A couple weeks ago, Sustainable Life Media held a highly successful conference on how to market green or sustainable products in a truthful and authentic way. All the speakers and the participants were there to talk/listen on how to talk to this market. Only ONE speaker, Diane MacEachern, was there representing the consumer's side of the table.
The following is her presentation as taped by Mario of Melodies in Marketing.
Guest Blogger: Kathe Schaaf / Changing the World
As 2008 began in Kenya, her citizens huddled terrified in their homes for protection from a wave of violence and killing sweeping through their country. Anger and frustration over a corrupt national election process had bubbled up into a river of rage that quickly became a familiar ‘us vs. them’ battle drawn along ethnic lines. Thousands of homes were burned and stories drifted into the global media about violent deaths at the hands of angry mobs of young men.
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By February 200,000 Kenyans were living in tents in primitive camps for ‘internally displaced persons’ with little food and even less hope of returning home. All of this unfolded in a country already struggling with incredible challenges; the short list includes high incidence of HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria; a shortage of drinkable water and fuel for cooking fires; lack of educational opportunities especially for girls and rural youth; little sustainable employment; and a primitive infrastructure which complicates transportation, hygiene and safety at a most basic level.
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Following the news of these events, I kept saying to myself over and over again: I trust the African women to restore sanity to Kenya. My faith in the women of Kenya has its foundation in relationships with courageous women from that country. In Bondo, Kenya in December 2006, I had the opportunity to attend the Grassroots African Women’s Conference, spending four days in the company of 513 grassroots African women leaders. These women were remarkable, tackling the enormous problems in their villages with practical ideas using whatever resources they could find.
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It was easy to develope warm relationships with these women, both at the conference and traveling to visit them in their villages. I witnessed firsthand their self-sacrifice and hard work, their creativity and persistence, their collaborative spirit and their commitment to their families. I danced with them, singing their songs of hope and enjoyed their easy laughter. I was hugged and welcomed into their homes and their hearts. We nurture our friendships through the miracle of e-mail.
*****
So when news coming out of Kenya was at its worst, I took solace in knowing that the women would eventually be able to emerge from their homes and do whatever it takes to pull Kenya back together. I knew that they would begin to care for the children and feed the hungry and find homes for the homeless. I knew that they would talk among themselves about the roots of this violence and quietly find ways to bring reconciliation and healing. I knew that the women of Kenya would show up fully in the face of this craziness and bring sanity back to their land.
*****
It is what they have always done.
Have you seen this month's Ode Magazine? It arrived the same day I said to four women, "I know 8 women who own a Prius. One of the women raised her hand and said, "Make that nine." Then the others raised their hands as well. Four out of five of us owned a Prius. I was the fifth who didn't and that's only because they weren't available the day I HAD to buy a new car. (I have a 40 mpg Civic, however.)
I said to them, "See, you're the reason that Detroit changed its ways." (I don't have the research, but I'm betting that the majority of Prius owners are women.) Because women purchased Priuses for the gas mileage, practicality, environmental statement, looks, whatever...Toyota went to the front of the eco-car class and Detroit has been playing catch up ever since.
Now back to Ode. On Page 50 is an ad for the Green Festival in Chicago and topics of what the 350 exhibitors will cover. How many of these areas are women's topics that you'd find in any woman's magazine? Nine out of the 14 topics are traditional women's magazine's story lines. The others are topics that feed or support those nine.
And because is was a women's issue, here are a few more items.
Page 18, Rosa Hilda Ramos, she was/is a housewife in Puerto Rico who tried to protect her family from pollution. Rosa founded CUCco (Communities United against Contamination) in 1991. She didn't start it because wanted to run a business. She did it because it was the right thing to do.
Page 33 - The Not-So-Secret Secret to Changing the World - "Women can lead the way from the survival of the fittest to the survival of the connected." by Lisa Witter and Lisa Chen.
Page 46 - No More Business as Usual - how social investors can help bring about corporate and political change - by Amy Domini, the CEO of Domini Social Investments and author or several books on ethical investing.
Page 55 - A band of women in pink hats and boots are heading to a store to challenge the management by asking, "How can you be sure this cushion wasn't made by children?" or "What percentage of the sales price of this chocolate bar goes to the cocoa farmer"?
Gary Hirshberg CE Yo of Stonyfield Yogurt said about making an environmental impact:
"I realized I needed to move into capitalism if I wanted to have a bigger influence. Business is the only source powerful enough to manifest the change we need." (amen Gary)
Who buys the Stonyfield Yogurt that helps capitalism work? Women. Who buys the majority of the things listed in the Green Festival Categories? Women.
Therein lies the new world order that's emerging from the co-creation of a Sustainable life. The world of buyers and sellers - the buyers being primarily women. Think about that the next time you see a green consumer study. Be sure to check out the methodology behind it. If the survey was a 50/50 split of men and women being surveyed ask to see just the stats coming from women. I'm betting that you'll see a far more engaged group appear.
The pictures came from Ode. Pick up a copy and read it from cover to cover. You'll feel better afterwards.
After reading Emily and Cooper's great post on the Clinton Initiative yesterday, I’m becoming more convinced that we are the ones the world has been waiting for to kick start climate change – women bloggers. Al Gore suggested that bigger dream:
"If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. We have to go far quickly, and need a mass persuasion campaign to change the climate of public opinion on climate change."
It's interesting that Al said we need a "Marshall Plan" to get this going because he knows that his mass persuasion campaign isn't working beyond creating awareness. Awareness isn't changing into tangible action, not fast enough anyway. And, he's lock-stepped into thinking that politics will set us free. Will it? If so, where's the leadership now?
If you believe the numbers, that we need to get 80% of the CO2 out of the "global" air before things stabilize, you know it will take citizens and corporations alike working on it. How can that happen when governments keep worrying about the seating chart? I keep www.enn.com as my home page. It's frustrating to read about the reality gaps between hopeful and helpful ideas. Meanwhile the climate change clock is ticking.
Let's compare politics with a new idea, and then let's talk about our own Marshall Blogging Plan.
You could lobby for presidential hopefuls to get them into office (2 years). Then send buckets of email and money to Washington get them to put up bills (6 months). Keep sending email to fence-sitters in hopes that they reconsider a vote (3 months). Only to end up with one, watered down incentive to tell business to cut their CO2 emissions?
OR
Support businesses and products that are already bringing down the greenhouse gases and can prove it, and set off a tipping point for Sustainable change. If you read through the stories on www.ENN.com you'll see a pattern of governments "discussing" and companies "doing." Let's work with the doers.
What would happen if we by-passed this DC middleland? Why tell someone-to-tell-someone-to-tell-someone to clean up their act and eat up years of climate-changing time when we can vote with our purse or our posts and help the market flip with a lot less work?
The good part? It flips the WHOLE world. Laws stop at border lines, corporations and products don't.
By letting Sustainable Standards set the guidelines, we'll accomplish many things at once. The top one being that standards trigger lower energy consumption during manufacturing operations and encourage the use of renewable energy. As more companies back the movement, the technology grows and that comes back to each of us. In five years we could be paying less for energy than today. Technology works faster when supply meets demand. Let's supply them incentives rather than yelling demands. Isn't that more fun than whacking them with a lawsuit after the fact, which just eats up even more years?
The better part? No one will wonder "where the women bloggers are," companies will seek us.
They'll want free word-of-mouth endorsements. And you know what? If we're smart, we'll give it to them. Why? Because it builds both of our markets. They need a consumer market to kick start new, sustainable products, and we need a way to prove to these brave souls that working with blogging women (as a media) is not only fun but a more effective way to market in a social media world. Women represent over 80% of the consumer market. Perhaps it’s time to use that clout for transformational good.
Are you still with me? Here's how simply this can work.
As products become certified as sustainable, that product is acknowledged from bloggers who want to participate. Diane MacEachern will let us know which products to champion over at www.BigGreenPurse.com. This isn't a product endorsement, per se, it's a recognition of a company's efforts to put out a Sustainable product. This is one step beyond the Big Green Purse million women mission. Many of us are already doing the green consumer work; by pulling the work together, we can get the public credit that's due for our efforts. All you have to do is sign up and we'll keep you in the loop.
A sustainable product not only promotes renewable energy, but provides cleaner air, soil, water and keeps 1300 nasty chemicals out of the system AND supports global worker's rights. What's not to love? A cleaner, nicer planet that by-passes politics and creates a social media marketplace. Once companies know that bloggers are actually very nice to work with, they'll feel better about placing paid ad space and continue the relationship.
But wait - there's more... Tom Friedman noted, this is an "Environmental Revolution," which means it's going to be painful and some companies will die. By supporting these early adopters, we can the lower transitional pain and help companies thrive. This program does both, creating a sustainable world and a sustainable economy.
Ok, I'm an idealist, but ya know. We're running out of options.
Everyone is talking, but no one is trying anything new. It's the same old song and frankly, we're all tuning it out. Climate Change as a topic is as exciting as "Got Milk"? It's just another thing - a big, bad scary thing at that. And the truth is, even if we recycled our entire home, the big, bad scary thing would still be there in our factories.
This is the moment to start, and here's why.
If you were a CEO of a company and was just told by Wal-Mart that your products must be sustainable, wouldn't you work EVEN FASTER if you knew that there will be a willing audience to give you positive word-of-mouth on the web for your efforts? (BTW that's exactly what will be happening on Oct. 10th at Wal-Mart's Sustainable Resource Fair, about 1000 of their 62,000 suppliers will be introduced to the world of Sustainability - not just green - but SUSTAINABLE in a “prove it” sort of way.)
Now, before you hog tie me into a Wal-Mart shopping cart and leave me adrift in the parking lot for the crows to pick clean, let me explain.
Admittedly, I'm not a fan of any big box stores. I think they strip society of its soul. That said, I've joined the converted when Wal-Mart gave the world this gift of "manufacturing peer pressure." If anyone can influence China, it's Wal-Mart. If anyone can influence Wal-Mart's vendors, it's us - women consumers. Imagine the ripple effect around the world without one law being used except the law of market pressure, kept honest with a Sustainable Standard. (trust, but verify)
The faster this market flips, the faster we can go back to shopping trips instead of guilt trips. Can shopping/posting save the world? If it creates a tipping point for action it can. Marketers say it only takes 1% of a given population to create a tipping point. If that 1% were also bloggers, it may take less.
I'll leave you with one last reason Why Women Bloggers can do what Washington can't. If you stacked up the financials of the biggest companies and countries, 77 of the top 100 are corporations. That power structure isn't going to change in the next five years. The majority of them make their money from consumer goods and services. The supply chain of their products is what is causing global warming.
Ladies, this is very doable. By the time we get a new President, s/he won't have to answer to the question, "Why can't you clean up your own country first"? We'll be well on our way thanks to women bloggers.
Are you in? Go to www.biggreenpurse.com and become One in a Million Women. It costs nothing to be part of this very large experiment where women consumers rule. As products become certified, we’ll show you why they are Sustainable and what to look for in other products. We'll eliminate the greenwash. Then, keep supporting the good guys on BlogHer and in your own blogs when they advertise. Capitalism is just another social "system" with money attached. Let's leverage it to co-create, as Diane says, "The World Women Want."
May Day, MAY DAY! That's what sellers will be screaming after reading Trendwatching's Transparency Tyranny. This is a "must read" for marketers and a MUST READ MORE by consumers - especially WOMEN consumers who buy 80% of the stuff out there. Ladies, embrace your power!
The Trendwatching article captures much of what we in the marketing-to-women and word-of-mouth market have been saying for sometime. It's very nicely packaged with great examples and visuals which makes it enlightening for consumers of any age.
Here are the 7 talking points:
1. Transparency in reviews and recommendations
2. Transparency in intentions
3. Transparency in prices
4. Transparency in inner company workings
5. Transparency in advice
6. Transparency in best of the best
7. Transparency in triumph
Not only does this give women ideas on how to best take a product to task or triumph, it also provides solid reasons why companies who want to look green, become GREEN in the most transparent way.
This is why those sustainable standards, I keep harping on, need to become part of marketing backbone and message. Doing so protects both the consumer from lousy products that continue to maim our world, and those same standards also protect the companies from Transparency Tyranny. They'll have all the proof they'll need to show that they are in full compliance and doing the right, green thing.
Happy May Day, ladies. It's your time to shine and take back the market. You don't even have to buy anything, just blog about what works for you. In women I trust to make the right decisions and promote the right products.
March 8 was International Women's day, but if my feedblitz email was any indication, it was International Marketing-by-Women's Day - marketing via blogs.
First Steve Ruble lead off with a report on a blog started by Genevieve McCaw, a disgruntled Jet Blue customer/turned blogger. Remember the flight that held it's "customers" hostage for 11 hours on a snowy runway? One customer, a woman, was so irritated that she started a blog to recap her frustration and voice her opinion. I have no idea how many people read it, CNN did and then did a story on it mentioning Steve. Steve put it again on his site. I'm not sure who has more readers, CNN or Steve, but now millions have read about Jet Blue's lack of customer service during that day and later, the so-so treatment Genevieve received while having a face-to-face with the President of Jet Blue.
Re: the CNN article:
"McCaw, who described herself as "a huge fan of JetBlue" for years, said she plans to continue blogging but will shift the focus to advocating a federal passengers' bill of rights.
Before her meeting March 2, McCaw said she would not boycott the airline. Instead, she said, she would shop for the best deals on flights rather than remain "a brand loyalist."
Now, she's not so sure.
"I've got two round-trip vouchers with them," she said. "I'm going really to make a point to not put any more money in their pocket. I'll use the vouchers, and then I'll likely be done with them."
Never mess with a woman scorned by love or money or TIME.
Next up, Britt Bravo churns out another fantastic interview. This time with Jody Van Horn. a woman in the Bay area who is doing what she can to get electric cars endorsed and used by large city governments.
"In the first six months we had five Bay Area partner municipalities; San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda and Marin County have all sign on. Out of those, Marin County, Alameda and Berkeley have all placed their soft fleet orders. We're also working with those cities on generating some demonstration projects."
I hope that other car-mazing Jody, Jody DeVere over at Ask Patty, is reading this. She's a big green car supporter as well as just helping women in general figure out what they need to know about buying and servicing their transportation.
Last up was Yvonne DiVita's post on "Sizing up Marketing to Women Online." It focused on - what else - women bloggers and their cumulative clout. She'll be speaking at the BlogHer.org conference in NY in a couple of weeks on the same subject. She quotes an Advertising Age article that stated:
"The average mom blog reader is a 29-year-old female with an annual income of $70,000 who hits five blogs a day and spends four hours a week on them."
She adds that the stats came from BlogAds, the place the has statistics on 56,000 blogad readers. BTW, did you know that women who read blogs tend to be democrats (about 60% of them) Check this out. BlogAd women readers also buy more electronics on line than men 47% to 39% respectively (go figure). Sign more petitions, call more policians... I'll let you filter through the survey and draw your own conclusions. Bottom line, once women or men cross the line and become a blogger, they become part of an elite club of social movers and shakers - be it markets or politics.
My thanks to all the women who type and talk at the same time.
Thank you Microsoft for updating OneNote and turning it into the multi-tasker's/ tabber's, mega tool. It's a woman's right arm, left brain and new best friend - this woman anyway... It's a product I hope every woman changes to as we have lots to do in the next few years.
A new laptop put me into upgrade mode. It came with Vista pre-loaded and of course, a chance to put on the old Windows XP or jump to Office 2007. I went for 2007 and the full "Ultimate" package of which OneNote is included. The Ultimate package also made me dump ACT which is a software I have been using for 10 years.
I was stunned at how easy OneNote was to use and use and use. It's now my primary tool for composing and filing information into sortable/re-sortable files and folders. I wish I had OneNote while writing my book and first blogs and saving files for future reference and… you name it.
It's also integrated into Outlook. Let's say you read something really cool in an email/website/rss feed/blog that you want to use in a later blog. Highlight it, click on OneNotes notepad, paste. Voila! It's clipped and saved and NOTED where it came from, and you barely had to stop reading the paragraph.
Can't remember where you filed something? OneNote searches by a word or phrase and it will filter through everything but your underwear drawer looking for it. What a time saver and brain saver. AND, if you get hit by the proverbial bus, OneNote is so intuitive and transparent that even a 6th grader could figure out where you were in a job and continue working.
What is especially nice is that it saves EVERYTHING without you having to do it. How often have you multi-tasked between emails and phone calls and forgot to save a half written blog or email? THANK YOU Microsoft, for solving that problem.
OneNote is everything a girl would ask for to keep her professional and personal life organized. Take the demo and then take the leap and leave Windows XP behind. Treat yourself to a tool that will keep you productive and not frustrated.
Yesterday, Pete Blackshaw posted a collection of his best ClickZ posts for CMOs. If you aren't a believer in social media yet, buzz through them and see if you don't come away with a new perspective.
A women's fun fact stood out for me on his Third Moment of Truth post. Pete was the founder of Planet Feedback, a site to give consumers a place to air their complaints. According to him 65% of those providing feedback were women, and that for the most part, they played nice. (Judy's Book also found that true.)
"Consumers who like to talk to (even complain about) brands talk across multiple platforms, including message boards, blogs, and the water cooler. They are über content creators and, hence, more valuable to the brand franchise.
Consumers who talk to brands are full of suggestions, product ideas, even advertising concepts. Did someone say "co-creation"?
Most consumers believe brands have little interest in hearing what they have to say; this is a big reason so much venom is spread across CGM venues.
Women, the segment Lafley singled out, are the segment most inclined to provide feedback. Nearly 65 percent of all PlanetFeedback content was created by women, and they were far less likely to just complain than men."
Is it a big leap of faith to say that 65% of ALL feedback (on ALL types of platforms) come from women? When you consider that that the feedback is over consumer goods and that women buy or influence 80% of them, probably not. Why would you give feedback on a shopping/buying/using experience if you didn't do the shopping/buying/using? Also, who talks, phones, emails... stays connected more... men or women? The platform may change, but the need to communicate, doesn't. What's your guess that more word of mouth happens off line that online?
The point of Pete putting all of his posts together was to drive home the message that the consumer is in control. What is JUST emerging now (in statistics) is that most controlling consumers are "female," and they "want to buy green products."
- Women buy/influence 80% of the stuff. CHECK
- Women talk 65% more about what they buy than men. CHECK
- Women say nicer things than nasty things. CHECK
- Women are more "green" than men. CHECK
Now that we have the 65-80% of the market defined, to learn how to influence them? Stay tuned. For you consumers reading this post, just keep on talking and saying nice things about those who are doing the right things.
By now many guys think that customer inequality no longer exists. That women and men get the same treatment as long as the card clears. WRONG! It happens even to successful and tech smart women like Elizabeth Albrycht. Elizabeth runs her Corporate PR biz from France and recently reviewed In Women We Trust (thank you!) starting it off with a personal testimony and punch line...
The book is full of examples that I am sure most of my female readers can relate to: shopping for electronic equipment or cars are two iconic ones. I still seethe when I think about how I was treated at a major electronics chain a few years ago when I went there to buy a digital camera. Standing at the outside of the square counter, with the (male) clerk behind it, I was ignored completely while he waited on at least four other men (some of whom arrived after me), then when he finally asked me if he could help with a sigh, I launched into my questions, which he really didn't listen to (he barely looked at me) and then, when he was interrupted by another man with a “quick question” that turned into a lecture on the benefits of pixels, I simply walked away, left the store, and vowed never to buy anything from them again. And I spread the word among my female friends. I bought the $600 camera at another store.
A) She walked away from the moment and the person and the store never knew why they lost the $600 sale. B) She "still seethes" thinking about it. C) She was kind and didn't mention the store's name in her well read blog, but she did tell her friends.
Is that what you want ? A seething customer who talks to her friends? I know, I know, it's customer service 101 and oh well... can't win them all... But that's the point. You CAN win them all, if you treat all customers with the same level of respect and acknowledgment. She didn't walk because the sales rep was busy, she walked because of his attitude towards her.
By the way, check out her full write up for the top tips that resonated with her.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for the wonderful review and also for letting other's know what's in your head.
Dear Gal Pals... I'll admit, I received the Dove Video via a blog and then passed it on to others in a blatant act of consumerism. Many individuals add up to big residuals and that means higher profits for the right reasons. Do you want to change the world? Start with the SEND button.
It's a profit thing. Low advertising cost (as in NONE for word-of-mouth) means more cash to companies. To get that, however, companies must provide a product and a message that people will want to spread. Are you a consumer word-of-mouth activist? If you passed along an "ad" you are, and that little act of "endorsement" can change the world faster than politics. Companies have no borders, they want products that will resonate and sell globally. What we buy here, defines what the rest of the world is offered as well. The higher the pass along rate, the more companies will want to do whatever resonated with the consumers.
Here's how Vox Marketing summarizes the numbers...
"Dove Evolution," a 75-second viral film created by Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto, was uploaded to YouTube on Oct. 6 and has been viewed over 1.7 million times since, Ad Age reports. While that total is impressive, it pales in comparison to the sudden traffic spike the site Campaign For Real Beauty has enjoyed from the viral success of the "Dove Evolution" film. According to Alexa, the jump in traffic earlier this month more than tripled the surge that Unilever enjoyed from Dove's 2006 Super Bowl spot.
The buzz generated for the video has also been fueled by bloggers, who have made the video one of the Top 15 most-linked-to videos among bloggers, according to blog-tracking service Technorati. The popularity of the film has spilled over to mainstream media, with featured segments on television shows "The View," "Ellen," CNN, "Entertainment Tonight" and Fox's "Geraldo," all within the last two weeks.
The numbers that will definitely grab advertiser's attention is that a 30-second spot for the 2006 Super Bowl cost $2.5 million, but there was no cost for Dove to upload "Evolution" to YouTube.
Lessons learned for consumers:
- Numbers talk.
- Participate in the pass-along world only if you want to vote for a product. Numbers send a message regardless if you passed it along for the entertainment value or want to endorse the product - high numbers get noticed.
- KNOW that the moment you pass along an item, that you are endorsing a portion of it.
- If you don't agree with the message. DON'T pass it along.
- Low numbers talk, too.
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