See this week’s PRWeek for the full article and quoted comments from OPR’s MD of EAME Ash Coleman-Smith, click here.
In tune with the economy, PRWeek decided to run this survey and it is a great moment for them to have raised the issue of how recenssionary pressures are challenging some of the green assumptions about consumer habits. We should all be thinking about where we stand on our clients position on this and how they should be positioing their green credentials. I think the message is that ‘greenwashing’ will still be spotted by increasingly cyncial consumer and business audiences. I agree with the tone of the PRWeek piece which is that environmental campaigns are moving down the agenda against given economic pressures.
PRWeek’s exclusively commissioned and just published reearch was carried out with Populus and they surveyed 1,999 adults in the UK. PRWeek said: “It showed that 81 percent of respondents paid more attention to cost/value than to environmental credentials. Asked about how concerned they were and whether they were more concerned now than 12 months ago, respondents were evenly split: 49 per cent were no more or less concerned and 50 per cent were more concerned. The findings suggest communicators need to focus on value when crafting their environmental messages”. The research goes on to show that small easy green steps are still interesting to consumers “94 percent of respondents said they would take green steps such as buying energy saving lightbulbs” (PRWeek).
Finally, as PRWeek point out in their feature, there are some brands who have led on a green/environmental positioning such as Green and Black’s, Innocent Smoothies, the entire organic sector etc who are currently paying the price. Maybe now is the time for marketing teams and their agencies to be developing creative and clever strategies for how they re-ignite consumer interest/purchase driven by ‘green’ preferences.
