Green Marketing is being talked about more and more but, very often, brands only do it to portray themselves as what they are not. . A façade environmentalism so exploited that everyone now recognizes it as Greenwashing (a strategy used since the 1970s to build a deceptively positive image in terms of environmental impact) or, more recently, as Bla, bla, bla evoked by Greta Thunberg, who stigmatizes those who speak instead of acting.

For this reason we thought it made sense to talk about some emblematic cases of true Green Marketing, effective not only for capturing the attention of the general public but for truly making a difference compared to competitors.

Before exposing them, however, we would like to clarify one thing. . If the objective is to induce, in the long term, a change in the lifestyles and consumption of all of us, we then believe that green marketing must stop being associated with individual activities and communications aimed at the marketing of specific products capable to generate a lower environmental impact.
Rather, in our opinion, it should be understood and used to define the entire image of your brand, and thus build a value proposition that is not linked exclusively to profits and earnings.

Patagonia

We all know Black Friday: the Friday following Thanksgiving which inaugurates the Christmas shopping season and in which companies go to great lengths, including communication campaigns and advantageous discounts, with the aim of attracting a large number of customers. The name, in fact, seems to refer to the entries in the traders’ accounting books which traditionally changed from red (losses) to black (profits).

In 2011, however, a company undermined the rules of marketing, whose aim is to promote purchases, to do the exact opposite: Patagonia, the brand founded in 1973 by the internationally renowned climber Yvon Chouinard, famous for producing clothing High quality outdoor clothing for sports and nature lovers.
As? By publishing an ad in the New York Times on Black Friday with a photo of your best-selling item accompanied by the claim in large letters “Don’t buy this jacket”.

At the bottom of the page the environmental costs of producing a single jacket were listed, together with a handbook with suggestions and good habits aimed at its customers to have less impact on the environment. . In fact, along this line, in the following years Patagonia also launched recycling services and made guidelines available to its customers for independently repairing their garments, as well as organized tours in which Patagonia vans traveled the length and breadth of the America to offer a home shelter service for Patagonian and non-Patagonian garments.
The message was clear, although apparently counterproductive: do you really need it or can you do without it? The ad, although it failed to achieve its goal – sales increased by 30% after the campaign – did raise awareness of an increasingly pressing problem.

In the era of unbridled consumerism, in which our standard of living is often blamed as one of the main causes of climate change, this type of communication served to raise customer awareness of the environmental costs of the textile industry, and to position Patagonia among the top brands green, so much so that today it is known for being one of the most sustainable companies in the world, with garments designed to last over time, thanks to its attention to the use of materials and the working conditions of its employees, ensured by fair-trade certification of his leaders.

Don’t miss the next issue of The Orange News.
Already next week we will return to talk about this topic with an interesting case history dedicated to Saltwater Brewery, a small American company… a great example of Green marketing.