Actually, if it sounds like anything, it sounds like maybe they specialize in the fine art of the corporate greenwash...
Chris Turner
November 27, 2008 8:00 AM
Change is a boutique marketing firm based in Vancouver – or, as per its requisite website mission statement, “a green branding and communications company.” Sounds pretty hazy. Actually, if it sounds like anything, it sounds like maybe they specialize in the fine art of the corporate greenwash. And if you merely glanced at their latest piece of work, a marketing study called “MapChange,” you might find such a prejudice confirmed.
I’m about to suggest that there might be more to Change – and “MapChange” – than that, but first I’ve got to unpack a bit of marketing-biz wonkery. Bear with me.
Okay. So “MapChange” is a “classic perceptual map” – a tool used by marketers to measure consumer perceptions of their products. In this case, the study gauged the “actual” vs. “perceived” sustainability of 20 major Canadian and international brands. Each brand was graded on 50 objective, yes-or-no criteria (everything from whether the company’s CEO had “identified” sustainability “as a priority” to whether it submits to a third-party audit of its environmental impact), and then 2,000-plus Canadians were surveyed as to their perceptions of the sustainability of each brand.
The result was an intriguing muddle. Toyota, buoyed by the walk-the-walk rep it’s earned via Prius sales, scored No. 1 on the perception scale, even though GM actually scored three places ahead of Toyota on the actual scale, with the highest marks in the whole field on the sustainability scorecard. (GM ranked 18th out of the 20 companies on the perception scale.) In a similar vein, trendy, progressively branded Apple ranked far better than sweatshop-tainted Nike on the perception scale – No. 5 vs. No. 17 – even though the two companies scored almost the exact inverse on the actual scale (Nike was No. 5, Apple was No. 15).
“There are many surprises,” the report concluded, “that suggest that better action doesn’t equal better perception. In general, there is a randomness to the findings that suggest very few brands have successfully branded sustainability.”
