Posted on October 5, 2009 - by Janet Smith

Firms Invest in Carbon Counting, but what Marketing Gain is Achieved?

Corporations like GE have spent the price of a small country on programs like Ecomagination, but are the investments generating brand loyalty and top of mind awareness commensurate with their green efforts?

Three interesting reports were issued recently: 

Quarterly update of the EPA’s National Top 50 Green Power Purchasers.

The 2009 ImagePower Green Brands study, an international study conducted by WPP agencies (NASDAQ: WPPGY) Cohn & Wolfe, Landor Associates and Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates (PSB) as well as independent strategy consulting firm Esty Environmental Partners.

The Green Revolution from Grail Research, a study intended to help companies improve their communication strategies and influence shopping behaviors of green consumers by analyzing association of brands with green.

Per Grail Research, consumers think of green products as those that minimize the impact on the environment with the top 5 associations (position varies by gender and age):

• Recyclable, reusable materials/packaging.
• Energy efficient/uses renewable sources of energy.
• Made with natural ingredients/organic.
• Contributes less to greenhouse gas emissions.
• Non-toxic in nature.

With energy efficiency and use of renewable energy as a high association with a green brand, I compared the TOP 10 for the three reports and was surprised by the results:

Evaluating the Top 10 green power purchasers, only Whole Foods ranked in the first two reports on brands.  Noting that Johnson & Johnson was 11th for the EPA’s green power purchasers and Wal-Mart ranked in the EPA’s top 10 for onsite generation, I was still surprised that respected, well-known brands like Intel, PepsiCo, Dell and Cisco were not mentioned. 

In fact, besides Apple and GE, a technology firm or an IT industry firm were not on the lists.  Technology firms like IBM and HP are investing heavily, but according to these surveys conducted in May-July 2009, their messages do not result in top 10 brand awareness.

A few conclusions may be drawn:

To respond to consumer’s perceptions of green just for energy efficiency and levels of greenhouse gas emissions by enterprise-wide corporations is a monumental task that involves the supply chain.  This analysis is comprehensive and time-consuming and as a growing number of  major corporations are discovering, they expect to see future brand loyalty for their efforts.

Major firms will not risk a poor brand perception if the value proposition is not “trusted”.   To be green, a corporation needs to be able to measure it and manage it, and then market green as a core value of the brand. 

It’s still early.  With price a major inhibitor to purchasing green (internationally), green as a component of brand loyalty remains early adopter/pioneer for a significant number of domestic industries.