Danger Ahead. Find the Red Flags in The Growing Green Momscape.

(In the wake of the recent MotrinGate Twitterstorm, it’s clear that marketers better dig deeper to understand emerging trends in the powerful Momscape.)

There are 82 million Moms in the U.S. opening their purses to spend some $2.1 trillion a year — about 15% of our country’s entire economy. From Baby Boomer ’soccer Moms’ to the Gen X and Echo Boom ‘iMoms’, Mom is making 85% of all household purchase decisions, carefully weighing the choices of products and services for the whole family including Fido and Fluffy.

These statistics are hardly a surprise to the marketers reading this article. Since the Mad Men days of dishpan hands and Kid-tested, Mom-approved cereals, Moms have been considered a lucrative target. But as the Mommy Market grows, so do the risks in trying to reach her.

The reason? Many of those 82 million purses are rapidly turning into ‘big green purses’, as the percentage of Moms showing a passion for all things eco heats up along with our planet. Moms are mobilizing, speaking out and feeling their power as consumers and as citizens. 89% of household Moms are online at least twice a day, massively marching across the Internet via social media sites such as CaféMom, BlogHer and Babycenter. Moms of all shades of green connect, communicate and take action online and in their communities.

But with all this link-love and Mamalutionary agitation whipping the Mom category into mania, marketers and brand builders need to be alert. There are red flags hidden in the growing green Momscape.

 

1. Brand Early, Brand Often. Reach Her Before She’s Officially A Mom.

“There is an interesting transformation that takes place for many women when they become pregnant,” explains Hilary Zalon, President and Founder of popular lifestyle destination for pregnancy and parenthood, TheCradle.com, which features a heavily trafficked ‘Eco-Cradle’ area. “When they were only taking care of themselves, they might not have thought twice about exposing themselves to toxins in household cleansers, drinking caffeine, using artificial sweeteners, etc. But once they become pregnant, they are no longer making decisions solely for themselves. Now, everything that goes into their bodies – and the decisions they make about the environment around them – affects another person. And this shift in perspective is quite profound.”

Kat Gordon, principal at Mom Marketing firm, Maternal Instinct, refers to pregnancy as ‘joining the sacred club.’ It’s at this pivotal point that Moms are most open to spending and also most open to learning and discovery; 71% claim to actively research products online. Marketers who understand this urgent quest for information about the safety and eco-impact of products up their odds of purchase and brand evangelism.

Red Flag Pregnancy and early Momhood is not the time for hip and cool green ad campaigns. Instead, make sure the Triple AAA’s are part of your new Mom messaging: Acknowledge + Appreciate + Authenticity.

2. We are not your grandma’s granola: Sustainable is sexy.
Woe unto any marketer who thinks today’s green Moms are decked out in hippie hemp and scorn any beauty product but homemade beeswax and Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint.

“I’m not tromping around Berkeley in my Birkenstocks,” said a Gen Y respondent in a recent ethnographic study conducted for a natural products company. “I don’t want to look crunchy. I can still look girly and be green.”

Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff, Founder of eco-chic site, EcoStiletto.com, wholeheartedly agrees. Her uber-stylish site is devoted to the secrets of smart and sexy green living. The thriving site frequently features eco-celebrities like Darryl Hannah and Gwen Stefani plus reviews of green goodies from kids’ organic cotton to petro-chemical free Australian shampoos.

“Forget the granola and granny panties–the idea at EcoStiletto.com is to look and feel totally stylish and sexy with things that just happen to be green! So we’ll call out a pair of organic denim jeans that make your butt look fabulous–but don’t take two-thirds of a pound of pesticide to produce. Or a fantastic organic lipstick–you’ll know the ingredients are sustainably sourced in the Amazon, but all the world sees is an incredibly sexy red pout.”

Red Flag Make sure you continually refresh your research. Keep your visual clues relevant so they resonate with your audience. Social networking sites and blogs deliver a powerful stream of fresh psychographics on a daily basis. Facebook’s targeted mini ads are an inexpensive and easy way to quick-test new concepts and copy.

 

3. Please don’t call me green.
Green, Natural, Organics, Eco, Enviro. Each of these seemingly interchangeable words comes with its own (loaded) subliminal meaning. The word that may be nebulous to one Mom may turn another one into a social media spitfire.

This post from a CafeMom member says it all:
“The other day my husband and a friend were talking and I was referred to as being “green”. The word rubs me the wrong way. I am annoyed by the connotation of trendiness and bandwagon jumping that “being green” implies. I also resent that along with the label of “green” comes a whole host of other assumptions from political, to parenting to what kind of car I drive. I don’t fit into a neat box and to borrow from the old, wise, Kermit the Frog, “its not easy being “green”.” When I wash my cloth diapers or mix my own cleaning supplies at home I don’t feel cool or hip. Every major company has jumped on the bandwagon and they produce overpriced products in slick packaging designed to draw in those who are seeking this new thing…this new lifestyle…this new buzzword.

Red Flag Eco-Moms hate being labeled. Their individualism is precious to them. Even though they often move collectively, and are influenced by popular opinion, they would prefer that some corporate entity not point this out to them. (Unless you’re Apple.) If you’re not Steve Jobs or even fake Steve Jobs, then understand the implications linked to each of these words and test them with your target. Watch for wear-out as well. Consumers are awash in green messaging and green imagery fatigue is growing.

4. Greenwashing: Blogging Against Barbie
Don’t even let a whisper of greenwashing seep anywhere near your product. Aside from the obvious evils of trying to market dubious environmental claims, it’s a no brainer: you’ll get caught. Consider Mattel’s attempt to push a new line of green Barbie accessories. In a few quick clicks, the BarbieBCause line wound up on Eco Child’s Play, a blog written by concerned parents with tips and advice on safe, non-toxic toys and clothing for children.

Red Flag Be cautious about your claims. Better to lag behind than jump on the green bandwagon without real substance and support.

 

5. Be Transparent . But Prepare for the Blogstorm
Companies need to understand they can start the conversation but they can’t control it.
Have a Plan B in case the tribes start unexpectedly pounding on their tom-toms.

A recent example: Camp Baby. Johnson & Johnson invited 50+ mom bloggers to attend an all-expenses-paid, three-day summit designed as a kind of brand building plus market research event. Unfortunately, the world’s premiere baby company didn’t anticipate ways in which the Mom Blogger weekend might backfire. News of a tiny problem with the summit spread like head lice in July. The problem? Babies were banned at Camp Baby.

To date, there are 97 outraged comments on Mothergoose.com. “To expect a new mom to ditch her newborn for three days is crazy,” said one Mom. “That’s unfortunate that [J&J] can’t see what a mistake they are making.”

Red Flag Many marketers start their WOM campaigns with the best intentions. But lurking underneath is the expectation that these efforts will unfold in the same manner as paid advertising. Check your inner control freak at the door.

 

6. Mixing Marketing with the Spiritual and Political Side of Green
The passionate stance of many green Mom sites and companies stems from the fact that green is often viewed as a movement, a cause, a holistic choice or sacred path. Phrases like ‘we believe’, ‘we’re on a mission’ ‘kinder to the earth’ ‘tell companies you won’t’, ’speak up and be heard’ are an integral part of the unique language of eco-moms. Outrage, anger and disruption are frequent themes. Share, not sell is the mantra behind sites such as Green Mom Finds, SafeMama, and CoolMomPicks, where the aim is to save busy moms time and energy by finding products and services that are better for children and families.

Sites like Moms Speak Up, is a collaborative blog: “We are women, parents, consumers, voters and much, much more and we’re fed up with the “business as usual” attitude of politicians & greedy corporations. It’s time for us to speak up and be heard!” The Mamalution is “a movement of passionate & dedicated mothers on high alert who are tapping into their instinctual wisdom to save the day!”

Red Flag Learn the language of green Moms and use it carefully. Or, rather than brand into the bloggy buzzsaw, Diane MacEachern’s Biggreenpurse.com is a savvy and refreshing blend of consumer activism, common sense and ideas for using the clout of a million women to effect change.

 

7. Confessing Your Eco-Sins

On Earth Day this year I gave a speech to a women’s group on the subject of Confessing Your Eco-Sins. I brought along a big poster of a prayerful Father Al Gore and one by one, women ‘fessed up to numerous guilty green sins: from craving a sizzling steak to long steamy showers and secretly hoarding paper towels.

From this experiment, I learned firsthand that green Moms are wracked with eco-anxiety. Their every choice is scrutinized; Mom is not only tasked with protecting the environment in general but keeping loved ones safe.

And now there’s additional pressure — or is it additional support? Instead of Cabi, Bliss or Tupperware parties, now there’s the Eco-Mom party, where the cocktail chatter revolves around CFLs, shopping locovore, and carbon-offsetting that trip to Disneyland. The brainchild of Kimberly Danek Pinkson, the California-based Eco-Mom Alliance sounds like one part “Hints from Heloise,” one part political self-help group and one part eco-Stepford Wives. The burgeoning nonprofit already has about 9,000 members around the globe, including not just the United States but also Australia, Hungary, England, France and Brazil. Springwise says the group may be training women to lead EcoMom events worldwide, as well as readying an official EcoMom seal of approval for commercial products.

Red Flag With Moms already scared out of their wits by SLS and #7 plastic bottles, marketing that makes them feel guiltier is likely not to work, especially in this equally scary economy. Solid information is the antidote to anxiety.

8. Points for Trying

The only red flag: Don’t ignore the opportunity to show that slow and steady corporate responsibility can make an impact. Moms notice and respect the baby steps companies take to improve their commitment to eco-responsibility, particularly when it involves encouraging and supporting green employee values. Adding a carbon-offsetting program like Terrapass for business travel is a small step but a worthwhile one.

Moms also notice and respect when brands resist creating buzzy advertising in favor of real facts and empathy. They also notice and respect companies who partner with non-profits and charitable organizations like the new kids’ game Emerald Island has done with its Trees for the Future donations.

The good news is that if you should happen to crash into a few of these Red Flags, the new field of Eco-Therapy is booming.

The New Consumerism: Freecycle Registering 50,000 More Each Week Since Wall Street Crashed.

I’m an avid Freecycler. Not only am I saving money and helping the planet all in one fell swoop, I get to meet awesome and imaginative Freecyclers. A while back I posted an offer for the eleven (yes, 11) remote controls I somehow managed to accumulate. Sure enough, a guy wanted to take them all. I had to know — why on earth do you want all 11? Seems he is a night photographer who needs the tiny infrared chips.

Another Freecycler couldn’t use my beat-up bamboo chairs but gave me a carton of speckled eggs from her own chickens. Another loaded up my leftover lumber; she brought me wild blueberries, a great smile and a dose of neighborliness I sorely need.

Freecycling is all about serendipity. You never know who is going to turn up to pick up your treasures or offer up a treasure of their own. Recently we received a grand player piano — an unwieldly ancient bulwark of a thing that required three men to lift. The beauty came with a set of equally ancient piano rolls; the kind of thing only an early jazz lover would adore. It just so happens that my ex-husband is one of those jazz fanatics with a lust for 1920’s tunes. And it just so happens that my ex-husband is recovering from cancer and needs to pump those weak legs of his — which is how those piano rolls work. It takes powerful pumping to get them going.

The scoop on Freecycle:

Welcome! The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,617 groups with 6,030,000 members across the globe. It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them’s good people). Membership is free. To sign up, find your community by entering it into the search box above or by clicking on “Browse Groups” above the search box. Have fun!

Business Week has a great article on this growing trend. Send it to your favorite AIG agent. Maybe he can Freecycle a few of those souvenirs he picked up at the St. Regis Resort the week we after we bailed them out.

Sunday is Eco-Design Day. Introducing the All Electric MINI.

As many readers already know, Sunday is Eco-Design Day at the Guru of New blog. With the frenzy of eco-innovation underway, it’s usually tough to choose the perfect example of breakthrough design + technology.

But not this Sunday. The world’s coolest, cutest car is going all-electric. 500 all-electric MINI E will be available to select corporate and private customers as part of a pilot project in California, New York and New Jersey starting sometime in 2009. The MINI E is powered by a 150 kW (204 hp) electric motor fed by a high-performance rechargeable lithium-ion battery. The wiz-car can hit 62 mph in 8.5 seconds, cover about 150 miles with a full charge on a current charging station in 2.5 hours. The MINI E may be available in Europe as well. You can see it at the Los Angeles Auto Show starting on Sneak Preview night November 20, 2008 and running through Thanksgiving.

Thanks to Likecool.com.

New From Seventh Generation: Create A Virtual Tree with Your Own Green-Friendly Ingredients.

Thanks to eco-focused company Seventh Generation and creative shop 180LA, now we can grow a veritable virtual forest and set it abloom with our favorite green-friendly ingredients.

The point of all this creativity is to emphasize the importance of knowing and showing what’s inside the products we use. Seventh Generation makes safe, non-toxic products for your home and family and their site is rich with widgets, tools and blogs like Ask Science Man and Inspired Protagonist in support of eco-education.

The virtual tree builder lets visitors select a tree shape and type in whatever ingredients they choose. The site then searches the internet for your choices and you can watch the tree bloom with branches that include images of your selected ingredients. You can then save your tree to a virtual forest, watch video clips detailing Seventh Gen’s manifesto and scan a label reading guide that includes downloadable widgets for your mobile devices. If you name your tree, Seventh Generation will send you coupons and special offers.

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Guru’s Note: The essence of doing Usability Testing is to try to break the site. That’s why I couldn’t resist trying to break my virtual tree. So I entered ingredients like: Parabens, SLES, SLS, talc, phenonip and that old reliable Phthlates. I just wanted to see if they would let me build a toxic tree or if they would send me a Red Alert. It turns out: neither. The first time I tried it, I got a simple message saying: Ingredients not found. The second time, the tree just vanished, never to return.

Guru’s Note #2: Given my proclivity toward playing with widgets, especially do-gooder green widgets, and given the sudden profusion of such things, I’ve decided it’s time to cry foul. Shouldn’t there be some point to these Gidgets (green widgets) beyond being semi-engaging and merely seeming green? When I heard about Seventh Generation’s new tool, I thought it would really be a tool . . . that is, something that would help me find healthier household products. I thought that when I entered my favorite ingredients in my Virtual Tree, the tree would be ‘blooming’ not just with pictures of orange slices and olive oil, but with actual products created from those ingredients. I thought I could find out about new products and maybe even order them. I was even ready to accept a tree ablaze with only Seventh Generation products. But instead, nada. Thanks to my choice of favorite green ingredients, the Guru of New Tree was laden with glossy graphics of Lemon Drop Martinis and Mai Tais decorated with Hibiscus petals.

Wiki Launches The New Wikia Green

Do we need another green site?

Wiki Founder Jimmy Wales seems to think so.

Wikia Green launched last week, with the mission of creating a valuable resource for all things green and is based on the wildly successful Wiki platform.

‘A dynamic new ecology resource’, the site is already rich in consumer-generated-content with some 600 posted articles which span the green spectrum: lifestyle, travel, activism, how-to guides, climate change and technology.

According to sexy, sustainable style partner ecofabulous.com, the site was created by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. Wikia Green was the love child born when Wales met Al Gore, just before Gore received his Nobel Prize. After researching existing green resources, Wales realized that information about green topics was scattered and often overly scientific. Wikia Green took shape from his desire to unite the passion of the green community into one highly accessible resource.

Japan Goes Uber-Eco with New Zero Emissions House.

Is GW soaking his feet in a fuel-cell powered foot bath, as Honda’s Asimo humanoid robot serves him green tea?

With the eyes of the world on all things eco at the G8 Summit in northern Japan, this week is the perfect time for Japan’s tech innovators to dazzle us with their most droolworthy green gizmos. And droolworthy they absolutely are, ranging from Sanyo’s Aqua waterless washer to Sharp’s solar-powered TV to Mitsubishi’s human-sensing air conditioner to Honda’s gracious tea-bot. But stealing a bit of their thunder is where the eco-gadgets are displayed — in the new Zero Emissions House.

The 200 million yen, 2152 square foot, one-story house has been built near the Summit and will be moved to another area afterwards, where the general public can gawk at the high-priced, high tech appliances in the Japan-style uber-eco home. The house is powered by a wind-turbine generator and a photovoltaic generation system and sports a rooftop vegetation system plus solar panels.

Zero and low emission houses have been sprouting up around the world, including one in the UK, where the first one went up last June.

Should Pizza Go Green? Pizza Fusion, America’s Eco-Friendly Restaurant Chain, Opens San Diego’s First LEED Certified Restaurant.

Can restaurants make some green by going green? Rapidly expanding franchise, Pizza Fusion, is showing the industry that making sustainability the mission can pay off. Founded in 2006 by two Florida entrepreneurs, Pizza Fusion’s Saving the Earth, One Pizza At A Time message translates into 70 franchises sold in about a year, with 10 store openings and another 15 planned by year’s end.

First stop in California: San Diego. Then Santa Monica, Thousand Oaks, and Temecula.

Pizza Fusion takes a holistic approach to their eco-friendly practices, by delivering their organic menu in company owned hybrids, building only LEED certified restaurants, and offsetting 100% of their power consumption.

And it gets greener:

Pizza Fusion’s LEED certified restaurants reduce water waste by 40 percent and electricity consumption by 20 percent annually. Overall, a Pizza Fusion store uses 30 percent less energy than a typical pizza restaurant. (Restaurants in the U.S. are power-hungry; gobbling up some 33% of total consumption among retail businesses.)

The restaurants feature a number of unique, eco-efficient products, techniques and designs, including eliminating the use of water heaters and air heating units by recycling heat from their ovens to warm their water and the restaurants themselves. Food containers are made from 100 percent corn starch and utensils are made from 100 percent potatoes.

Other eco-elements:

Countertops made from 100% recycled detergent bottles
Bamboo flooring
30% recaptured industrial concrete
Ceiling panels made from 74% recycled aluminum cans and 24% post industrial metals
USG Gypsum Board made from pre-used drywall
Insulation made from recycled blue jeans,
Ceiling baffles made from recycled composite board
Low voltage and low heat lighting
Seat cushions made with soybean oil
Furniture made from reclaimed wood
100 percent post consumer toilet paper in their bathrooms.

And oh yes, the food:   Pizza Fusion restaurants “proudly serve up delicious, gourmet pizza in its purest form - untainted by artificial additives, like preservatives, growth hormones, pesticides, nitrates and trans fats (to name a few). While we’re famous for our pizza, our 75% organic menu features an eclectic variety of gourmet sandwiches, salads, desserts, beer and wine. Additionally, we proudly offer health conscious alternatives for our friends with selective diets and food allergies, such as our delicious gluten-free pizza, brownies and beer and our tasty vegan selections.”

They even give customers 25 cents off their meals for every pizza box returned for recycling.

The New York City Waterfalls Public Art Spectacular Opens With A Splash.

Chicago has its cows. San Francisco has its cable cars. Las Vegas has its . . . well, you know.

As of yesterday, New York has its waterfalls.

New York City Waterfalls, the ambitious new $15.5 million project presented by The Public Art Fund and Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, is splashing its way across all five boroughs, bringing new energy and (hopefully) lots of cash into the city. The man-made falls tower 90 to 120 feet high in four sites across the East River’s shores:

Beneath the Brooklyn Bridge,
Manhattan’s Pier 35
Between Brooklyn’s Piers 4 and 5
On the northern end of Governor’s Island.

The Waterfalls, which draw water from the river at 35,000 gallons per minute, run from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every other day through Oct. 13. They will all be visible from South Street Seaport and the Staten Island ferry. Maps, podcasts and more information on viewing these new ‘natural’ wonders are available at NYCWaterfalls.org.

And never fear, Carbon Cops. They will operate on electricity run by renewable resources.

Are The Carbon Cops coming? Will We Be Dragged Off to Carbon Rehab?

41% of Britons think the Carbon Cops are coming.

25% think ‘repeat offenders’ will be shipped off to Carbon Rehab and forced to take Carbon Addiction classes.

So reports Reuters in an article about a recent survey conducted by the Energy Saving Trust, an organization set up to help people kick the carbon habit.

“The UK’s perception is that by 2050 we could have the sort of draconian infringements on our civil liberties that have been highlighted in our research. This need not be the case,” said EST chief Philip Sellwood said in the Reuters article.

Note: I’ve been waving this green flag for a while now.  Do you want your product to be the plastic bag of the future?  It’s either abide by our new millennium’s mantra — Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Or expect a visit from the Carbon Offset Police enforcing that fourth R: Regulate.

I will undoubtedly be the first to be taken away in (hemp) chains.  Convicted of cheeseburger, paper towel and Crystal Geyser addiction.

 

Going Bananas Over Dole Organic’s Marketing Savvy.

I always love it when I get a new food project.  I get to wax eloquent with phrases like farmers-market-fresh and sun-plumped perfect. I get to invent new blends, flavors and colors. I get to nose around in my stockpile of ingredients and decide whether they should be mulled, cold-pressed or frappe’d.

But all of this is wimpy indeed — mere puffery, in fact — when compared to the way in which Dole has masterfully re-tooled its Organics line, giving it new life and a compelling new story to tell.  In an era when our favorite veggies suddenly turn villainous, made in China means made with mercury and lead, and no one is really sure what ‘green’ means anymore, Dole has taken not just the eco road but the ethical one as well.

The story: Dole Organic lets consumers “travel to the origin of each organic product”.  By typing in a fruit sticker’s three-digit Farm Code on Dole Organic’s website, customers can find the story behind their banana. Each farm’s section on the website includes background info, shows photos of the crops and workers and tells consumers more about the origin of Dole’s organic products.  You can even use Google Earth to get a closer look at the community.  A new Carbon Compensation 2008 chart is available as well.

I typed in code 698 and here’s what I got:   

Farm Name: La Gloria and Las Palmas

Las Palmas Farm and La Gloria Farm belongs to Andrés Altamirano, a member of VRAM group. La Gloria farm has 20 hectares of organic bananas and 20 hectares of organic cocoa. The farm is located in Machala, Province of El Oro in Ecuador. The farm is been certified by BCS Öko Garantie since 2005. Mr. Altamirano as well as his partners of VRAM group is commited with the improvement of the organic farming.  Las Palmas farm has 25 hectares in third year of conversion to organic, next January 2008 the farm will be certified as organic and will start exporting its organic fruit with Dole Organic Program too.

Now that carbon footprinting and corporate transparency are here to stay, it’s likely that more marketers will soon come up with their own seed to spoon stories and labels. Enquiring minds now urgently want to know: Where the heck did my dinner come from? Who grew it? How did it get to my local Safeway? What kind of footprint did it leave behind?

And the ultimate question of all: Which is worse? Carbon or calories?

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