{"id":5642,"date":"2023-03-24T21:43:39","date_gmt":"2023-03-24T19:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trends.tuio.ro\/trends\/price-vs-planet-a-false-dichotomy\/"},"modified":"2023-03-24T21:43:39","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T19:43:39","slug":"price-vs-planet-a-false-dichotomy","status":"publish","type":"trends-cpt","link":"https:\/\/trends.tuio.ro\/edition\/2024\/trends\/price-vs-planet-a-false-dichotomy\/","title":{"rendered":"Price vs. Planet. A False Dichotomy"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As COVID-19 has exacerbated financial challenges, many companies face a potential conflict between their financial needs and their environmental commitments. This is particularly true when it comes to offering affordable, eco-friendly products. To navigate this challenge, marketers should focus on incorporating eco-friendly values into affordable products, making it easier for consumers to make environmentally responsible choices. This approach can not only help protect the planet but can also facilitate brand differentiation and deeper relationships. Moreover, marketers should not treat this as an either\/or proposition, but instead, understand that consumers want to save money and the planet. By finding the right balance between value, convenience, and sustainability, brands can help bridge the value-action gap and make eco-friendly choices the default.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","trend-keywords":[5677,5756,5632,5640,5639,5633,5645,5712,5644,5787],"trend-themes":[],"trend-categories":[5638,5625,5646],"class_list":["post-5642","trends-cpt","type-trends-cpt","status-publish","hentry","trend-keywords-accessibility","trend-keywords-circular-economy","trend-keywords-consumer-attitudes","trend-keywords-consumer-habits","trend-keywords-eco-friendly","trend-keywords-environmentalism","trend-keywords-greenwashing","trend-keywords-recycling","trend-keywords-sustainability","trend-keywords-value-for-money","trend-categories-consumer-attitudes","trend-categories-trends-global-challenges","trend-categories-sustainability"],"acf":{"report":"WARC - The Marketer\u2019s Toolkit 2037","long_trend_summary":"Price vs. Planet. A False Dichotomy. The threat of climate change is frequently placed in opposition to the short-term urgency of driving sales in a financial crisis. The current moment of economic stress, however, is actually an opportunity to bring affordable, eco-friendly products into the mainstream. At first glance, a tension exists between marketers\u2019 financial needs in uncertain times and their long- term environmental commitments. The logic behind this argument runs as follows: economic volatility \u2013 whether because of rising inflation, energy prices or interest rates, or supply-chain roadblocks and COVID-19 aftershocks \u2013 will cause many shoppers to ruthlessly prioritise affordability. Such a trend, in turn, has two assumed consequences: one, that eco-friendly goods are generally high-end options, and therefore vulnerable to trading down; and, two, businesses facing revenue pressure will cut green initiatives which cannot deliver instant returns. Research firm Kantar, for example, discovered that 45% of consumers think acting in a sustainable manner is now harder due to monetary or social constraints. For business leaders, intelligence provider Gartner revealed that sustainability only lagged mergers and acquisitions amongst the spaces where investment could fall if industry conditions tighten. As brand custodians and growth architects, marketers should resist the impulse to dilute environmental ambitions, and instead focus on baking eco-friendly values into their affordable products. This would help green options become the default, rather than demanding people change habits, or spend more, to protect the planet. This approach best serves the large number of consumers who want purchases to be good for the environment and their wallets. And success in these endeavors can thus facilitate brand differentiation and deeper relationships. On the flipside, inaction or ecological regression could exert high trust and reputational costs on companies seen as prioritizing the planet strictly when it is convenient. Sustainability commitment is strong, but not perfect. Over 70% of marketers anticipate their environmental plans will remain unchanged, or only subjected to minor alteration, despite the varied fiscal challenges now taking root across the globe. WARC\u2019s industry survey found that 37% of represented companies expect to continue with their sustainability objectives, while 35% foresee \u201csome small compromises\u201d. The totals for clients and agencies on these metrics were almost identical; a coherence hinting at a shared commitment to planetary protection amidst the current monetary pressures. However, for 28% of firms \u2013 a more modest, but not inconsiderable, number \u2013 the outlook is less optimistic: 17% are \u201ckeen to pursue sustainability goals\u201d but could make \u201csignificant cuts\u201d in the face of economic worries; 10% will prioritize financial indicators, only considering ecological initiatives that do not have a negative fiduciary impact; 1% will cancel their entire sustainability agenda. Amongst WARC\u2019s client-side panel, evolving customer preferences, rising sustainability costs, falling sales of premium goods and a deliberate \u201cpivot to price\u201d were earmarked as the triggers for prospective movements in environmental strategies. But marketers paring back such ambitions must be aware of the reputational risks if they are seen as only looking beyond the bottom line when it suits them, and of lapsing into \u201cgreenwashing\u201d in their communications. Closing the \u201cvalue\u2013action gap\u201d. While consumers have grown increasingly eco-conscious over time, price is usually still a more important purchase driver \u2013 an attitude that solidified during COVID-19\u2019s economic disruption. That does not mean shoppers are abandoning their principles; they may, for instance, opt for the cheapest sustainable option, not switching to products without these qualities. As such, marketers must not view this as an either\/or proposition; people want to save money and safeguard the environment. The value\u2013action gap Shoppers are often worried about climate change but confused about how to respond. Paying more for green products is one solution for navigating this \u201cvalue\u2013action gap\u201d, but with household budgets under pressure, brands need to find the sweet spot across value, convenience and sustainability. They need to take it easy by treating green credentials as a \u201cgift\u201d instead of requiring behavior change. It\u2019s also useful to embrace \u201ceco-accidentalism\u201d so this choice is the default. Make consumers feel good about these purchases. A wide spectrum For some companies, an affordability\/ sustainability mix is baked into the business model. Others will have to work harder in this regard. \u2022 The RealReal, an online luxury resale and consignment marketplace, intrinsically blends lower prices with a facility for consumers to sell on used items in a circular way. IKEA provided tips on how customers can \u201cupcycle\u201d its furniture they already own rather than buying new goods. \u2022 Levi\u2019s effectively used communications to indicate how the back-end processes leveraged in creating recyclable 501 jeans worked. Learn from other markets. Brands should look to a variety of markets for guidance, too: Indian carmaker Maruti Suzuki reframed its messaging around fuel efficiency in a category downturn \u2013 an appeal serving pocketbooks and the planet. Cerveza Nuestra Siembra countered rising Ecuadorian beer prices by tapping local production to make a wallet-pleasing, but high-quality, brew.  Finish dishwasher detergent responded to a Turkish currency crisis by drawing attention to a scarce \u2013 and even more critical \u2013 resource: the usable water supply. \"Short-term fluctuations only cause short-term uncertainties, and there can be some tactical adjustments, but strategic determination cannot be shaken.\" -- Ye Danpeng CMO, Robam  Economic progress and ecological protection are often viewed as opposing forces, especially in periods of financial distress. Questioning this assumption, however, opens up a slate of interesting possibilities for marketers. In the long term, blending what is right from a pricing angle with what is right for the planet can bring eco-friendly products to the mainstream and secure future mass market demand. Reducing any friction is an invaluable step to encouraging consumer adoption \u2013 and can simultaneously enhance the perceived value of a product amongst shoppers. Finding emotionally satisfying ways of serving buyers could assist brands in maintaining price elasticity in a period of fiscal difficulty, too. Marketers in some countries are more experienced at dealing with issues like currency devaluations, fluctuating household expenditure and looking beyond promotions as they try to engage target audiences in hard times. Learning from these nations may not always be directly transferable, but can be useful as inspiration to kickstart new modes of strategic thinking for positioning sustainable goods.","report_button_title":"Click to access the source report","report_button_url":"https:\/\/lp.warc.com\/marketers-toolkit-37"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trends.tuio.ro\/edition\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/trends-cpt\/5642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trends.tuio.ro\/edition\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/trends-cpt"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trends.tuio.ro\/edition\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/trends-cpt"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trends.tuio.ro\/edition\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trends.tuio.ro\/edition\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"trend-keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trends.tuio.ro\/edition\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/trend-keywords?post=5642"},{"taxonomy":"trend-themes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trends.tuio.ro\/edition\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/trend-themes?post=5642"},{"taxonomy":"trend-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trends.tuio.ro\/edition\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/trend-categories?post=5642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}