Green products have been around since the 1970s, but it’s only in recent years that they’ve become ubiquitous. It’s not because consumers suddenly prize sustainability above all. It’s because savvy green marketers are no longer trying to “sell the earth”—instead they’re promoting the value their products provide: better health, superior performance, good taste, cost-effectiveness, or simply convenience. This central emphasis on primary benefits—the new rules—is critical to winning over the mainstream consumer.
The New Rules of Green Marketing helps readers understand why value-based sustainability marketing has become a critical organizational capacity and how they themselves can adopt this approach. Drawing on the latest data from leading researchers and reflecting on learnings from her corporate clients and other pioneers—including GE, Nike, Method, Starbucks, Timberland, HP, NatureWorks, Procter & Gamble, Stonyfield Farm, and Wal-Mart—Ottman provides practical strategies, tools, and inspiration for building every aspect of a credible value-based green marketing strategy. She covers using a proactive approach to sustainability to spur innovation, developing products that are green throughout their life cycle, communicating credibly to avoid accusations of “greenwashing,” teaming up with stakeholders to maximize outreach to consumers, taking advantage of social media, and much more.
This book takes the best of Ottman’s previous groundbreaking work it into the 21st century. Her new rules relegate traditional “green guilt” approaches to the recycling bin of history, break green products out of their niche and, ultimately do a far better job of advancing the triple bottom line of people, profits, and planet.
Practical, insightful knowledge and advice you will use! I first read Ms. Ottman’s Green Marketing 2nd edition book along with a host of others right before I started a new sales & marketing position with a green company in 2008. (VerTerra, Ltd.) While the other books were fine, Ms. Ottman’s book became my virtual textbook and guide for insuring we did things the right way. I’m happy to report, our messaging, positioning and success (aided by lessons learned from her book) led us to have recently been called the “it girl of the eco world” by the…
Many “Whoa!” moments in this book When I did an abrupt life and career change last year and decided to start Hipcycle, a green online e-commerce business, I read a bunch of new books about social media, new biz start up, environmental issues and the like, and this book really resonated with me because my mind was going in the direction of the tenets described in this book, but it helped me synthesize it much more coherently.So, in a sense, this book has played a major role in the development of an entire company!
A Green Marketing Book that Could be Widely Adopted by Green MBA Programs With its many big-corporation examples, extensive use of research-based statistics, and numerous charts, graphs, bullet points, and checklists, this is a green marketing book that could be widely adopted by green MBA programs. And true to its title, there are lots of rules–as well as big strategic questions starting right from the beginning (the first group is on page 21). But even if you’re not an MBA student, and your business is much smaller-scale, there’s a lot of wisdom here…