Green marketing can be regarded as the process of offering products or services to customers based on its environmental advantage whereby customers are willing to pay for the value and quality in return. The rising trend of green marketing primarily resul

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

Green marketing can be regarded as the process of offering products or services to customers based on its environmental advantage whereby customers are willing to pay for the value and quality in return. The rising trend of green marketing primarily results from rising demand for ‘greenness products’ where green customers believe they are minimizing their impacts to the environment in such way. Hence, greener products are available all around and have seen as part of our daily lives. However, after reading the article, it changes my perception on green marketing and has lead me to the question is green marketing solely a promotion tool?

I agree with the authors that marketing has failed to drive the sustainability agenda because of ‘false marketing’ which the major force is the desire of company to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace. According to the pollution issue website, the concept of sustainability marketing has been exists since 1970s. However, there was a significant rise in demand for green products appeared in the 1980s. In respond to the high demands, many manufacturers simply labeled hundreds of their new products “environ mentally friendly”, by claiming that their products were biodegradable, energy efficiencies and etc. Hence, the sustainability agenda failed at the late 1980s due to numerous industries made deceitful claims for the ‘green-ness’ of their products.

Recently, the company that claimed itself as the pioneer of green companies, The Body Shop, has found that it is not as squeaky clean as it is. As stated in the article ‘The Queen Of Bubble Bath’ written by Jon Entine, the founder of The Body Shop, Anita Roddick, who is a enviropreneur has been questioned for her unethical practices in business. Jon Entine documented that the company has stolen the name of “Body Shop” and marketing ideas from a California company, fabricated its charitable contributions in the fair trade programs and worse while it involved in the case of ...

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Sustainability development can be very expensive and regarded as a lengthy process which involves product modification, costs in new products development, change in packaging, as well as new environmental advertising. Apart from that, the main drawbacks for a start in environmental marketing is that some consumers might think that green products are more expensive and fail to work as what they paid for. Nevertheless, I do believe that green marketing does works because it is a trend of marketing strategy that helps companies to get more customers and make profit, but, only when it is do it in the right way.

For green marketing to be able to perform well, companies should understand that sustainability development is not solely for the profits and advantages instead it is about being a good corporate citizen that contributes back to the society. There are 3 ways that are crucial for companies to move towards sustainability. One of the way companies may consider to adopt is to be honest in the way that whatever that you claim to be doing in the marketing campaign ought to be true. Besides, company policies should consistent with the business practices, that is the steps taken by companies should be consistent with sustainable development from production to consumption and disposal. The try maybe expensive but in the long-run it is advantageous to the company.

Second way will work well when the companies attempt to educate the customers regarding environmental issue and empower them so that they know how to make their right choice for the next buying decisions. Disseminating the green act of the green company is not enough when customers do not understand how they are associated with the environment when they choose to buy your products. Apart from that, company should offer the opportunity for customer to participate in any environmental action in order to enhance their awareness of environmental issue and problems.

I believe that marketing can be managing demand downwards because sustainable development means in the long-run and distinguish peoples’ needs in their buying behavior. Sustainability is not an organization’s external communications. In order to drive successful sustainability agenda, company need to keep an eye on their internal process because sustainability is not apart from the core business. Instead, sustainability values have to embedding in to the heart of the organization. Customer’s perception is the key for companies to go beyond the sustainability agenda, which is what we always called, go beyond green.

On the other hand, social marketing is a marketing approach which focuses on the consumer’s demand. Social marketing can be applied in selling the green concept because it involves in selling ideas rather than solely selling the products to customers. It is more on the customer-oriented approach whereas traditional marketing only focus on the sales and objectives of the organization. I would agree to the social marketing approach because I feel that the organization is providing solution for my problem rather than selling things that are unrelated to my problem.

Green marketing should emphasize on the economic aspect of marketing. Companies need to understand the meaning of green marketing because customers are paying a premium for products that are more eco-friendly and eco-responsible. It is crucial that companies must increase their product performance and build customer’s loyalty.