How Green Are Your Consumers?

A recent study by Yahoo! has found that 77% of consumers describe themselves as green. This study segmented these green consumers into four main groups:

•  Deeply Committed (23%)
•  Trendy (24%)
•  Practical (13%)
•  Passive (17%)

Of these segments, the two that present the biggest opportunity for advertisers are the Trendy consumers, those who go green to be cool, and the Deeply Committed. The Deeply Committed category skewed female, and represented mostly adults (35+), more educated, with a higher percent living in metropolitan areas.

These Deeply Committed green consumers respond most to messages that "positively impact the environment". Further reinforcing this stat is a survey from ICOM entitled The Greenest Generation which found that both male and female groups 55 years and over reported above average usage of environmentally friendly home goods. Leading the way was the 55-59 year-old female demographic, who was more than twice as likely than the average consumer to use green products.

Selling green products to the Deeply Committed is akin to preaching to the choir. And the women within this group are open to environmentally responsible messages.

The study also reports that Online is an important source for green information based on the respondents it is almost on par with traditional media. However a large percent of people still look to TV ads for more info on green products, especially in the household cleaning product category.

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Mimosa Anyone?

The colour of 2009 as predicted by Pantone is mimosa, a vibrant shade of yellow illustrated by the flowers of some mimosa trees as well as the brunch-favourite cocktail, as its top shade of the new year. In general, Pantone expects the public to embrace many tones of optimistic yellow.

In the spring fashion collections previewed earlier in the fall for retailers and editors, pops of yellow brightened the runways of Carolina Herrera—who called her favourite shade marigold—Badgley Mischka, Zac Posen and Michael Kors, among others. Kors even included a retro yellow polka-dot bikini that clearly harkened back to a more upbeat time.

Home goods companies based in Europe have already been heavily influenced by yellow and splashes of yellow appear in kitchens, bathrooms and dining rooms.

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Don't mess with mom

Be wary of how you approach and talk to women, especially moms – and especially in the social media age.

Johnson and Johnson was forced to issue an apology Monday for a viral video created for Motrin.

The ad was posted on their Web site and meant to speak to moms in an irreverent way about the pain of wearing a baby in a sling. The ad instead offended many mothers who savaged it on Twitter.

The ad:


The backlash:


The apology:


Clearly, a lot of work went in to creating the ad, from copy writing, to animation and voice over. Unfortunately no one must have thought to check in with moms to see if this concept would resonate, instead of alienate.

Women will always share with friends the things they love and the things they hate. With the proliferation of social media women are able to spread the word, good or bad, at warp speed.

Posted by: Lisa Valent


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Smile: It's a Gift Card

A recent Consumer Reports Holiday Poll found that despite the recent economic woes, 66% of Americans still plan on giving at least one gift card this year, up from 62% last year. It appears that retailers south of the border are paying attention to this.

Gone are the days when the most interesting aspect of a giftcard design was the graphics that adorned it. New gift cards from Target and BestBuy are using innovative technology to vie for those hard-earned consumer dollars.


Target, who is well known for their dedication to good design, is releasing a Camera Gift Card. The camera itself is 1.2-megapixels with 8MB of memory on-board, and will reportedly come with a voucher for 40 free prints from Target.


BestBuy’s gift card will be ready to make some noise as it doubles as a speaker that can be user with a wide variety of MP3 Players, iPods or any other audio player with a mini headphone jack.

As women are the primary consumers of wireless gadgets and gizmos, and outspend men on electronics purchases, it will be interesting to see how well these new ‘enhanced’ gift cards will be received (and redeemed) by women this holiday season.

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Those 10%

Rubicon Consulting's web practice team recently conducted a broad survey of US web users to understand better how people in the US use the web.

As reported in Research Brief from the Centre for Media Research Nov. 6, 2008 the following are some highlights:

About 80% of the user generated content on the web, including comments and questions is produced by 9% of users... the Most Frequent Contributors, says the report.

About 65% of web users are passive readers who contribute content only occasionally. They account for only about 20% of content, depending on the medium.

Another 9% of web users are pure lurkers, never contributing any content. And about 17% are community abstainers; they believe they never visit any community-related site on the web.

The vast majority of online conversation is driven by a small group of web users -- less than ten percent of them. Community experts have been aware of this phenomenon for years, calling it "participation inequality."

Rubicon's survey confirms the idea behind the "1-9-90" rule, but not its specific details. The 1-9-90 rule says that 90% of web users are completely silent lurkers. In this research, a majority of web users said they sometimes contribute something, even if it's just an occasional comment. The truly silent lurkers are only 9% of the web population.

Netting it all out, about 10% of web users generate the vast majority of all user-created content. The rest of us are more or less voyeurs.

Here's what the top 10% contribute, according to the study:

Online comments and reviews posted by the enthusiasts are second only to word of mouth as a purchase driver for all web users. Those personal reviews are far more influential than official reviews posted by a website or magazine, or information posted online by a manufacturer. The most frequent contributors are the influencers, and they have a strong influence on purchase decisions because they write most of the online recommendations and reviews.

Word of mouth (personal advice from a friend) is still the #1 driver of purchase decisions. Among web users (who are about 70% of the US population), content on the web has moved into second place, ahead of printed reviews and advice from salespeople.

These findings mean online community matters enormously to companies. Online discussion is a poor way to communicate with the average customer, because average customers don't participate. But it is a great way to communicate to them, because average customers watch and listen.

The Feminine Spin: How does this apply to women specifically?

We know women participate in Word-of-mouth: with four times as many connections between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, women tap deeply into that area that is responsible for bonding and connecting with others. This makes women three times more likely to share personal stories with a friend than men.

We also know that women, specifically moms are much more attached to media that connects them to other women online - such as internet communities, blogs and video-sharing sites - suggesting they prefer to rely on peers rather than experts to help them parent, according to a study conducted April, 2008 among 847 moms who visited the Parenting.com website. (Marketing Charts)

If you are marketing to women online you need to search out and engage the influencers talking about your product or industry. They are the people (be them women or men) whose recommendations consumers (women especially) are most likely to listen to when deciding to purchase a product or service.

Posted by: Lisa Valent


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Lifestage vs Traditional Demographics

Marketers typically combine several variables to define a demographic profile. A demographic profile (or "a demographic") is used to zero-in on groups of like-minded consumers. For example, a marketer might speak of the female, middle-class, age 18 to 24, college educated demographic.

Today, successful marketers are marketing to women from a Lifestages (not age) point of view: identifying common emotional connection points based on shared life experiences and needs. Tapping into emotional triggers specific to a woman’s Lifestage enables you to engage with them in relevant ways that garner attention and foster loyalty and respect.

While on paper two middle-class, college educated females, aged 18 to 24 may seem very similar; you may find that one may be a single, career-oriented woman and the other a stay-at-home mother of two. As you can imagine the single woman's motivation for buying a product would be very different from the mother of two, and would they even be buying the same things?

Harbinger (a marketing consultancy in Toronto and sister company to Bing Creative), has identified six Lifestages that describe distincy phases women might pass through in their lifetime. They are: the Singleton, Me to We, New Mom, Experienced Mom, Empty Nester, and Career Graduate.

Posted by: Lisa Valent


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Ad Age - The Many Ways Male Product Designers Frustrate Women

A 3 Minute Ad Age Video Report

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Women are America's most powerful buying block, but today's designers continue to create products aimed at male sensitivities. And that means a lot of female-unfriendly products aren't achieving their full market potential, says Marti Barletta. The author, marketing consultant and CEO of Chicago's TrendSight Group was a keynote speaker at last week's annual conference of the Industrial Designers Society of America. Addressing a predominantly male audience, she ticked off a list of what ticks off women.

Visit Advertising Age Online

Posted by: Lisa Valent

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