Define ‘green marketing’ differentiating it from conventional marketing, then illustrate the key ingredients to successful green marketing in relation to a product, a service or an industry you know or have researched.
Conventional or traditional marketing is a process of pushing products to the consumer, whereby organizations advertises their goods or services to the targeted market through media (Rex and Baumann, 2006). Such as radio, news papers, magazines, billboards, television ads, brochures and others. This type of marketing drives the consumption of consumers high, which results to an increase of environmental concerns to the society, government and environment. In contrast, according to Brueckner (2010) referenced from Prakash 2002: 285, green marketing is an environmental approach designed to promote their products and services based on environmental factors or awareness of the organization. Furthermore, it focuses on the organizations environmental management, creating an image and influencing the society and consumers of to be more sensitive towards the environment, at the same time meeting consumers’ needs and expectation with minimum negative impact on the environment. Green marketing aims for a more sustainable future by simply influencing the behaviors of business and consumers way of thinking in a way of reducing the consumption of consumers by creating a longer lasting product such as light bulbs and recyclable products, marketing more environmental friendly products.
One of the main problem and continuously being criticized that green marketing faces is the green washing. Green washing is simply a misleading behavior of an organization to the eyes of the society, consumers and government. It is composed of seven criteria known as the seven sins of green washing: sins of the hidden trade-off, sin of no proof, sin of vagueness, sin of worshiping false labels, sin of irrelevance, sin of lesser of two evils and sin of fibbing (Brueckner 2010, 91-92). These have been a problem that consumers and society faces, that has been resolved over and over again. A successful and effective way of green marketing have its own key ingredients: these are meeting consumer needs, adequate pricing, credibility of claims, instilling a sense of wanting to make a difference, information dissemination and education, a willingness to change markets and products, a willingness to manage demand and expectations downwards, and taking more responsibility