Green Marketing

I recently read a article called "3 keys to Green Marketing Campaigns" which discussed the 3 ways to effectively promote environmentally friendly lifestyles. Green marketing has grown exponentially in the past few years as people especially college students and late teenagers have become more aware problems in the environment, the use of fossil fuels, and global warming which seems to be on the rise. According to the article in order for Green Marketing to be effective you have to do 3 things; be Genuine, Educate Your Customers, and give them a Opportunity To Participate. Being genuine means exactly what was talked about in class the other day and that is to believe in what your selling and do what you claim to be doing especially when it comes to such a sensitive topic like "going green." A example of not doing this would be Al Gore with his Inconvient Truth movie where he was talking about the rise of global warming and what needs to be done to reduce it but at the same time he flies around in his private jet all over the world and lives in a mansion that uses up a lot of resources and makes a significant carbon footprint.

The Second way to effectively promote Green Marketing is to Educate Your Customers. Green marketing only goes so far when you just let people know what do to protect the environment in order to actually have  an impact you must educate them on why it is so important to change the way we do things and how it has such a problem for the future and today. Like the use of plastic bags, most people don't know that one plastic bag used at the grocery store will take 1,000 years to decompose.

The third and arguably the most important way is to Giving Your Customers a Opportunity to Participate. This means personalizing your the benefits of your environmentally friendly actions, normally through letting the customer take part in positive environmentally action. In my opinion this is one the key flaws today in green marketing. A lot of people talk about what people should do and what there going to do to help the environment but words mean nothing if they are not put into action. To many people think that they individually will not make a difference by changing the small things like recycling, using less water/ electricity, and not using so much plastic so they don't do it. It all starts with one person to promote a more efficient and "green" lifestyle to spread to another and then its a domino affect. I think green marketing is extremely important today and for the future. Do you think that the three keys ( Being Genuine, Educating Your Customers, and Giving Your Customers an opportunity to participate) are all that Green Marketing needs to be successful?