Green Marketing

According to American Marketing Association “Green marketing is the marketing of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe.”

According to Polonsky, 1994: “Green or Environmental Marketing consists of all activities designed to generate and facilitate any exchanges intended to satisfy human needs or wants, such that the satisfaction of these needs and wants occurs, with minimal detrimental impact on the natural environment“.

Green marketing refers to the process of selling products and/or services based on their environmental benefits. Such a product or service may be environmentally friendly in itself or produced and/or packaged in an environmentally friendly way. The assump­tion of green marketing is that potential consumers will view a product or service’s “greenness” as a benefit and base their buying decision accordingly. The consumers may be willing to pay more for green products than they would for a less-green product.

Green Marketing incorporates broad range of activities including product modification, changes to the production process, packaging changes, and modifying advertising. The focus of Green Marketing is on satisfaction of customers’ needs and wants with no or minimum harm to the natural environment.

Marketing products and services based on environmental factors or awareness. Companies involved in green marketing make decisions relating to the entire process of the company’s products, such as – methods of processing, packaging and distribu­tion. Theintactone explains Green Marketing is the companies seek to go above and beyond traditional marketing by promoting environmental core values in the hope that consumers will associate these values with their company or brand.

Engaging in these sustainable activities can lead to creating a new product line that caters to a new target market, also known as sustainable marketing, environmental marketing or ecological marketing.

According to the American Marketing Association, green or Environmental Marketing consists of all activities designed to generate and facilitate any exchanges intended to satisfy human needs or wants, such that the satisfaction of these needs and wants occurs, with minimal detrimental input on the national environment.

Green Marketing has progressed over a period of time. There are three phases in the evolution process of Green Marketing. First phase was ecological green marketing where environmental problems and remedies for environmental problems were mainly focused.

Five Important Golden Laws of Green Marketing

The important golden laws of Green Marketing are as follows:

1. Customers should be Aware

If a company needs to sell the products, it should make sure that the customers are better aware of the benefits of “green” products and their growing necessity. The customer should know the main reason behind the issue of the products that are eco-friendly.

2. Reassure the Buyers

Marketer should understand that they need to convince the customers by promoting the true quality and ethically show the performance of the product, because it would be very difficult to sell the products to customers only on the lines that they are eco-friendly.

3. Transparency

Marketers should be ethical in claiming their products as eco-friendly. They should be genuine and transparent about their claims. The business policies should also go with it.

4. Consider Pricing

It is possible that marketers charge a greater price for their “green” products because of their high cost of production and use of higher-quality ingredients. Many customers might not afford these high prices, so company needs to consider a reasonable price and target the appropriate audience effectively.

5. Customer Participation

The marketer should involve the customers in the initiative of green marketing. Once the customer is a part of this cause, he or she will understand the concept better and the issues of pricing etc. can be resolved.

Importance of Green Marketing

It is well known that increasing production and business activities are polluting the natural environment. The damages to people, crops, and wildlife are reported in different parts of the world. As resources are limited and human wants are unlimited, it is necessary for marketers to use resources efficiently, so that organizational objectives are achieved without waste of resources. So green marketing is inevitable.

There is growing interest among people around the world regarding protection of natural environment. People are getting more concerned for environment and changing their behaviour for the protection of environment. As a result of this, the term “Green Marketing” has emerged. Hence, marketers are feeling their responsibility towards environment and giving importance to green marketing.

Not only marketers but consumers are also concerned about the environment, and consumers are also changing their behaviour pattern. Now, individual as well as industrial consumers are becoming more concerned about environment-friendly products.

1. Environmental Advantages

Going green is an environmentally responsible choice. It is estimated that 40 percent of all greenhouse gases in the United States comes from energy production that businesses use to heat, cool and light workplaces. Reducing these energy needs reduces carbon dioxide output, helping to control global warming. As businesses use more natural resources than individual consumers, recycling business materials and conserving water contribute to conservation on a larger scale.

2. Economic Advantages

The reduction in waste equals lower operating costs and more savings. Eco-friendly business equipment and practices such as – low-wattage or LED lights, use of natural lighting, water conservation policies, mandatory recycling and hybrid company vehicles save money on utilities, fuel and office supplies. This generates instant cash flow. Further going green puts a business in a positive light in the eyes of customers, potential investors, distributors, activists, watchdog groups, communities and prospective employees.

3. Sustainability

Going green is about sustainability; this sustainability translates to sustainable profits in green sectors with secure futures. The future-safe markets include biomaterials, green buildings, personal transportation, smart grids, mobile applications and water filtration.

4. Efficient Use of Resources

Today, human demands and needs are unlimited but resources are short enough that cannot fulfill the human needs. Markets need to facilitate the consumers by utilizing resources efficiently.

5. Planned Techniques

It needs to develop well planned techniques and innovative policies to achieve the organizational goals effectively without any wastage of time and other resources. Green marketing examples of different products and services develops a growing interest among customers throughout the world.

6. Consumer Attraction

Green marketing examples of different products attracts the consumers regarding environment protection. People are so much conscious about their environment and variations in behavior. Green marketing is considered as growing marketing that helps to design socially and sustainable products.

7. Innovation

Green marketing helps to design such kinds of products that are economically affordable and satisfy the human needs efficiently. It produces innovative green products that consume less resource.

8. Competitive Advantage

Companies enjoy competitive advantage over other companies in the market through green marketing examples. Today, companies which adopt green marketing techniques gain more competitive advantage over other companies which are not conscious about such techniques and environment. Companies which develop innovative products and services with innovative qualities at affordable rates are successful in the market.

Green marketing is a group of activities that are designed to meet the consumer’s demands and needs at affordable price range.

4 Ps of Green Marketing Mix

Marketers need to define and design the 4 Ps of marketing mix from the viewpoint of environmental preservation. The green marketing mix elements address the key environmental issues appropriately and effectively.

1. Green Products

Consider products that consume more energy, use toxic chemicals, cannot be recycled, and use extensive packaging. Such products are a threat to the environment as they lead to environmental degradation and pollution. On the other hand, products that help in saving energy, use natural ingredients, are recycled, or use reduced packaging make contributions to the environment. Therefore, those products that are produced in harmony with the environment are known as ‘green products’.

Production of green products is based on green technology. Green products help in saving natural resources and subscribe towards sustainable future.

Organizations should produce environment-friendly products as they help in saving energy resources and do not affect the environment adversely. The various stages involved in the production of environment friendly products are efficient in terms of environment protection and conservation.

Environment-friendly products use natural and organic ingredients that are sourced from local suppliers and its manufacturing and circulation is done in a manner that has least or no impact on environment. Different governing organizations and certification systems certify the product as green after assessing it against environmental performance criterion.

2. Green Price

Production of green products requires modification in the production processes and this necessitates expenditure. Cost increase results in increased price point of green products that makes acceptability of the product in the market difficult. The high price may act as a deterrent as consumers may be either unwilling or unable to pay this green premium.

The gap between the price of a green product and a non-green product is known as ‘pricing gap’. Price impediments can be tackled either by lowering the price point of green products to make it contiguous with the prevailing products in the market or by enhancing the perceived value of the green products in the eyes of the customer (by adding to the benefits derived such as improved packaging, improved attributes, and making the product specific to customers’ needs).

3. Green Place

Green place relates to the distribution of green products without doing any harm to the environment. This is achieved through efficient utilization of fuel and energy and arranging for logistics with the least emissions.

Transportation costs constitute a major part of business costs and resources spend in distribution can be saved through local production. This decreases transportation costs and also reduces carbon footprint. Selling over the Internet as compared to a shop also saves business resources.

4. Green Promotion

Consumers need to be made aware about green products and motivated to purchase them. Therefore, huge amount of money and resources are spent by companies nowadays on advertis­ing and promotion of green products. Green promotion entails increasing the sensitivity of consumers towards green products as well as promoting the products in an environment-friendly manner like using social networking sites to post profiles related to green marketing.

Recently, Nike with its ‘Better World’ campaign launched its first 100 per cent recycled television advertisement, which was recycled by reusing and remixing film of its earlier campaigns.

Important Present Trends in India

1. Organizations perceive environmental marketing to be an opportunity that can be used to achieve its objectives.
2. Organizations believe they have a moral obligation to be more socially responsible.
3. Governmental bodies are forcing firms to become more responsible.
4. Competitors’ environmental activities pressure firms to change their environmental marketing activities.
5. Cost factors associated with waste disposal or reductions in material usage forces firms to modify their behaviour.

Grey Marketing

A grey market or dark market (sometimes confused with the similar term “parallel market”) refers to the trade of a commodity through distribution channels that are not authorized by the original manufacturer or trade mark proprietor. Grey market products (grey goods) are products traded outside the authorized manufacturer’s channel.

Grey market goods are goods sold outside the authorized distribution channels by entities which may have no relationship with the producer of the goods. This form of parallel import frequently occurs when the price of an item is significantly higher in one country than another. This commonly takes place with electronic equipment such as cameras. Entrepreneurs buy the product where it is available cheaply, often at retail but sometimes at wholesale, and import it to the target market. They then sell it at a price high enough to provide a profit but below the normal market price.

International efforts to promote free trade, including reduced tariffs and harmonised national standards, facilitate this form of arbitrage whenever manufacturers attempt to preserve highly disparate pricing. Because of the nature of grey markets, it is difficult or impossible to track the precise numbers of grey market sales. Grey market goods are often new, but some grey market goods are used goods. A market in used goods is sometimes nicknamed a green market.

The two main types of grey markets are those of imported manufactured goods that would normally be unavailable or more expensive in a certain country and unissued securities that are not yet traded in official markets. Sometimes the term dark market is used to describe secretive, unregulated trading in commodity futures, notably crude oil in 2008. This can be considered a third type of “grey market” not intended or explicitly authorised by oil producers.

Types of Grey Market

Did you know that there is a variety even in the grey market? What I mean is that the market has types. Let me explain them in brief.

• The original market where the legal products are sold through unauthorized distribution channels. This is where new products are sold. Mostly the market deals in new and original products.
• At times it is difficult to differentiate between the new and the used goods in the market. The market where used goods are sold is also called the green market.
• And the third type of market is also called the dark market. The dark market deals in secretive and unregulated trading of commodities such as crude oil.