insight

Commentary

Three Truths About Ethosnomics

It's hard to find a brand these days that doesn't try to stand on some sort of social-responsibility platform. The word is out that consumers carry their values along with their wallets when choosing which brand to bless with their hard-earned dollars. But what many brands have already learned is that it takes more than putting a pink ribbon on your package to drive decision-making. Brands know they have to stand for something. It's a question of the right "something" where decision-making becomes tricky.

When it comes to getting at the truth, subjects like green and corporate social responsibility (CSR) rank right up there with asking a middle-aged man why he bought the sports car. Rarely do you hear said man utter the phrase "mid-life crisis" when asked by a researcher why he traded the Camry for the Spyder. And you hear even less that a brand "doing good" is not a very, very important thing.

However, there are three realities that our emotionally based loyalty data make abundantly clear:

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1. The importance of eco-policies and CSR differs greatly from category to category -- going from not even on the map to a key driver of engagement and purchase;

2. Greenwashing is a see-through strategy to today's consumers, who increasingly expect meaningful actions and not simply another corporate tax-reduction strategy;

3. Consumers (aka people) like to be rewarded -- as true when it comes to ethos as anywhere else.

That is not to say that consumers don't care. They do. But they care differently if they are buying a car (a lot) to when they are buying shampoo (not so much). And there is a reason for that. When buying an automobile, the green factor has a nice reward attached to it, placing the consumer in the cross hairs of Environmental Ideals and Economic Deals. Washing a car with a tint of green won't work. It has to work when it comes to fewer dollars in the tank, while making a personal contribution to a smaller carbon footprint.

Brands increasingly must stand for something beyond rational items and primacy of product and service. We've said that time and time again. Ethosnomics is one aspect of a brand that is not going away, especially as changes in weather patterns make us all sweat.

Connecting the public and the personal in today's financially strained world is one way to turn down the heat. For both brand and consumer.

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