Earth Day has come and gone, a new study called “Mainstream Green: Moving sustainability from niche to normal” says that 82 percent marketers surveyed have good green intentions, but only 16 percent are have really committed to intentions. A large part of this stems from the fact that marketers view green products as not mass-market to begin with.
Half of the marketers surveyed viewed products friendly to the environment as targets for “crunchy granola hippies” or “rich elitist snobs.” Price was cited as the number one barrier for these products, with some seeing as much as a 100 percent premium.
Other barriers include the perception that going green is “more feminine than masculine,” making men more reluctant to adopt green habits in public. Nearly 73 percent also said they’d choose a mainstream brand over a green brand for reliability reasons.
The study believes that these stereotypes should be fought against, and that the products should be advertised as normal. “Research shows that many of the environmental messages are not just failing to close the green gap but are actually cementing it by making green behavior too difficult and costly from a practical, financial, and social standpoint,” said Graceann Bennett co-author of the study.
Source: Ad Week
