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The World’s Greenest Brands

green_brands_2010_chartThe 5th annual ImagePower Green Brands Study sponsored by Landor Associates, Cohn & Wolfe, Etsy Environmental Partners (EEP), and Penn Schoen Berland (PSB) has been released.

The 2010 study polled more than 9,000 people in eight countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Brazil, China, France, and India.

The results of the survey show that consumers continue to be concerned about the environmental-friendliness of products and brands.  In fact, concern increased by 3.5% over 2009 results.

The 2010 ImagePower Green Brands Study reports the following conclusions, which you can read about in more detail on the Landor Associates blog:

  • Most consumers want to buy from environmentally-friendly companies.
  • The market for green products is growing in emerging economies.
  • Environmental concerns vary by country.
  • Hurdles to buying green vary by market.
  • Consumers learn about green products and companies in different ways.

From a branding perspective, the study reveals that environmental consciousness is very important to consumers, ranking fourth in terms of what consumers are looking for in a brand behind providing a good value, being trustworthy, and caring about consumers.

So who is doing it right?  In the United States, Burt’s Bees and Whole Foods Markets lead the pack as far as consumer perceptions related to being a green brand.  In the United Kingdom, The Body Shop comes out on top, while Australian consumers rank Toyota number one.  You can follow the link to see the complete list of green brands by country.

One of the biggest learnings from the 2010 study and the four annual studies conducted previously is the obvious difference between consumers in different countries related to the importance of green brands and the messages marketers should focus on related to the environment in order to appeal to those geographic differences in consumer perceptions.  For example, consumers in the United States and the United Kingdom are more concerned with energy while consumers in Australia are more concerned with water management.  In other words, a one-size-fits all green marketing plan won’t work as consumers become better educated around the world about the importance of companies and brands being environmentally conscious.

What brand do you think is doing a good job of being green?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

5 Corporate Brands that Know How to Merchandise

Branded merchandise is very popular within the entertainment industry.  Consumers love to wear T-shirts featuring images of their favorite bands or characters from popular movies.  However, merchandising isn’t limited to Twilight dolls and Harry Potter wands.  There are actually many corporate brands that make a nice amount of money each year by selling products with their corporate logos on them.

Check out the list below to learn about five companies that have found success in selling corporate branded merchandise:

1. Harley Davidson

The Harley Davidson brand represents freedom, rebellion, and a lifestyle that consumers want.  It makes sense that the Harley Davidson logo and related-imagery and messages would be popular on T-shirts, jackets, hats, jewelry, and just about anything else you can imagine.  In fact, popular automotive brands that have clear brand promises often find success in merchandising.  Brands like NASCAR, Ford Mustang, and more are examples of an industry whose consumer audience has demonstrated its interest in purchasing branded merchandise.

2. Playboy

Like Harley Davidson, the Playboy brand represents a lifestyle, but in this case, it’s a lifestyle that promises good things and good times.  Interestingly, the vast majority of Playboy merchandise is purchased by women, showing that the Playboy brand appeals to a diverse audience who choose to experience the brand in very different ways.  Today, merchandise sales make up a significant percentage of Playboy Enterprises’ annual profits.  You can learn more about the Playboy brand in my book, Building Brand Value the Playboy Way.

3. Walt Disney

While most people think of Mickey Mouse toys, Cinderella dresses, and Finding Nemo pajamas when they think about Disney merchandising, the Disney company also offers a wide variety of merchandise that features the corporate brand logo or imagery.  Consumers around the world have demonstrated that they’re happy to buy all kinds of products bearing the Disney logo.  In fact, the Disney Company is amazing at finding every opportunity to exploit not just its corporate brand merchandising opportunities but all of its sub-brands as well.

4. John Deere

Who would have thought that a company that makes lawn mowers and farm equipment would also find success selling merchandise with the John Deere logo on them?  Even celebrities have been photographed showing their love of John Deere while wearing Deere-branded merchandise like hats and T-shirts.  However, in an effort to expand the John Deere brand to a younger audience, the company also makes John Deere tractor and equipment toys as well as John Deere branded merchandise like the kids’ party favors pack shown to the left.

5. Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola merchandise has been around for a long time, and today, a lot of Coca-Cola branded merchandise items are considered to be collectibles.  You can find clothing, clocks, signs, furniture, toys, holiday decorations, ornaments, and more with the Coca-Cola logo on them, and consumers pay for these items and proudly display them all the time.  Coca-Cola sells its branded merchandise and offers it as part of the Coke Rewards program as well.

When consumers purchase, wear or display corporate-branded merchandise, they’re demonstrating their brand loyalty and advocacy.  It’s a brand manager’s dream come true!

Social Media and Purchase Decisions — Take Survey Results with a Grain of Salt

It seems like every month a new report comes out from another company that surveyed a group of Internet users to learn how they’re affected by social media conversations when it comes to brand perceptions and purchase decisions.  The trend for the past year or more has been survey results that tell us people are very influenced by social media conversations, reviews, and so on when they research products and services online and ultimately make purchase decisions.  However, a new poll conducted in April 2010 by Harris Poll paints a different picture (via BrandWeek).

According to the new study by Harris Poll, we’re given the following data:

  • 34% of adults who use social media have used social media tools “as an outlet to rant or rave about a company, brand or product.”
  • 26% of those adults use social media to share their dissatisfaction with a company, brand or product.
  • 23% of those adults use social media to share their their feelings about the companies, brands and products they like.

The Harris Poll also sheds light on how different demographic segments are influenced when it comes to making purchase decisions by social media conversations:

  • 50% of 18-34 year olds are influenced by opinions published through social media.
  • 37% of people age 55 and over admit that reviews from people they follow on social media sites affect their interactions with companies, brands and products.

Another piece of the Harris Poll results tells us how much consumers are affected by various media messages:

  • 71% of respondents say that they are influenced by “reviews from family members or friends.”
  • 46% of respondents say that they are influenced by “reviews in newspapers and magazine articles.”
  • 45% of respondents say that they are influenced by “reviews from friends or people I follow on social networking sites.”
  • 33% of respondents say that they are influenced by “reviews on blogs or message boards.”

So what does this tell us?

There is still no reliable data about how people are influenced by social media conversations vs. traditional media.  Survey results are inconsistent.  However, it is clear that social media conversations are important, and the Harris Poll study supports that theory not only in the statistics shown above but also in the response to a specific question — 38% (more than 1 in 3) people who participated in the survey said that they “aim to influence others when I express my preferences online.” This tells us that people like to feel important and influential, and the social Web empowers them to exert their influence to a wide audience irrespective of whether or not they actually have success influencing others.

The key learnings for brand managers and marketers are two-fold:

  1. People pay attention to, listen to, and react to social media conversations.
  2. People like to influence others with their social media conversations.

Bottom-line, if you’re not working to find your brand’s loyal group of online influencers and brand advocates and giving them reasons to talk about you, then you’re missing a big opportunity that shows no signs of stopping.

Cinderella’s Career


Cinderella

As everyone knows, Cinderella worked hard while the stepsisters just lounged around.  But her industry was not appreciated!  At best she was ignored, at worst ill-treated . . .

Sometimes it seems as if the corporate Careers site needs a fairy godparent.  In many cases Careers is the hardest working part of the company website, since it not only promotes the employer brand and woos prospective employees, but also provides job-search functionality, gathers online applications, and may even carry out testing and pre-screening.  Yet the Careers site often receives very little attention or appreciation within a company, and even less from the HR establishment at large.

So it’s nice that the annual ERE.net competition includes a dedicated award for the “best” Corporate Careers Website, and also considers the Careers site in the Employer Branding and Best Function categories. Analysis of this year’s winners and finalists is in four parts—start here and follow the links on the right of the ERE.net screen. But you’ll have to go back to Part 1 every time, as the links only appear on that page . . .

Also on ERE.net, another excellent checklist from John Sullivan, this one on authenticity in recruitment messaging.  Many of his points relate to the Careers site, so the article is well worth a read.  But you’ll have to wait (or hunt) for the Part 2 that’s promised by the title “Part 1”!  At least I couldn’t find the second installment . . .

If you noticed a theme developing in those last two paragraphs, right again.  Although the ERE.net website is home to a lot of good material, it’s not a great exemplar of online organization and user-friendliness.  Seems like another case in which a hard-working website doesn’t receive the attention it deserves!

Finally, there’s the question of what happens after Cinderella leaves the ball.  Suppose that every corporate Careers site on earth were magically transformed to perfection, today.  What next?

One hopes that Cindy herself lived happily ever after—but that will not, cannot, should not be the fate of any website.  Technology moves on, really fast.  For example:  Intuit, which created an extensive and expensive all-Flash Careers site last year, may already be regretting that it didn’t choose a more mobile-friendly development approach.  (And the site is also quite slow, at least on my desktop.)

HR guru Kevin Wheeler writes that our current model of corporate recruiting is doomed, as companies progressively outsource non-core functions. So what does that mean for the Cinderella website?  Stay tuned.


(That’s Cinderella rethinking her career plan in an 1865 version of the story by the Brothers Dalzell.)

The Global Talent Picture


Globe

Warm off the press:  Manpower Inc.’s 2010 Talent Shortage Survey.   After checking in with more than 35,000 employers across 36 countries and territories, Manpower found that:

Although the current global economic situation has increased the number of overall job seekers in labor markets worldwide, there is still a notable talent shortage in many countries and industry sectors. So the immediate problem is not the number of potential candidates. Rather, it is a talent mismatch: There are not enough sufficiently skilled people in the right places at the right times.

The biggest gaps are in Japan (76%), Brazil (64%), Argentina (53%), Singapore (53%), and Poland (51%).  In the Americas overall, 34% of employers are challenged to fill some positions, but that’s down a bit from 2009, and still a little below the global average.  North American employers are in much better shape than their South American counterparts, with only 14% having problems in the U.S. and 21% in Canada.  Whether North or South, technicians are the hardest to find, with secretaries/admins in the second position, followed by laborers and sales representatives–and those top categories remain similar across other regions as well.

As for Europe overall:  Ireland (4%), the United Kingdom (9%) and Norway (11%) are doing just fine in the talent match department, but in Italy, Germany, France and Greece 20-30% of respondents report gaps, with Sweden, Spain, and the Netherlands all hovering in the teens.

Although the report includes a category for the Middle East and Africa, it seems to be empty—i.e., there is no information included for any country in those regions except South Africa, where the talent match gap is reasonably small, at 16%.  On the other hand, Asia and the Pacific are above the global average, with high numbers across the board for a regional average of 41%.  That’s a substantial increase of nine percentage points over 2009.  Japan’s sky-high number leads the region, with Australia and Hong Kong also problematic at 45% and 44%  respectively.  Bright spot: India at just 16%.

World of Work’s Newsline offers this analysis from Manpower chairman and CEO Jeffrey A. Joerres:

Employers have gotten more specific about the combination of skill sets that they are looking for, not only seeking technical capabilities in a job match, but holding out for the person that possesses the additional qualities above and beyond that will help drive their organization forward.

Job seekers who want to be competitive will have to develop higher skill levels, Joerres concludes, as companies look for ways to do more with less.  Uncomfortable reality:  The employment future could include both an increasing number of unfilled positions and a rising level of unemployment.


(Our brightly colored globe is an “orthographic projection, centred on 40 degrees S, 170 degrees W, with shoreline data from GSHHS.”)