The Homa Files

Excerpted from Brandchannel.com, “Pre-thinking Recycling: the New Eco-Consciousness”, by Claire Ratushny, September 22, 2008

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Companies and their marketers should take note of a new consumer trend that has been dubbed “precycling” in some quarters. That’s because it’s all about “pre-thinking recycling”, and it highlights a fundamental shift in consumer values.

Basically, people are opting to pare down and simplify their lives. Many consumers are becoming more selective about the products they purchase. The concept of “excess” is causing revulsion more than ever before, prompting consumers to purchase fewer products, to buy more in bulk, and then to repurpose as much as they can. Even trendsetters are reorienting their lifestyles in an effort to eliminate unnecessary waste.

Hence the notion of pre-thinking recycling. This cuts down on waste and on recycling. Good news for the environment and overflowing landfills, and, over the past couple of years, this trend has been catching fire with more mainstream consumers than ever before.

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Examples:

–  45 percent of trendsetters and 14 percent of mainstream consumers have “cut down on bottled water purchases.”

– Many consumers are using canvas shopping bags to avoid plastic, and even cut down on paper bag use.

– Fewer people are subscribing to newspapers, preferring to get their media news online, cutting down on paper.

– Eco-conscious consumers are opting for washable dinnerware again and washable cloth napkins to cut down on paper waste.

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At a time when brand loyalties are plummeting, eco-conscious brands are giving consumers reasons to believe.

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Illustrating the marketing story of brands that are implementing environmental measures on company websites, product brochures, media outlets and packaging will dovetail with emerging values in the marketplace. They will resonate with consumers.

Selling new value propositions of brands is more important than trying to advertise and sell products through as usual, especially now when the economy is making it hard to do anything as usual. Advertising that continues to push new and improved products, tries to favorably compare with competitive products, or uses price as leading value indicators is increasingly falling on deaf ears.

However, brands and products marketed in an authentic eco-conscious way enable marketers to respond to emerging culturally driven values meaningfully. Companies, large and small, can begin to reposition their brands to be in sync with the communities they are doing business in, and by doing so, to offer greater perceived value to consumers than their competitors do.

The payoff: Consumers are increasingly attuned to supporting the brands that are perceived as doing something positive for the planet because that’s where their values are increasingly headed.

Edit by DAF

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Full article:
http://www.brandchannel.com/brand_speak.asp?bs_id=202

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This entry was posted on October 8, 2008 at 7:04 am and is filed under Environment - Green. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.