When the bedbugs bite

September 2, 2010 – 8:42 am

By CEO, Suzanne Shelton

I travel a lot.  Which means I’m sleeping in hotel rooms a lot.  And that means I’ve paid particular attention to the bedbug reports.  And I’ve become pretty freaked out.

As I’ve talked to friends and colleagues about my freak out, almost everyone has said, “well you know, the reason we have them is because the pesticides that will kill them have been banned in the name of the environment.”  So the point of this post was going to be to examine the options — 1. bed bugs and a healthy environment or 2. no bed bugs and a chemical-filled environment.

I was going to come down in favor of chemicals and no bed bugs.

But I started to do some research and found that while, yes, there is a theory that the resurgence could be blamed on the absence of the stuff we used to spray for roaches (now we lay bait that kills them), there are also theories that they’re invading from other countries, many of which are still using the same chemicals we were using years ago.  So scientists don’t actually know what’s causing them right now.  And there’s the reality that, in fact, they don’t carry any diseases that we know of, we can be bitten and not even know it, and our ancestors have lived with them since we were still figuring out Fire and The Wheel.

The alternative involves, as the New York Times put it, “sprinkling DDT dust into sheets and lining nurseries with DDT-impregnated wallpaper.” Which is what we used to do.

So, regardless of which side of the argument we all land on, there’s the interesting context here of “environmental friendliness = sacrifice” and also of “environmental friendliness = less effective in keeping away really gross things.” In our 2009 Eco Pulse study 76% of Americans said they think green product quality is equal to or better than conventional product quality.  This debate about bed bugs could erode that. And as consumers have more experience themselves with cleaning products and pest control products that don’t, in fact, make everything 110% white and 110% dead, we could see a backslide to buying good old fashioned chemicals.

And the question each of us will have to answer in the bed bugs vs chemicals debate is: which bite do we fear most?

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The Transition movement: Planning for an “Elegant Descent”

September 2, 2010 – 8:00 am

By Director of Insight, Karen Barnes

Sometimes it’s good to look at what’s happening on the periphery – those ideas that are just starting to come into focus and get talked about – to see what might move into sharper definition and become part of a larger conversation.

Allow me to introduce you to a potential such idea – the Transition Movement.

Started in 2005 by a young British professor of ecological design, the movement is beginning to gain some traction in this country, with 74 registered local initiatives from Boulder to Richmond, Idaho to Kentucky. The movement is based on the idea that three critical issues are coming to a head in our lifetime – peak oil (the end of cheap oil, with barrel prices hitting $300), climate change and the collapse of the global economy. To mitigate these dangers, the movement advocates “building resiliency” into local economies and putting in place new systems that will create increased self-sufficiency. Systems like food and energy production, education, local currencies, transportation and artisans.

As one New York Times writer said, “It’s been an American impulse since the Puritans: feeling the world racing in the wrong direction and withdrawing to a small, insular place to start over…One of Transition’s more oblique arguments may be that we can’t escape anymore. We have to work together to remake the places where we already live.”

Unlike doomsday minded survivalists, the Transition Movement isn’t about guns and ammo, remote rural compounds and militia training. Instead it takes a positive approach, working closely with local governments to create a plan for what the movement calls “an elegant descent” from our current, unsustainable lifestyle of over-consumption and inexpensive oil.

The movement originally took hold in the small English town of Totnes, where volunteers have been planting trees, creating a local currency and offering classes on things like sock darning to facilitate the “Great Reskilling.”

Let’s face it, most of us have no idea how to live without many of the conveniences our grandparents never had – what could we really do with only our ingenuity and our hands? When’s the last time you repaired something instead of replacing it? When’s the last time you picked most of your food from your garden instead of driving your SUV to the grocery store?

The ultimate vision of the Transition movement is “a lower-energy life with walk- able villages, local food and artisans and greater intimacy with the natural world.” So what are the chances that this vision catches on with mainstream America? It’s not very likely. Fewer than half of Americans now believe in climate change, according to our Green Living Pulse study. Many Americans believe that we have plentiful domestic energy sources that will continue to fuel the coming decades, as we heard in recent focus groups. And although almost everyone’s worried about the economy, few probably foresee a global economic meltdown.

However, the Transition movement offers a positive plan that will likely appeal to some Actives – whose personalities are attracted to progressive ideas, possibilities, collaboration, idealism and systemic/holistic thinking. These folks are also influencers and early adopters, so if they adopt Transition thinking as their own, the movement may start to crystallize and move into the greater field of vision.

For more information on the Transition movement in the US, visit www.transitionus.org.

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Selling sustainability to whiskey drinkers

August 25, 2010 – 2:27 pm

By CEO, Suzanne Shelton

If I were to say, “Quick — name five green products!” I’m betting Jack Daniels wouldn’t be at the top of your list.

It should be.

I had the pleasure of touring the one and only Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg, TN, this weekend and found the entire experience to be an excellent example of how to sell sustainability to the consumer segments we call Cautious Conservatives and Skeptics.

These consumers are folks who don’t buy into the idea that global warming is caused by man, and they run the other way when marketers start talking to them about going green.  But that doesn’t mean they won’t buy green and energy efficient products — quite the contrary.  They will buy, but they’ll buy to gain control, to earn a perceived ROI…and to leave the campsite better than they found it.

A lot of these guys are hunters and fishermen.  They’re connected to nature because of that — and they’re connected to their fathers and grandsons because of it. They want to protect that way of life, which is a different thing than simply protecting the planet.

That’s what the folks at Brown Foreman, the owners of Jack Daniels, tap into so well with their distillery tour.  Now, it appears that the tour is a solid marketing effort meant to build the brand’s mystique and showcase the craftsmanship and quality that goes into every bottle. But whether they intend to or not, they’re also selling sustainability at every turn, and doing that actually enhances the brand story.  Here’s what we can all learn from the folks at Jack:

- Without the natural, limestone-filtered spring from which the water for the product comes, there would be no Jack Daniels. So they bought up 1,000 acres to make sure they could protect the land around the spring and, thus, protect the quality of the product.  It’s a quality and commitment message…but it’s also a sustainability/conservation/protecting the planet message.

- They don’t believe in wasting anything, which is another sustainability message (and one our research shows plays very well with this group). They make their own charcoal through which the product is filtered — and when it’s time to replace that charcoal, it gets remade into briquettes you can buy in the store to throw a steak over. Same with the mash that ultimately becomes the whiskey.  If there’s a quality control issue, they scoop it up and sell it to a bunch of local farmers who, in turn, feed it to some very happy cows and pigs.

- At the end of the tour you can purchase some of the high end stuff in a special bottle — and a portion of your purchase will go directly to fund the conservation efforts of Ducks Unlimited.  Which means by buying Jack Daniels, Cautious Conservatives can help make sure there are plenty of duck hunting trips in their future.

So, as we consistently say at Shelton:  a successful sustainability message often won’t look like a sustainability message. In fact, in some cases, it can’t look like one in order to be successful. Jack Daniels offers us a masterful example of how to weave a sustainability message into a brand story in a way that its core audience can really swallow.

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Cleaning up the green certification landscape

August 25, 2010 – 1:58 pm

By Director of Insight, Karen Barnes

Let’s face it: green certifications are littering the marketplace. There are literally hundreds of certifications and marks out there causing consumer confusion.

It’s time to clean it up.

So this week’s announcement that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is planning to release updated Green Guidelines by the end of summer is a welcome one. It’s been several years since the last update, and only recently has the agency started to enforce the guidelines.

According to legal experts familiar with the new regulations, more than 300 existing green certifications could be in trouble with the new standards.

The new standards are expected to govern claims including “biodegradable,” “sustainable” and “recyclable.” For consumers, this is great news. We hear in focus groups and in our proprietary Pulse studies that consumers rely on packaging for information, and are particularly interested in biodegradable packaging and recycling. With the new standards, perhaps confidence in certifications will rise and only accurate, meaningful marks will survive.

For marketers, this means making sure all your boxes are checked off. Will your current claims meet the new standards? If the expert is right, the certification landscape will soon be less crowded, meaning that the marks still standing will face a clearer path to consumer recognition. What will you do to help build a trusted mark in the new reality?

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Re-imagining a sustainable future

August 19, 2010 – 11:30 am

By Director of Insight, Karen Barnes

There’s been a lot written about how green can be a major driver for innovation, but most of what I’ve read has been theoretical in nature – general calls for new ideas.

That’s why an item caught my eye earlier this week about the kitchen of the future. It offered a real, radically different idea about incorporating sustainability into our daily lives.

IKEA asked Europeans what they wanted in their kitchens in the coming decades, and they responded with a brilliant idea – they want to incorporate gardens into their kitchens. They want to have space indoors, right next to their food preparation area, to grow their own vegetables.

Now think about this for a minute. This requires an entirely different way of thinking about kitchens. All of a sudden the kitchen is transformed from an end point where food is finally prepared and consumed – to a beginning point where people nurture seedlings and begin to have a relationship with their food source. It’s a radical departure.

At least one major electronics manufacturer has a similar idea that recently won a design competition – an indoor hydroponic garden appliance that’s the size of a refrigerator. Maybe one day soon, we could reach into our hydroponic kitchen station and pluck a fresh head of romaine for our salads instead of unwrapping a head that came from some unknown destination we bought at the store.

What else can be re-imagined? How about building all new homes with gray water recovery systems? What about neighborhood renewable energy stations – small solar or wind arrays used to power local homes? What about offering products in refillable bottles and packages and letting consumers load up in grocery aisles that look like bulk foods aisles?

What are your ideas for radical innovation?  Let’s start there, and then we’ll talk about how to get consumers engaged in them.

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Concerned moms are still concerned

August 18, 2010 – 1:03 pm

By CEO, Suzanne Shelton

I’ve spent the last couple of evenings behind the glass at focus groups, watching various segments of the population discuss their thoughts on energy and water conservation and react to a host of TV spots on those topics.  (We conduct our own proprietary groups twice a year to dig deeper into findings from our quantitative Pulse work and/or to refine questions in our upcoming quantitative studies.)

As we did with our green-themed groups earlier in the year, we broke these groups into audience segments, hosting one group of True Believers, one of Cautious Conservative and Two of Concerned Moms. I’m going to focus on the Moms in this post, and we’ll talk about the other two groups in future posts.

We named them Concerned Moms for a reason.  They are concerned…about a lot of things.  And those concerns drive how they’re impacted by advertising about energy and the environment:

- We asked all groups the opening question:  “When I say the phrase, ‘our country’s energy supply,’ what’s the first thing that pops into your mind?” True Believers and cautious Conservatives went straight for literal definitions — oil, gas, coal, renewables, etc.  Both groups of Concerned Moms went right for their concerns, saying things like, “not enough…we’re wasting it…scary.” So the takeaway is that they’re already on the emotional train when it comes to energy issues.  As marketers we can meet them there and immediately begin moving them to action.

- They responded really well to TV spots that were down to earth and matter of fact.  Though they laughed out loud and identified with the frazzled mom in a Rheem tankless water heater spot, they didn’t rank it as their favorite.  And though they cooed over the cute monkeys in the GE Geospring Hot Water Heater ad, it didn’t move them to want to buy.  What worked were some of the utility company spots that featured employees or regular looking people very matter of factly giving specific tips/actions one could take and information about rebates available.

- They also responded well to the mention of jobs in the spot from America’s Oil and Natural Gas.  That makes sense — they’re nurturers and lionesses…they don’t want to see any family without a bread winner.

- Lastly, though we’ve known they are most motivated by their kids — protecting them, providing for them — there’s a line that marketers should NOT cross.  That would be the Line of Guilt.  Positive messaging about future generations worked really well.  Guilt messaging, i.e. “you’d better change your ways today or else your kids and grandkids will pay the price” really fell flat.  It  insulted them.  We heard comments in response to one such ad (called Flex Your Power) like, “I’ve bent over for my kids…how dare they tell me I haven’t done enough.”

So, if you’re trying to reach Moms — and they’re great targets for anything tied to a utility bill as they’re the ones writing the monthly checks — keep the following in mind:

- Humor works, but only if the humor IS the point of the ad.  You can’t mix in rational facts alongside a humor message…the facts will be forgotten.

- Specific, manageable tips from real, down-to-earth people works.

- Promises of protecting future generations and protecting jobs/family work really well…but only if they’re positive.  Guilt and fear will have the exact opposite effect.

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Forming a sustainable first impression

August 12, 2010 – 7:33 am

By Vice President of Creative Services, Larry Washington

Every relationship starts with a first impression. Conversation, simple body language or just your appearance can create everything from a long-term love fest to a confidence crushing memory. To fully realize the importance of this moment in your personal and professional life, just look at the number of books and Web sites dedicated to the subject.

First impressions in creative communications are just as important. If you don’t send the right message in the first face-to-face meeting between your communication and your consumer you may not get a second chance. The importance of this moment is biggie-sized when you throw in the fact that you’re selling sustainability, because most consumers are already skeptical before you ever even get face-to-face.

So how do you make a good first impression with consumers while holding up a sustainability message? Here are four rules for success:

1. Keep it simple and single-minded.
Everyone in the sustainable communications world feels that they have three or four game changing messages that they just have to get out. The consumer, however, has a limited capacity to take in that message in that first moment of communication. Too much information can confuse, especially when presenting a subject they may not understand anyway. Give them something simple and singular they can latch on to in a positive way and then you can lead them down your messaging path.

2. Stir an emotion.
Sustainable messaging is ripe for an emotional play and nothing pulls a consumer into the fold like a message that touches them personally. There are major pitfalls here, however, that don’t exist in traditional advertising, and you can lose more than just your consumer if you’re not careful. (See #3 and #4)

3. Know the person you’re talking to.
Everyone has the capacity to accept and react positively to a sustainable message as long as the message is tailored to his or her interests. There are a lot of messages that fit under the sustainability umbrella, from saving energy to being a good community steward. And some of those messages work really well with some consumers…and others don’t. If you push out the message you think will have impact without really knowing the person on the receiving end, then you probably shouldn’t be shocked when you can’t get a second date.

4. Know what the heck you’re talking about.
Welcome to the world of transparency where the consumer can tell instantly if you’re full of crap. If you don’t deeply understand sustainability and what it means to products and consumers then don’t bother. You’ll be sniffed out and rejected before you know what’s happened. A deep knowledge, however, will give your message the authenticity needed to form a bond within those initial moments with your consumers that can pave the way to a long-lasting relationship.

It’s not impossible to make a comeback from a bad first impression, but you’ll spend triple the time, money and effort to get to the same place you would have gotten to if it had been love at first sight.

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Hitting the reset button: how America might look after the Great Recession

August 12, 2010 – 7:23 am

By Director of Insight, Karen Barnes

There have been two great periods of economic upheaval in our recent history – the Long Depression of 1873 and the Great Depression of the 1930s. After each reset, the cultural landscape changed in significant ways. The Long Depression ushered in three decades of economic innovation including national infrastructure, systemized innovation production and manufacturing. The Great Depression’s legacy of suburbanization created a new car culture, and demand for appliances, furnishings, and other products contributed to the age of mass consumerism.

So here we are in the third great reset, wondering what this recovery might look like, how long it might last and whether there’s any silver lining this time around.

As one economist wrote about this latest crisis, “Our excesses have been so great that there is no way out of this that doesn’t lead to a general fall in living standards.”

And since we as marketers have traditionally appealed to a more aspirational way of life to convince people to buy what we’re selling, understanding this shift is of critical importance.

Author Richard Florida, in his latest book The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity, writes that resets are characterized by three core elements: changes in consumption patterns, development of new/different infrastructure, and geographic realignment. Let’s take a quick look at each.

We’re already seeing changes in consumption patterns. The virtual collapse of the financial system has made credit hard to get, sending our over-extended culture into credit rehab. Personal savings rates are up for the first time in decades. Luxury brands have taken a hit. McMansions have become unfashionable albatrosses. Buying simply for the sake of buying is no longer the sport it once was. Sharing services like ZipCar are gaining traction as individual ownership isn’t the priority it once was.

Our national infrastructure, from crumbling bridges and leaking pipes, is well beyond the need for incremental upgrades. It needs a major overhaul – it needs an injection of innovation. New forms of energy need to be made affordable and accessible, new forms of transportation need to quickly move goods, people and ideas. New schools need to equip children with the analytical skills needed in the new jobs market.

Florida predicts the rise of mega-regions such as the Washington, DC to New York corridor where educated, creative change agents fuel urban growth, re-invent service jobs to be more innovative, and propel the economy towards creating sustainable work and prosperity. This migration will cause cities like Detroit, once the nation’s 11th largest city and now decimated by the implosion of the auto industry, to re-imagine and re-engineer a future not based on manufacturing jobs. So will the entire country.

If this reset is anything like the previous two, it will take our economy about 30 years to fully recover. And if this reset holds true to its predecessors, the silver lining is that imagination and innovation will lead us out of this economic crisis.

If marketers can understand these changes, there are huge opportunities to help redefine and reshape our economy into a more sustainable future.

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Green Living Pulse is out tomorrow

August 5, 2010 – 5:28 am

By Suzanne Shelton, CEO

Our 2010 Green Living Pulse study publishes tomorrow, and it contains some juicy insights for marketers of green products and services in America.  Here’s one of our press releases about it — enjoy!

Polar Ice Cap Is Gone, Kids Can’t Go Outside, Nebraska is a Desert?  Poll Finds That Still Wouldn’t Convince Many Americans of Global Warming

KNOXVILLE, TN (Aug. 5) — A new national poll of green consumers found that belief in global warming is declining, and even the worst nightmare scenarios would not change people’s minds or behaviors.

The poll, one of four annual surveys conducted by Shelton Group, surveyed 1,098 Americans who at least occasionally buy green products and found only about half believe climate change is occurring and caused by human beings.

Asked whether they agreed with the statement, “Global warming or climate change is occurring and it is primarily caused by human activity,” 52% of green consumers agreed, compared to 49% of U.S. consumers overall. That’s down significantly from a year ago when 58% of all U.S. consumers agreed.

Respondents who disagreed, or were undecided, were then asked, “Which of the following scenarios would convince you that climate change is a real and immediate threat and cause you to make dramatic changes in your lifestyle? You wake up one morning and find out that…” followed by a list of possible nightmare scenarios. These included:  the polar ice cap has completely melted, kids can no longer play outside in the summer and Nebraska is turning into a desert.

The top two responses were: “None of these would convince me” at 27%; and “One or more of these would convince me but I would be unlikely to make changes” at 24%.

“That means over half of those who are unconvinced about global warming are either unlikely to change their mind or unlikely to change their ways, no matter what happens,” said Suzanne Shelton, CEO of Shelton Group.

A small number of current doubters would respond if:

• The polar ice cap had completely melted – 15%
• Kids should no longer go outside to play during the spring and summer due to consistently dangerous ozone/pollution levels – 15%
• Shifting weather patterns/lack of rain was turning Nebraska into a desert — 3%
• There were only 20 polar bears estimated to be left living in the wild — 2%
• Residents of American Samoa were having to be relocated due to rising tides — 0.6%

“The good news is, Americans are still going green, whether they believe in global warming or not,” Shelton said.

Last year, the annual survey found 77% of respondents were seeking green products and participating in at least some environmentally sustainable activities. This year, the survey found 84% of Americans are doing so.

“For consumers, green isn’t about climate change – that’s too esoteric and impersonal – it’s about matters closer to home,” Shelton said. “Many Americans aren’t trying to save the Earth when they buy a green cleaning product, they’re trying to save their children from dangerous chemicals.”

Among the survey’s other findings:

• When asked if the recent West Virginia coal mine explosion and the Deep Water Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have made them think more about the human and environmental costs of their energy consumption, 55% of green consumers agreed.

• Yet despite the disasters, interest in owning or renting green or energy efficient homes has dampened. Last year, almost three-quarters of green consumers (72%) were interested in owning/renting an energy-efficient home. That number is down to 64%.

• Interest in green homes also declined. Only 43% of green consumers said they were interested in owning/renting a green home, compared to 47% last year.

• Asked what is the hardest thing to do to help save the environment, “Drive less” was chosen most often (16.1%), followed by “grow your own food” (15.5%) and “use public transportation if available in your area” (10.3%).

About Shelton Group

Shelton Group, founded in 1991 by Suzanne Shelton, is an advertising and research agency located in Knoxville, Tennessee, focused exclusively on motivating mainstream consumers to make sustainable choices.  The agency conducts four proprietary consumer opinion studies annually – Eco Pulse, Energy Pulse®, Utility Pulse and Green Living Pulse.

Learn more at www.sheltongroupinc.com

Contacts:

Mark Pankowski at 301-260-9250

Mittie Rooney at 301-229-1618

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A hot start to a new cold war?

August 5, 2010 – 5:23 am

By Karen Barnes, Director of Insight

There’s been a lot of news about climate change in the last two weeks.

Let’s start with the latest global research released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The 2009 State of the Climate Report calls climate change “unmistakable,” and says that more and more Americans are experiencing the effects of climate change, ranging from rising temperatures, rising sea levels, longer growing seasons, changes in river flows, increases in heavy downpours, and earlier snowmelt. The report compiled data from more than 300 scientists in 48 countries, and confirms that each of the last three decades was warmer than the one before.

Speaking of warmer temperatures, there’s also a record heat wave in Russia. It’s killed more than 1,200 people, spawned massive and destructive wildfires that have wiped out entire communities, and burned grain fields the size of Kentucky. This calamity caught the attention of Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, who just last year announced that his country, the third largest polluter after China and the US, would release 30% more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in the next ten years.

In a stunning reversal, just last week, he made a statement that called for action to address climate change. Until this remarkable admission, the official Russian position on climate change has been that it’s a Western conspiracy designed to further weaken the Russian economy. In fact, last week the country’s largest newspaper ran a headline asking “Is the Russian heat wave the result of the USA testing its climate weapon?” The article’s answer was yes.

And then there’s the American government.  It appears that climate change legislation is dead for now and, according to a New York Times article, our government’s inability to pass this sort of legislation is starting to undermine our international credibility and influence. An African climate change negotiator, attending this week’s meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change said he is no longer hopeful that America will pass a climate change bill. A French negotiator said “On the one hand the US is leading the scientific field of climate change, and on the other hand there is this incredible difficulty to have bipartisan agreement on climate change.”

Here’s how this all connects back to consumers:  our quarterly polls (and other polls) tell us that belief in climate change is down again – fewer than half of Americans say they believe in it.  But we also know from our polling that personal experience with the by-products of climate change  increases belief and motivation to act. So if the NOAA report is correct, and more Americans are starting to personally experience the impacts of global warming, we might see an increase in the number of believers over the next several years. But for the time being, marketing messages calling for people to “fight climate change” simply won’t work, and our elected representatives seem to be aware of that as well.

Ironically, given Russia’s about-face on the issue, this could be the start of a new Cold War about global warming.

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