"Green consumer", turning into new sustainable lifestyle
Ethical shopper
Sustainable consumer
Eco-friendly product consumer
For doing this research, I really wanted to use advantage of the assignment that I can choose the topic which I want to look further into. Many concepts and words came up in my mind that I want to research about, and the most intriguing word to me was ‘green’. I was always interested in the phenomenon where many companies and products starting to advertise them as green, and sustainable. To be honest, as a consumer, I wasn’t very influenced by those catchy words and phrases and the design and quality of products were the priority factors for me when choosing the product. However, I began to think about the values behind those green products and reasons why business world is turning toward the word ‘green’. And more than green products, it’s affecting consumers’ lifestyle and consuming habits.
Being eco-friendly and green has been a seething issue among every aspect in our world for a long time. And this issue is deeply reaching into business world too. Efforts to protect the environment and to minimize the harm on the nature are basic principle for business and how to approach this theme is a question that companies should solve. Many companies and manufacturers have developed various and unique approaches that suit their business concept and brand story to step into better market place, which we call ‘sustainable growth’. It is definitely obvious phenomenon that there are increasing numbers of consumers who want to consume green and sustainable products. It’s a trend and change in consumers’ thoughts and behaviors and early movers accept this change as a good opportunity. It is unquestionable that everyone wants to be a good member of society and in globe community. That is why being green can help more people to be involved in good conducts by giving them chances, which is purchasing greener products. The word green or sustainable consumer appeared pretty long time ago, but it’s definitely becoming a recent and popular trend in business world. Green consumer is also segmented as a target market that is profitable enough for companies to enter. The representative examples that I started thinking about was the handmade cosmetic brand ‘lush’ and ‘The body shop’. Both of them are well known for providing organic and eco-friendly cosmetics which are both beneficial for cosmetic users because they are made out of natural ingredients, and also for the environment because they put much efforts to protect environment by having environmentally responsible conducts as a business leader. I think these two brands generate positive effects that they are being environmentally responsible as themselves, and also giving consumers chances to become an environmentally responsible consumer by purchasing their products. I want to research more about that kind of businesses which try to generate customer experiences as being a responsible consumer and creating more values for customers by putting more special stories into their products.
As we’ve learned in class, the marketing is for creating valuable customer experiences and products should be focused on customer’s values and experiences. Companies that are targeting green consumers are also aimed to create valuable customer experiences by providing eco-friendly missions and values of their companies. And I think that the green products can create more valuable consumers’ experience in terms of their desire to consume greener products, and fulfillment that they will get after purchasing them as being a responsible and ethical member of community. And surely, there are more values and experiences that consumers will get through buying the certain products from various companies.
The question that I will answer through research is
ü What’s particular about being a green consumer?
ü What change is there in terms of consumer behavior that more consumers are trying to purchase greener products? Is it a trend? Or it is just new marketing strategy?
ü Beside just purchasing the green products, do they form a new lifestyle?
ü What kind of insights did companies found out when they started to target green consumers?
ü How companies look for consumers needs and wants for green products?
ü How do companies create more valuable customer experiences by providing green products?
ü What kind of values and experiences are created by purchasing green products in particular? (specific brands and products examples)
ü Is it even important to produce green products when fundamental goal and mission of product is being cheaper and convenient?
ü Is being green competitive for companies who could be more profitable without it?
ü How being green affect the brand and company in terms of brand equity and image?
ü How can we inspire more people to involve in becoming a sustainable consumer? (In the premise that all people want to be helpful to environment and become a ethical member )
ü How marketing approach can be used to generate synergy effect both in sales and protecting environment?
The link attached is a paper defining about factors that affect green consumption and analyzing about consumers’ sustainable lifestyle. Writer tries to give political suggestions to enhance better conducts of having sustainable lifestyle. It contains bit professional and statistical information which was done by theoretical framework, but it includes helpful information about buying habits of green consumers in the broader context of sustainable lifestyle.
The second link is a news article which generally talks about marketing for green consumers and where to start looking at their insights. http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/mar2007/sb20070305_213937.htm
From doing this research, I will learn about what changes and trends are happening in consumers’ behavior regarding environment aspect, and how companies are trying to create values for their customers. Also this paper will enable me to understand about various and interesting marketing approaches that companies are doing.
Jina - I always like this topic. The only thing to be careful with is to not just repeat what has already been said in many articles on this topic, but to also add in your own thoughts and ideas to make it something a little fresh. It looks like you have some good questions to pursue, although writing about all of those may make your paper too big and scattered. See how it goes, though, as you work on your outline.
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