In Joel Makeower’s book, “Strategies for the Green Economy,” the author breaks down Green Consumers into the following categories:

(34%) “Bright Greens”: highly engaged but skeptical

(10%) “Green Motivated”: likely to accept corporate green programs at face value

(26%) “Green Hypocrites”: love to talk about green but don’t go even slightly out of their way for it

(19%) “Green Ignorants”: don’t know, don’t care

(11%) “Dull Greens”: not explained in the book

Do Hispanic mothers use green products? How do their attitudes about sustainability compare with those of non-Hispanic mothers? In a new study by ResearchAndMarkets (www.researchandmarkets.com/research/385ed1/marketing_to_hispa), entitled, “Marketing to Hispanic Moms in the United States 2008,” the authors attempt to answer these questions. I’m waiting to get my hands on the report and will publish the answers as soon as possible.

In his new book, Business Stripped Bare (2008), Branson gives a nod to PR:

Publicity is absolutely critical. You have to get your brand out and about, particularly if you’re a consumer-oriented brand. You have to be willing to use yourself, as well as your advertising budget, to get your brand on the map. A good PR story is infintely more effective than a full-page ad, and a damn sight cheaper. I have an absolute rule. If CNN rings me up and wants to do an interview with me, I’ll drop everything to do it.”

Guess I have job security …

THE GREEN OPPORTUNITY, by Jennifer Kaplan.

A work in-progress, Kaplan is putting the finishing touches on her guide to going green for the small business owner who is looking to be cutting-edge, competitive, profitable, and eco-conscious (should be available next year).

The author, a professor of Marketing at Marymount University, is founder of Greenhance, a consulting firm for small business owners who want to incorporate green strategies into everything from recycling and cutting energy costs to green marketing and green employee benefits. (Prentice-Hall/Penguin, 2009)

There are some new consumer-friendly, video-sharing sites out there focused exclusively on eco-only video material – sites like www.EcoLive.tv, www.GoGreenTube.com and www.GreenTV.com. Is your company Web ad posted here? Actually, did you know they even existed?

Just when you thought it was safe to start touting your company as eco-friendly, consumers and organizations are beginning to create tools to cut through the clutter — and this explains the Rise of the Anti-Greenwashing Website.   

These outlets are giving consumers a chance to voice their opinions about your marketing ethics. Has your company been blacklisted on http://greenworldads.blogspot.com or www.greenwashingindex.com?

Are you called out on Greenpeace’s www.stopgreenwash.org? As to be expected with modern public relations, consumer marketing is a two-way street — that is, consumers will ‘talk back’ and any dissonance between reality and ‘image marketing’ will eventually backfire. So, advertisers beware!

A Greenwashing Index? Green Business Beware

Check out www.GreenWashingIndex.com – home of the “world’s first online interactive forum” that allows consumers to evaluate real advertisements making environmental claims. Since “Going green” has become mainstream for businesses, these guys want to hold green business accountable — and you better be careful what you communicate or the people may have their say. The Greenwashing Index is an automated tool that “provides five simple criteria developed by advertising academia and weighted according to their relevance in marketing claims.”

So, the next time you decide to run that ad, you might want to run it through this little scrubber. Hey, does the same thing exist for press releases?

While people are debating the rise (or even the existence) of the new Green Collar demographic in America, Consumer Reports came down on the side of — not really sure.

“There is no official ‘green-collar’ worker definition just as there isn’t for other commonly cited terms, such as white collar and ‘blue collar,” says Bureau of Labor Statistics spokesman Gary Steinberg. “One sees green collar and green jobs increasingly used in public discourse, but because of the criteria limitations discussed above, we cannot at this time make any official assessments about the extent of such employment or its impacts on the overall economy.”

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/home/2008/08/green-collar.html