Red is the colour of fire, passion, love and, well . . . marketing. It is no coincidence that many of the world’s biggest brands (Coca Cola, Vodafone, Virgin, Ferrari, Colgate, Heinz, etc.) use red to communicate. Red is the colour of marketing; or, at least, it used to be. Suddenly everything has become green. The mass media has been filled with “green” messages, the same goes for labels and packaging of products, and it makes sense to wonder if the new colour of marketing is infact, green. An “inconvenient truth” for marketing is that it was created with the purpose of selling as many products as possible, to as many consumers as possible, and not to save the planet.

Is "green" too limited of an image for brands?

For green marketing to become red its “tone” must change. According to the American Marketing Association, “green” marketing is the marketing of products and services that are environmentally friendly. Green marketing thus incorporates a broad range of activities that includes product modification, changes to the production process, environmentally friendly packaging and “environmentally correct” communications. The obvious hypothesis upon which “green” marketing is based is the idea that consumers see that being environmentally friendly as an advantage and are willing to define their purchasing behaviour in accordance with it. The other, less obvious hypothesis upon which “green” marketing is based is that consumers are willing to pay more for more environmentally friendly products.

In order for the above two hypotheses to hold for all consumers and not just for a small, highly environmentally-aware section of them, “green” marketing must be able to represent passion and love for brands and companies in the same way that “red” marketing did. In order for “green” to become more attractive for the great mass of consumers, it must renounce the stereotypes which it itself created. Simplicity of design, which was almost simplistic, a compromise in the quality of packaging materials and in the effectiveness of the products became the trademark of being “green”.

Highly environmentally aware manufacturers created the first “green” products for highly environmentally aware consumers, and as a result their aesthetic code developed in a specific way. This code must be redefined today if we want “green” to become the new red. It was along these lines that KORRES Natural Products (a client of LOWE Athens) was thinking when it created products, stores and communications with an aesthetic that breaks “green” stereotypes, democratising luxury and linking “green” with “chic”. The value of “green” as a factor in demand can increase only if it is linked to other factors in demand. In the same way, value for money was not, on its own, able to mobilise a large number of consumers, but only when it was linked to the factor in demand of “design” were commercial successes such as ZARA, IKEA, etc. created.

Links to Consider:

http://www.csrwire.com/csrlive/commentary_detail/2386-Technology-as-the-enabler-of-sustainability