Green Living: Sustainability and Ethnicity

It’s hard to watch TV, surf online or walk through a mall this week without noticing that Tuesday is Earth Day—everyone from Clorox, Banana Republic, Target, Wal-Mart and countless others are showing off their best green image. But the bigger question nagging marketers trying to reach a multiethnic audience is whether sustainability marketing will resonate with minorities.
Toyota Motor Corp. turned heads in last year’s Super Bowl when it broke a bilingual commercial promoting the launch of its hybrid Toyota Camry. But since then, the number of national ad campaigns with an environmental multicultural bent are lacking.
Overall, Americans are greener than ever: According to researcher Mintel, which recently released its 2008 Green Living report, more than one-third of adults
(36%) claim to regularly” buy green products, up from just 12% 16 months ago. The folks who also said they “never” purchase green products also dropped to 10% from 20% who made that claim 16 months ago. When Mintel breaks it down by ethnicity, it shows varying attitudes toward green products, recycling and pollution. For instance, Asians/Pacific Islanders
(49%) and Hispanics (40%) were more than likely to “always or almost always” buy green products compared with Whites surveyed (35%) and Blacks (32%). Asians also showed a higher tendency to recycle, with 67% saying they make a “conscious effort to recycle”
compared to 56% of Hispanics and only 44% of Blacks.
The researcher concluded that marketers targeting the Black community with green advertising would be advised to focus on personal gains and education rather than the impact on the environment, while Asians should be treated as a “niche audience open to new and innovative green products.” The survey also found that Hispanics were greatest concerned about pollution, and that companies marketing to them should maintain clean and safe work environments and operations.
Paula Flores-Gregg, special projects coordinator, United States Environmental Protection Agency Region 6, overseeing the US/Mexico border, echoes the findings. Ms. Flores-Gregg works educating minority groups in the Southwest, which last year included an environmental educational DVD sponsored by Wal-Mart and distributed to Hispanics to celebrate Hispanic Heritage month. She also steers a community outreach program called Beyond Translation to better communicate and work with the local Hispanic community.
Hispanics and many multiethnic groups, she says, put health as their No. 1 priority, and that could include avoiding tainted drinking water or pollution in work and at home. “Their concern is for their health first and foremost,” she says, “and not, ‘are we going to save a wetlands?’”
And while she says she hopes someday to get to the point where she can start talking to these communities about issues such as global warming, she says that overall, they’re not there yet.
In some ways though, she adds, these groups are inherently green because of their culture and low incomes. For instance, new immigrants might be more likely to carpool or conserve energy to avoid high gas or electric bills.
And unlike some marketing trends that have come and gone, Miguel Gomez Winebrenner, senior consultant at marketing consulting firm Cheskin, says this one is here to stay. He calls sustainability and green the new “black” among Hispanics and other ethnic groups.
“I see sustainability as one several trends. It’s not just a fad—it’s going to stick it’s going to change our economy.”
Mr. Gomez Winebrenner says just how well multiethnic groups accept a green marketing message, really depends on “how brands play the sustainability card.”
For instance, he says, a cable company might send out its bill on recycled paper, and people will feel good about subscribing to an earth-friendly company.
Aspirational brands, though, such a retailer that touts the organic fiber in its line of purses, might have a harder time. “I think [marketing aspirational brands] will be a slower trend,” he says. “I think that depends on acculturation and moving up the economic ladder.”
But that’s not to say, it won’t happen. While he hypothesizes that African Americans and Hispanics “haven’t caught the modern aura of sustainability yet, it doesn’t mean that companies can’t do anything about it” by educating them through marketing and making it cool. “There’s so many trends spawned in the U.S.—some of them catch on like wildfire.”