March 16, 2008

Is HP Planning A Green Marketing Push?

In a recent AdAge interview, Michael Mendenhall, the new senior VP-CMO at HP, said that McGarryBowen will be handling a new, unspecified corporate assignment - not for any of HP’s three divisions.. AdAge speculates that the agency could be involved in a sustainability effort.

Here’s the publication’s reasoning: At a March 11 conference Mendenhall discussed a number of trends in marketing, one of which was sustainability, and said HP has developed a device that could reduce the amount of energy used by computers in data centers, and that it is thinking about a push to encourage consumers to turn off their computers at night.

It’s a hot topic. U.S. businesses are wasting $1.72 billion a year on PCs that are not shut down at night, according to a recent report.

Consumers think that many forms of green technology (renewable, energy efficient or recycled materials) are cost prohibitive, difficult to understand and maintain, and aesthetically unappealing, according to a recent report.

Still, another report found that 12 percent of U.S. adults - some 25 million Americans - are willing to pay extra for consumer electronics that use less energy or come from a company that is environmentally friendly.

That might be impetus enough for HP to go after green consumers. Another is that, according to the same report, of major computer manufacturers, HP’s customers are the least green.

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