footprint on our environment; see the CIEL Plastic & Health Report. However, while we wait for science, the collective sentiment on plastics in our environment is that we now assume they’re having unknown and damaging impacts on our health and ecosystems. Major brands are starting to pick up on this consumer dissatisfaction with the destruction of our planet because of wasteful packaging. This is why labeling and marketing products as green are on the rise. However, consumers are in the middle of deciphering, what is the truth and what is greenwashing.

The shift from big brand greenwashing to emerging green brand education

According to a 2017 consumer market study released by Unilever, ⅓ of consumers are taking charge to actively seek and purchase from brands based on their environmental and social impact, see more in the white paper 2020: The Future of Environmental Marketing. More governments are implementing policies to get rid of toxic products, as well as incentivizing companies, to comply with environmental standards and create healthier products. Brands that are creating and selling harmful and toxic products know they need to either (A) adjust their profit model to include externalities currently thrust on to the public (B) spend a lot of money on greenwashing. Unfortunately, many of these big brands are doing the latter. As new, genuinely sustainable solutions arise, and toxic brands see more failure in their greenwashing and toxic lobbying tactics, we will see a massive shift in people turning to green products. Emerging brands will realize the need to adopt a powerful educational green marketing strategy for their sustainable brand to become the norm, and for toxic products to disappear from our stores.

The buy less movement’s chance to leverage Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Black Friday and Cyber Monday used to be huge one-day-only sales events associated with big-box lines, crazed shoppers, with admittingly controversial beginnings. Black Friday and Cyber Monday have now become a week-long sale event where most people wait to get great deals. Like REI who encourages people to go outside for Black Friday, many eco brands know it’s time to step up the competition and grab market share from their greenwashed counterparts. A recent study by BlackFriday.com and Offers.com shows that consumers start holiday shopping as early as September. The same survey revealed that November is just as big of a shopping month, as December. This means eco-brands who are genuine about helping people switch habits, will be competing with the unsustainable brands, during the holiday months.

Since people start their holiday shopping up to three months before, nurturing your leads, as well as current and past customers, means educating them around your product and its environmental solutions. More studies are finding that consumers don’t want to be sold to, especially those who are interested in eco-products. People want to be educated and engaged in making a genuine difference. Especially for eco-brands, education is a huge opportunity to make people who follow you, the smartest people in the room. Show off your sustainability chops, and help people determine the genuine eco-claims. Providing content that educates consistently, and messages that start during the weeks leading up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday can set your end-of-year sales up for success, eh hem, and the planet.

Eco brands’ time to step up, step out, and educate

In a Nielson survey, 66% of people surveyed about new consumer expectations, said they would pay more for brands that commit positively to the environment. However, it doesn’t stop there; consumers are becoming more aware of the misleading claims many unsustainable brands are boasting about. Greenwashed and unsubstantiated environmental claims have led to a general sentiment of distrust in eco products. Once consumers are educated and shown proof, people quickly become loyal evangelists and promote their favorite eco-products proudly. And an excited, happy customer that believes in the same mission as you is marketing gold that most big brands can’t touch. In fact, 62% of consumers surveyed, said trust is the most significant factor for determining whether they click the ‘buy now’ button. This means that to gain trust and sales, brands will need more than just a label that says your product is “eco-friendly,” it needs facts and scientific proof.

“Consumers want greener goods from greener companies. This focus on sustainable values has superseded a focus on product, lifestyle, and many other previous marketing methods. Consumers buy green for a reason. Companies need to understand what motivates the consumers so they can align their operations and communications to emphasize these values. True success comes not just from using a green message, but from applying all of the wisdom from the marketing discipline.” – Duquesne University, 2014.

Educational content is the golden ticket, especially for eco-companies. An ongoing study at A.R. Marketing House proves that people make purchasing decisions based on if a product improves their environment or health, almost 77%.

Big brands are very aware of this and spend their marketing dollars on greenwashed content to highlight their charitable contributions and fluff stories to distract from their toxic products.

How eco eCommerce brands can execute intelligent marketing for the Holidays

Creating environmental educational content that leads up to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the December holiday shopping season is the way eco-eCommerce sites can have a leg up this holiday season, and into 2020. It’s especially crucial for green businesses to educate all year round. If earnest environmental education isn’t currently a part of your marketing strategy, now is the time to jump ahead of the green educational content curve.

Educational, environmental content is the first step, and dissemination is step two. Where you share this informative content is vital. The 80/20 rule of creating amazing cornerstone content is spending 20% of the time creating different types of content and 80% of the time getting it to many audiences.

[su_pullquote align=”right”]”A $1 trillion market opportunity exists for companies that can successfully explain their sustainability efforts to consumers, according to a new study from Unilever.” – Baldino, 2017.[/su_pullquote]

Where to place and how to promote your educational content

There are many ways to start educating your audience. Starting with your website, you can create website content that is transparent and educates on things like our plastic crisis, solutions to climate change, and collective action your audience can take. The more you provide your audience with valuable, actionable content, the more they will trust your brand and be encouraged to share their new-found knowledge.

Creating a hierarchy of content where you develop one cornerstone piece, and multiple offshoots are helpful in the process of creating various pieces of educational content. These different types of content, i.e., videos, SlideShares, infographics, etc. can be tailored to all the platforms your audience is on.

Emails are a strong vehicle to deliver educational content that nurtures your list. It’s also a way to lead into Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Holiday sales, and your 2020 marketing strategy. As for the 2019 holiday season, it’s predicted that consumers will spend more than $12 billion, and 61% of shoppers will spend their money online. Leveraging your email list and creating content consistently will generate leads and nurture the people you have now, to shop with you.

When to start your Eco eCommerce holiday educational and sales campaign

The time to start building your holiday campaign was yesterday. The next best time to start is today. Most deadlines for a cohesive holiday campaign will need to begin by November 7th. The deadline is because Black Friday and Cyber Monday are no longer a one-day event, as most shoppers are too bombarded these days. You want lead-in and connection building content before offering up your sale.

Education done all year long creates educated consumers who are hooked on and align with your brand. The more we know about our customers, the more we can tailor education to their needs, and the more they will share that information creating brand loyalists.

Conclusion

Distinguishing between big-box greenwashing and emerging eco brands who are genuine is important to Millennials who are now the biggest and most educated of all U.S. generations. Millennials are not buying the greenwashed pitch anymore, no matter how hard companies swing an environmental angle for their campaigns. The more educational content eco-products create and disseminate, the harder it will be for the toxic brands to keep up with savvy consumers.

Email, website content, social media content, engagement campaigns, video content, and Green PR, are some of the best ways to incorporate education into a holiday strategy that you can carry into the new year. People are wary of brands with sustainable claims, tired of greenwashing and looking for real solutions. The new climate for green products and services requires brands to prove that they understand environmental issues, teach on those issues, and show that they are genuinely part of the solution. Consumers want to be taught to ensure they are making truly sustainable and healthy choices.

Knowing that consumers and their actions are changing is especially important information to take into the planning stages for holiday promotions. It’s no longer feasible to go into Black Friday and Cyber Monday with a one or two day sale if your brand wants to meet and surpass Q4 goals and sales, this is especially true for eco brands. The name of the game is building genuine relationships where your brand embodies your mission to improve the planet and help others along the way.

If you need a hand, our team can help get you started on your Holiday Strategy now. Hurry time is ticking. Contact the A.R. Team.

About A.R. Marketing House

The first and only green content marketing company to raise the integrity of “marketing”
We actively solve the challenges that environmental companies face
Offer new and different approaches to marketing as environmental companies have: different pain points in sales journey; up against greenwashing; new ways to approach Public Relations, educational approach to marketing strategies
Educational forms of content marketing strategies

Resources:

https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Plastic-and-Health-The-Hidden-Costs-of-a-Plastic-Planet-February-2019.pdf

https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/report/2015/the-sustainability-imperative-2/#

https://www.nielsen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/04/global-sustainability-report-oct-2015.pdf

https://www.outboundengine.com/blog/content-marketing-and-email-marketing/

https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/black-friday-ecommerce/#why-black-friday-is-a-big-deal-for-businesses

https://blackfriday.com/news/holiday-shopping-survey-data

https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-black-friday-3305710

https://nrf.com/media-center/press-releases/consumers-will-spend-41-percent-more-last-year-during-winter-holidays

https://sustainablebrands.com/read/behavior-change/the-new-black-how-new-breed-of-consumers-will-spend-money-energy-this-friday

https://www.mww.com/corpsumer

https://www.inc.com/dakota-shane/96-percent-of-consumers-dont-trust-ads-heres-how-to-sell-your-product-without-coming-off-sleazy.html

https://armarketinghouse.com/1-trillion-market-share-for-companies-who-educate-on-sustainability/

https://armarketinghouse.com/do-consumers-really-care-about-the-environment-survey-says-100-yes/

Mar

2018

What is Edu-Marketing?

What is Edu-Marketing for Environmental Products & Services?

True Edu-marketing vs. White or Greenwashing

Edu-Marketing, or educational-based marketing, is the concept of creating an educational curriculum and transforming it into digestible marketing content for the masses in various forms (articles, videos, magazines, infographics, interactive quizzes, email updates, online courses, etc.) thus helping people better understand your area of expertise and positioning yourself and/or your organization as an Industry Leader. As opposed to whitewashing and greenwashing, which are the deceitful practices of covering incriminating or unpleasant facts about an organization with inaccurate niceties. In this blog we’ll dive into the importance of edu-marketing and take a look at some examples and contrasts to whitewashing and greenwashing. Let’s jump in!

While nearly any industry and any topic can technically employ the edu-marketing strategy, it is especially necessary for industries that are making a positive impact on society and the planet; those leaders and individuals that take the lead and enlighten the masses on the topics that have the potential to truly benefit humanity. It’s so important that we begin to shift the focus from marketing tactics that take advantage of society and manipulate truths to benefit the few.

Why is this? Well, it seems that we have experienced a massive amount of miseducation and frankly, lies for the sole sake of profits. For example, in the book Trust Us We’re Experts, journalists Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber dive deep into the ways that big industries have paid off “experts” and created front groups of fake scientists to lead false movements and misguide people.

Like the time SmithKline Beecham paid the American Cancer Society $1 million to use its logo on products + in ads for the smoking cessation product NicoDermCQ and other Nicorette anti-smoking aids.

This is a perfect example of how edu-marketing for natural herbs that help with smoking cessation like Catnip, Coltsfoot, or Horsetail plant, would be a better benefit to humanity. However, big pharma and willing-to-be-bought non-profit organizations, have teamed up to misguide the public with false reasoning to push their products.

Unfortunately, the reality remains that we’re more likely to recognize and have access to Nicorette, a $60/box pharmaceutical drug when it comes to quitting smoking rather than Catnip, a $10/high quality organic tincture bottle, or any other herb that we are probably more willing to take than a pharmaceutically synthesized product.

Edu-Marketing with integrity is so clearly needed now. We have been inundated with sellouts and front groups, whitewashing and greenwashing so much so that we likely have beliefs skewed in their favor, whether we know it consciously or subconsciously. And this has mostly been successful because less than honest companies with substantial financial backing can easily justify the cost for fraudulent “experts,” creating front groups, funding lobbyists, and creating corporate spin that act like real causes and sound logical on the surface. Take for example the front group People of Color United, that was established in 2004 by the (anything but color) conservative group Bradley Foundation whose aim was to diminish John Kerry’s perception during the 2004 Presidential Election via personal attack radio ads aired in swing states on primarily black radio stations.

You see, we are in dire need for education-based content marketing with integrity to uplift the well-intentioned and honest companies and movements that need to happen in our soceity. This is especially true for industries like cannabis and energy where major players can either side with greed and harm public good or greatly serve humanity with things like broad-spectrum medical cannabis and sustainable energy. These things when conceived of solely on logic shouldn’t technically need marketing. Clean water, natural health, sustainability, renewable energy, decentralized economy, these are things we all want for ourselves and when we set corrupt politics aside, our neighbors as well. Unfortunately, though, we have come to a juncture in our society where these things do need marketing. MASSIVELY smart marketing at that, to combat the missing or false information that has created mass self-sabotaging, false belief systems that have been implanted in us all at some level.

There is a dire need for education based content marketing that uplifts sustainable products and renewable energy over the barrage of bad choices that we've become so accustomed to accepting. Click To Tweet

It’s time to start disrupting the status quo of industries that have taken advantage of the dumbing down of society in order to tell lies or at the very least cover up truths, solely for profits-sake. It’s an era for NEW Industry Leaders, and if you are like me, you don’t care where the solutions to the big issues of today come from. You just care that they happen at the highest integrity, highest efficiency levels, and are the longest-term solutions that get to the heart of the issues we face.

Arguably this can be accomplished in many ways from many organizational standpoints. Yes, of course, our government should be ensuring that its citizens get their basic human needs met like clean food, clean water, and housing. As we move forward, we will need all hands on deck. This includes every type of organization, non-profit, small business, church, enterprise corporation, and local community be involved with educating about the truths which affect humanity and the planet.

How do we do this?

By holding to integrity. By educating. By incorporating edu-marketing.

It’s with great hope that we see more of these earnest edu-marketing tactics that serve to win back the minds and the reasoning of people.

Below are some contrasting white/greenwashing vs. true edu-marketing strategies.

Fake vs. Real Edu-Marketing

The Cannabis Industry

Cannabis Propaganda + Fear by Above the Influence

VS.

Cannabis Edu-Marketing from Jenasis Medical Group

Sustainable Laundry

The health of our laundry is a very overlooked topic in most people’s lives. Yet, laundry is a very intimate thing when we really think about.Both household laundry and dry cleaning have the potential to be extremely toxic when using traditional detergents and traditional methods of dry cleaning. The 4 top toxic ingredients in common laundry detergents are 1) Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS)/sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) 2) 1,4-dioxane 3)NPE (nonylphenol ethoxylate) and 4) Phosphates. Likewise, the singular most toxic method for dry cleaning clothes is PERC, a chemical known to induce spontaneous abortions in women who are pregnant and work near the chemical, among a long host of other violent afflictions. Below is an example of a laundry detergent who calls itself green but hasn’t quite quit all toxic junk and a dry cleaning company that uses truly non-toxic methods that believes in educating on dangers of the mainstream dry cleaning toxin, PERC.

Planet Laundry Detergent, though better than most still contains 6.1 ppm of 1,4-dioxane not listed.

The Eco Laundry Company Educates by sharing data on the health effects of chemical exposure to PERC .

Renewable Energy

The Greenwashing of Nuclear Energy vs. Education of Solar Energy

Nuclear energy is entirely greenwashed now. Some try to defend nuclear energy as renewable energy but uranium deposits are a finite resource on this planet, so the designation should not include this option. Read this to learn more about the debate.

However, the Nuclear Sector has done a fine job explaining away the problems of toxic nuclear waste and letting us forget about the radiation still wreaking havoc from the long list of nuclear disasters that occurred around the world. Most recently the Fukushima Disaster and the radioactive materials that now spread across the pacific ocean and U.S. Coast poisoning our oceans, wildlife, and seafood.

The Greenwashing of Nuclear Energy via NEI

Edu-Marketing on Solar Energy via the Union of Concerned Scientist

These are just a handful of examples that display the importance of integrity based educational marketing, or edu-marketing. When dealing with truth, there is no wiggle room. When it comes to integrity and becoming the master of your content, true edu-marketing is the cornerstone for leading a movement and leaving a legacy.

Join the movement to educate by working with us! Contact our environmental edu-marketing team.

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