Will Greenwashers Push the Green Movement Back to the Fringe?

May 1, 2007

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If you want to attract a loyal green consumer, use concrete data to support your claims, according to a MarketingProfs article. If you want to attract mainstream consumers, use brand and emotion, which appeals to those who have Whole Foods Hummer Syndrome - consumers who want to be associated with the brand of being green and healthy, but not at the expense of any real sacrifice.

Greenwashers manufacture and market popularity. If it’s manufactured fast enough, it doesn’t allow green consumers the time to check and raise concerns about the authenticity of corporate claims. The article points to GE’s clean coal TV commercials as an example of appealing to emotion rather than delivering facts.

The problem, writes MarketingProfs, is that the speedy mass production of green branding could deplete the niche’s ability to resonate with a larger marketplace and carve an enduring place in conventional consumers’ purchase patterns, making the green movement a fad that will revert back to the fringe.

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