Marketing the Green concept!!

This article comes on the backdrop of the just concluded UN Climate summit at Copenhagen. Given all the hype which had surrounded the event, it BASICally boiled down to an informal deal between the US and the 4 countries under the banner BASIC namely Brazil, South Africa, India and China. During the summit, a lot of negativity surfaced out of the negotiations which happened between countries. With each country and each block looking after its own interests, the global warming concept and the marketing of a greener world took a backseat. So why did all the massive marketing for the green concept end in a non commensurate result at Copenhagen?

Firstly, from pure marketing terms, what happens when the product you are marketing doesn't really strike a chord with your target segment, a segment which has enough power to provide you that push or destroy you completely? Simple, your product will fail or it will take an enormous amount of convincing that the product will affect their lives. A similar analogy can be presented here. There is no doubt that if there is going to be a climate deal, the US will have to play a big role. However, given the fact that the President and the US Congress are 2 power centres and the the President not having power to commit anything without the consent of the Congress, it becomes a difficult proposition to envisage a gloabal deal. Moreover, when the US people are not experiencing any climate problems attributed to golbal warming, there is not enough pressure on the government to even think of a deal seriously.

The global warming and the rise in temparature is a simple product which is marketed well to push for carbon emission cuts from the developed and the developing countries. But therein lies a problem of customization. When a company launches a particular product and different sections of the public find different problems with it and ask for appropriate changes which will destroy the core values of the product, the product eventually fails to click and becomes a deadlock. Doesn't it seem so familiar with what happened at Copenhagen? A sharp contrast with Kyoto reveals that countries then were negotiating their stand properly and saw a common path that they could tread on. However, at Copenhagen, no country was ready to listen and there was more or less one way communication. The Green concept never really emerged in all the secondary politics and vested interests. The product eventually failed for the time being.

There is always a conflict between the short term and long term. A similar thing can be said about the price. There were always huge costs to be involved when discussing a situation such as global warming and carbon emission cuts. Rich countries had to decide between the costs of technology transfer and the long term emission cuts. They invariably went for the former as illustrated in the Kyoto Protocol. However, what the world needs to learn is that thinking about the long term is crucial now. Burdening the future generations with the faults of the present one would be catastrophic and irreversible. Countries such as the US who have thought only about the short term benefits and losses as far as climate change is concerned need to seriously do a rethink as future climate changes can severely hamper economic performace of each of its trading partners.

To conclude, one needs to hope that better sense and a concerted global effort prevails at the next summit in Mexico. Although the colour green is associated with slow paced and decsion averse personality, one needs quick results at the next summit. The green marketing is not only a campaign, its a value proposition which cannot be ignored, a product which cannot be allowed to fail else the price which we and the future would encurr would be massive. Let us be good sons of the country, Lets be good marketers, lets fight Global warming.