By contributing guest author Ida Cheinman, Principal and Creative Director of Substance 151, a strategic design agency for Green Printer’s “Design Goes Green” series.

We live in a time when “sustainability” is topping the buzzword charts and a wave of greenwashing is flooding the mainstream. We live in a time of intense competition, gloomy economic forecasts and rapidly disappearing marketing budgets, but also in a time when more and more companies and organizations strive to uphold higher environmental and social values, making the shift to the triple bottom line economic model. Sustainability and social responsibility are the forces that drive many of today’s business decisions; they also change the way organizations re-think their branding and marketing strategies. As marketers and business leaders, we are faced with the challenge of finding differentiation by creating empowering and memorable brand experiences for our audiences in the increasingly crowded sustainable marketplace.

So, What are the rules?

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A contributing post by Deb Ozarko, Director of Creative Services for Clearly Green Design, an Ottawa, Canada based visual communications firm.

There is no escaping the dark news about today’s current economic situation. Regardless, there are ways for us to all survive - and thrive - simply by asking ourselves one question: Want or Need?

In a planet faced with the tragic fallout from the over consumptive patterns of typical North American society, an economic crisis may just what we need to show us the true cost of our spending habits.  It would not hurt us a bit to do less spending on frivolous - and often environmentally damaging items, and pay more attention to consumer or donor messaging so we can begin to develop an overall higher eco-consciousness.

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The authors, Robert Brunner (once a product designer for Apple and now a principal in the design firm Pentagram) and Stewart Emery (author of “Success Built to Last” and a leader in the Human Potential Movement) did not just rely on their own experience, but also relate numerous case studies about what other companies have done right in developing design-driven (and customer needs focused) organizations.

As you can see on the authors’ site, they are not just talking about package design and logos. The briefest synopsis of the book is, “We’re talking about design as a total concept—not just about how a product looks, but how the product operates, how it sounds, and how it feels. Also included in this idea of design is the quality of your purchase experience, of what happens when you actually open up the box, how you start to feel, and what all this communicates to you. And of course, there is the chain of events through which you became aware of the product. This is part of the design connection too—what all those touch points mean to you as a customer.”

One point I particularly liked is, “If you have your own brand-driven approach to design, others can’t really take this from you. People can try to copy it, but they they become merely derivative. If you do a good job at it, you have something that becomes a very strong and defensible strategy… when a customer purchases your product or pays for your service, they feel they have joined something.”

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First of all 60% of Americans use social media, and the figure is higher for your market, if you sell to younger Americans.

Cone surveyed almost 1100 adults and found that (of that 60%) 85% feel that companies should interact with their customers via social media.

I found it interesting that the men surveyed were twice as likely as women to use social media to interact frequently with companies (33% versus 17%).

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Interview with Studio 7 Designs‘ Aran Down.

You are an award-winning, environmentally friendly design firm. Tell us what your clients come to your company for and what makes Studio 7 Designs different from other ‘green’ design firms.

We started out about five years ago by providing non-profit groups with free consultation and web design. Originally, we focused on helping out local companies ─ it was our way of giving back to the community. After about two years of helping about 50 non-profit organizations, including many universities and UN chapters, we were getting offers for corporate branding through our contacts. At that time, Studio 7 Designs was run by me and some part-time designers, so it was a natural evolution to move towards being a full-time design and development company. Our roots are based in real ethics. Our site doesn’t have a green theme; we wanted to try to capture the beauty of the natural world and use artistic creativity to show who we are as a whole.

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Eighty percent of corporate sustainability executives in the Fortune 500 plan to maintain or increase their budgets in 2009 - despite today’s down market, according to a new survey.

As we discussed in this piece on How To Cut Your Costs And Make Your Package Greener, cost saving efforts often have the unintended or sometimes intended impact of making your product and processes more eco friendly. As more and more companies discover this salient fact, the scales will tip from just incidental greening of product to full scale efforts to promote sustainability WHILE cutting costs.

We may have reached a tipping point.

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Ecopreneurist recently received a question from a reader about whether manufacturing an eco-friendly product in China is a good idea.  We thought his question would make a good topic for discussion and encourage other Ecopreneurist readers to give Chris your advice too by commenting below.

Chris wrote, “I have designed some great eco-friendly items [...that...] are not eco- or green-washed, but [are] designed from the start to be green and are made with fully sustainable and recycled materials… The problem I am having is, the only place I can find a supplier to make these green products is in China. I am afraid that there could be criticism, backlash or negative comments made about the brand because the products are not made in a more eco-friendly perceived Country. I have made a huge effort to have the items made elsewhere without any luck… Do I make the items in China if that is my only option and risk criticism?”

Chris, you are right to see this as an important branding question.

I assume that you have checked into the potential manufacturer and have confidence in that factory’s environmental record and labor practices. If you know that it is possible to manufacture a product in China in a sustainable way, then it is just a matter of either transportation or image. And, for products sold on the West Coast of the US, shipping from China can have less impact on the environment than other transportation means, such as trucking or air freight.

So, let’s assume that your product will be truly green in all ways (materials, manufacturing and shipping) and that your issue is only a matter of impression. What can you do?

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Some businesses have always been better than others, and once-good companies often lose their way. However, despite Manners’ [Armageddon-sounding] lead-in, I liked this book. The mini case studies Manners has collected show that having a quality, useful product or service is usually a primary requirement for success. You can’t tell consumers you are something fantastic and then not deliver upon that in terms of product usefulness, product quality, the sales experience, customer service levels, etc.

A Strong Brand Is Authentic and Relevant

Your brand is the sum total of the experiences people have with your company and product. If your product is irrelevant or your way of distributing the product is not really

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When it comes to branding a green business, it’s becoming harder and harder to stand out in a sea of companies claiming to have green products and ethical practices. While it’s wonderful that green is going mainstream, it makes good, original branding even more important for green businesses.

How do you set your business apart and attract new customers in a competitive marketplace? You work on your image, your public face, and your reputation. In a word, your brand.

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Green businesses are particularly well-suited for consumer advocacy. Customers who shop from your company due to a shared concern for the environment and/or a desire to avoid toxins are likely to tell their friends about the benefits of your product or service. The flip-side is that they are also likely to be particularly vocal and angry if they feel you have betrayed your green mission.

Social media, primarily blogs, have greatly lowered the barriers for consumers to voice their opinions. They can easily advocate on behalf of a brand or take a company to task for bad service, misleading advertising, products that do not work, and more. And the title of Blackshaw’s book rings true.

The question for green businesses is are you making it easier for 1000 people to advocate on behalf of your business, and are you reacting quickly and authentically when there is a mis-step and a customer is unhappy?

We marketers used to say that a brand is the sum total of all experiences with a company–not just the product or service but the employees, partners, website, collateral, ads, service centers, etc.

Your Google ranking is part of your brand

Well, now, customer service discussions on blogs are now part of your brand experience. Blackshaw says,

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This past week, I went into a Wal-Mart for the first time in about two years and I thought my head was going to explode just from the sheer volume of stuff and the incessant beeping of the registers! As I looked around all I could see was next year’s landfill! I was pretty close; in The Story of Stuff you will find the shocking statistic that 99% of the stuff we buy, we toss out.

Like any other bad behavior that is perpetuated generationally, we adults not only have to be come aware of, and change, our own habits, but find effective means to help our children not repeat our mistakes.

Older kids, 12 and up, may enjoy the Story of Stuff and be thoughtful about the implications. Younger children may just end up feeling helpless. I’ve mentioned Eco-phobia before and feel it necessary to reiterate that we risk making children numb to issues if they get too much bad news too soon. I thought it was great the the Story of Stuff blog links to kid-produced You Tube responses!

The reality is, $15 BILLION dollars is spent by marketers to turn your child into a good consumer.

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