This was without GoodGuide’s latest innovation, which makes it an even more powerful concept: thanks to a newly developed Iphone application (which is free!!), consumers can scan a barcode in the supermarket aisle and immediately see detailed and independently researched ratings for health, environment and social responsibility for over 62,000 products and companies right on the phone.

The presence of too many eco-labels, their complexity, and the inability to discern what’s authentic from what is not are often mentioned as the main barriers to consumer’s ‘ecopowerment’.

Well, now it seems that this application can make it easier. Helping consumers make informed decisions, real time, and all the time. Everywhere, anywhere. This will have major implications for retailers and brands.

Definitely a trend to watch. To download the app., click here.

Credits Image: GoodGuide

Sources: Treehugger

]]> http://www.sustainabilityconversations.com/2009/11/24/geek-and-green-goodguides-new-iphone-app-to-scan-products-get-product-info-on-the-spot/feed/ 1 http://www.sustainabilityconversations.com/2009/07/21/chinese-consumers-and-green-consumption-what-why-and-how/ http://www.sustainabilityconversations.com/2009/07/21/chinese-consumers-and-green-consumption-what-why-and-how/#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:10:25 +0000 admin http://www.sustainabilityconversations.com/?p=260 I have come across a lot of market research studies that provide insights into the Chinese consumer market lately, including this study published by Roland Berger consultants in June (you can download it here).

Today everybody is indeed trying to understand how domestic consumption is unfolding in China as consumer demand in the West is shrinking and exports in China are suffering due to the world economic crisis.

A lot of these reports point out to the rise of green consumption, across all types of consumers in China. However, do we really understand what this is all about, what the Chinese consumer sees as ‘green’ and why eco-friendly attributes of a product or services would be a decisive purchase criteria?

:: Defining green consumption is not as easy as it seems

When researchers ask consumers whether they would prefer to buy environmentally-friendly products , they invariably answer in the affirmative as it makes them feel more virtuous and gives them a certain ‘good feeling’ . However such stated intents rarely aligns with actual behaviors in reality, for many reasons:

• Chinese consumers are still highly cost-sensitive and the premium put on being green is not as high as in Western markets. Beyond cost and price, brand name and image is also a key purchase criteria as it is often seen as a proof of quality and safety, as well as a ’social status symbol’.

• Chinese consumers are not as concerned about climate change and a deteriorating environment as their Westerners counterparts are as their level of awareness and education on these issues is not as high, even though there has been relatively some progress. At the moment environmental concerns directly affect the purchasing decisions of only a small proportion of Chinese consumers: “the wealthy, the ones living in the main cities, the better educated”

• The information needed to make the environmentally-sound or socially-responsible purchase decision is therefore not always easy to find, or to understand (and therefore to trust).

What is key to understand is the fundamental difference between Chinese and Western views on what green or eco-friendly means. For Chinese consumers, it means ‘honest and trustworthy’, ‘innovative’, ‘modern and developed’, ‘well-organized and well-planned’, ‘high quality product and services’, ’safe & healthy’ which is very different from the Western ‘back to nature’ perceptions (for some more takeaways, please check this study published in 2008 here).

Two key takeaways:

• When fine-tuning green marketing strategies and messages, it is therefore key to associate and link ‘green’ with ‘personal health’ and health-related product safety, rather than a much broader ’save the world’ type of messages. Messages have to be ‘audience-specific’ and talk directly to your consumers’ concerns or needs in a human, simple and compelling way (i.e. it is all about ME, rather than a broader US).

• The way Chinese consumers value ‘green’ goes beyond product attributes to relate directly to a company’s reputation.

Product safety & quality issues remain at the top of Chinese consumers’ concerns (i.e., recent melamine-milk crisis), which created some of sort of ‘presumption of guilt of corporations’. Brands and companies can therefore leverage the green credentials of their products and better communicate with their customers to ease tensions and doubts caused by asymmetry of information.

However, it is important to remember that this is a doulbe-edge sword that can potentially destroy brand and reputation: any ‘greenwashing’ type of accusations can be voiced and channeled not only by activists and NGOs, but also by millions of consumers online.

These two prizes are another proof that this campaign will remain as THE campaign, not only as a revolution into political communications but mostly as a groundbreaking, forward-looking push to challenge communications conventions.

A campaign that we need to learn from for any kind of communications in order to break through to target audiences in a powerful, authentic and engaging manner, especially in the fields of CSR & Sustainability communications that are still (sadly) associated with greenwashing, “looking good” PR or spin.

:: What CSR & Sustainability comms lessons can we learn from the Obama campaign?

It is something that I had in mind for few months now. I have finally found some time to put a presentation deck together, to share with you all some of the key takeaways from the presidential campaign that I find extremely relevant to CSR & Sustainability in today’s turbulent times.

Watch the official video of the Obama campaign presented at Cannes below:

:: What is it?

Developed by a “For Benefit” startup and with the contribution of a team of experts (i.e scientists, consumers researchers, technologists from diverse organizations such as the MIT or the University of California), this website rates consumer products based on their health, environmental and social impacts.

More than 70,000 food, household and personal care products and even toys are ranked on the website, from the shower gel you use everyday to the latest toy you were planning to get for your kids at Christmas. At home on your PC or in the stores on your mobile, you can get the information that is most important to you about any kind of product your are planning to buy.

:: Bluring lines between brand reputation and corporate reputation

Very interestingly, I noticed that GoodGuide not only provides product-related information (ingredients, toxicity with carcinogens for instance) but also analyzes data on company’s performance (i.e. climate change policies, labour concerns, etc.).

This demonstrates that brand reputation and corporate reputation are now inextricably linked. How you operate as a company is as important as what you do and what kind of product or service you sell. Product and service quality are still important, but now the definition of what constitutes “quality” also includes social and environmental-related corporate performance.

Therefore GoodGuide is raising issues and challenges not just for marketers, but also has important implications for corporate behavior and corporate communications. I am especially thinking about the risk of greenwashing, for instance if a company is commercializing an eco-friendly product while other products in the same catergory and the company’s operations as a whole are not up to the same standards.

:: Hypertransparency

GoodGuide’s core mission is to provide the world’s largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental and social impacts of products and companies. It is another example that brands have lost control. Enabled with the transparency and immediacy of the web, brasnds are dealing with empowered consumers.

And no brand can now ignore this: “Increasingly discerning, well-informed consumer consumers are moving outside the purchasing funnel—changing the way they research and buy your products, resulting from the explosion of product choices and digital channels. Two-thirds of the touch points during the active-evaluation phase of a product or service involve consumer-driven activities such as Internet reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family” (McKinsey Quarterly, The Consumer Decision Journey, June 2009)

:: What to do then? Some general principles to protect corporate reputation and enhance brand equity

• Never presume that you can hide or distort information about your company or products – there will always be someone to find it out and expose your potential misconduct to a greater audience. Same goes for greenwashing or ‘fake’ CSR

• Consumers expect transparency from the companies they buy from, so be transparent and be ready to constantly question your practices.

• Be ready to rethink your marketing & communications model. Now marketing is about directly connecting with your consumers through dialogue, openess, relationships, shared experience & engagement.

You can also follow GoodGuide on Twitter

PS: Goodguide.com is a member of bcorporation.net, a consortium of nearly 200 for-profit companies that, according to its Web site, uses “the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.” The B stands for ‘benefit’, a new kind of hybrid between for-profit and nonprofit that we are seeing more and more of today.