As part of BrightTalk's Green Week, I tuned in yesterday to an interesting webcast by Lucy Shea, CEO of Futerra on 'Green Messaging and Marketing'.

Futerra are specialists in behaviour change communications and long-time advisers to Governments around the world on their climate change campaigns. I love their work.

In the webcast Lucy took the opportunity to remind everyone of the overwhelming importance of setting clear, measurable, strategic and tactical objectives before launching into any sort of communications campaign, before explaining again two areas of Futerra's work which I'd like to mention here.

The first is a very simple but helpful way of beginning to segment audiences.

It's no substitute for proper market research, but this sort of segmentation can help kickstart your communications planning by helping you to understand the range of potential reactions to your green messages.

Futerra has taken inspiration from the work of Cultural Dynamics (CDSM) and CDSM's concept of 'Values Modes'. The Values Modes categorise people into 12 discrete psychographic types within three general groups ('Settlers', 'Pioneers' and 'Prospectors').

Sounds a bit dry and academic I know, but bear with me - it's marketing dynamite.

Understanding these types of people and their motivations is very important to anyone who wants to sell stuff or create a communications campaign that raises awareness, changes hearts and minds and effects behavioural change. As CDSM explains:

"The Values Modes help to explain WHY people do the things and make the choices that they do."

As I heard the Futerra folk explain at Ecobuild, and as Lucy reinforced yesterday, Futerra has used this work to create its own catchy set of marketing groups:

• They start by describing what they call the 'Brick Wedge' (CDSM's 'Settlers'). These are the 'small world thinkers', people who care passionately about local community issues (parks, neighbours, dog fouling etc.) and work hard at making better environments for themselves and others. They probably don't think they have much, if any, impact on the global scene for good or ill. They want answers, not more questions. They tend to be suspect of change, think things were better in the past, and care about being good home-makers. And it's not just a middle class tendency - disadvantaged kids in inner city estates are often brick wedgers.

• At the other end of the spectrum is the 'Green Wedge' (CDSM's 'Pioneers'). These are the 'big world thinkers', people who are deeply concerned with the big global issues of environmental sustainability. They are more likely to worry about the impact of glacial retreat than the state of the local park. They were the first into recycling - they're now cutting consumption and composting. Driven by a strong moral imperative, the cost of green makes very little difference to them - they do it because it's the right thing to do. They are suspect of cool and anything too commercial (witness the Deep Greenies' grumbles about this year's Ecobuild exhibition).

• Potentially most interesting of all is the 'Gold Wedge' (CDSM's 'Prospectors'). These are the 'outer directed' folk, ultimately motivated most by what other people will think of them (although they would never admit or articulate it like that). They are optimistic, ambitious and savvy. They like change because it's cool, but it has to be visibly cool, desirable and high status (on their terms, not yours). Needless to say, they tend to be the high spenders.

The key point to remember here is that messages for one group will not cross over to another.

This explains why PR campaigns by sustainability experts (very often the green 'pioneers') don't seem to have much impact on builders (very often 'settlers' in outlook). It explains why your communications need to be targeted. Or, if you want mass market business, need to appeal to all.

Lucy also gave some good pointers for green messages that succeed better than others. To paraphrase her advice:

1. Keep messages positive and high status.
2. Keep language very simple, and make clear and direct requests ("walk on the path" rather than "help respect your environment").
3. Balance your message - the scale of the green solution you offer has to be proportionate to the scale of the problem (that's why turning down a thermostat doesn't seem to sound credible advice when you've told people it's to help tackle global climate change).
4. Use pictures and case studies to create empathy and emotion, both very powerful tools.
5. Remember: seeing is believing. Make it tangible, show the evidence.

In passing, Lucy made an interesting point about why so many energy efficiency campaigns tend to fail - they breach the golden rule that we must never use messaging that attacks home or family. It's a huge turn-off. Those advertisements of unhappy houses with "my owners don't care about me or my energy use" type messages are not likely to get us on side.

Finally, Lucy took the opportunity to plug Futerra's report 'Sell the Sizzle' - and I'm doing the same now! It's a document I have sent as recommended reading to all our clients interested in sustainability communications. (Download a PDF of 'Sell the Sizzle' here).

In a nutshell, the report makes a very simple point. If you want to achieve emotional buy-in to green messages, you must first sell the sizzle - show people the exciting, positive vision of how things could be different, the benefits they could enjoy, the way life could be better. Only then can you explain the issues/problems, and the choices that people have to make on the road to achieving this vision.

But I admit this is a very simplistic overview, so I shall explain more about Sizzle in a later blog post.

For now I recommend Lucy's webcast and welcome your thoughts on the Values Modes. By the way, apparently I'm a 'Transcender' which sounds rather nice. You can check out your own personal Values Mode by taking this quick test on CDSM's website.

You may already be familiar with Defra’s Green Claims Code. For 10 years it has set out best practice on the content of environmental claims including accuracy, truthfulness, relevance, use of unambiguous terminology, presentation of claims and comparative claims. 

About a year ago I blogged that Defra was consulting on an update to its guidance - well, the final consultation paper is now published. It is open for comment until 15 June this year.

I will put in a response. I'm very likely to echo the views of the great people at Futerra who have pointed out how toothless the guidance appears to be. (Read also this viewpoint by Fred Pearce in the Guardian).

But in the meantime, a flurry of new rules and guidance has emerged this year to help us understand what more we need to do to promote our green credentials in a way that guarantees greater credibility, consumer protection and social responsibility.

In January the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) published a framework and practical checklist for Responsible Environmental Marketing Communications (PDF).

The influential Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) also published its new codes just weeks ago. They bring in additional explicit rules designed to prevent exaggerated environmental promises by products, services and organisations.

The new CAP codes come into effect this September and will be regulated by the Advertising Standards Authority. They state that advertisers must ensure all environmental claims are crystal clear to consumers and all absolute claims must be backed by a “high level of substantiation”. We must acknowledge areas where scientific opinion is divided. We must also base environmental claims on the full lifecycle of the product.

It’s not just about standalone statements in some advertising copy. Linking a single, truthful claim (“we use natural paint to ensure no volatile organic compounds...”) with a broader claim (“Acme Homes are kinder to the planet…”) is likely to get us into hot water.  Even a scientifically accurate claim can be misleading if, taken out of context, it implies or omits something relevant.

The rules apply over all paid-for media, and even to websites and social media. 

And it goes well beyond what words we use – green claims can include pictures, colours and logos as well. 

PR consultants like myself may breathe a sign of relief that, technically, we’re immune - neither the CAP nor the ICC codes apply directly to ‘corporate communications’.  We argue that PR about a company’s aspirations and sustainability initiatives, its annual reports or CSR statements are usually provided in a context that will ensure there is no confusion with advertising claims. And anyway, we mutter, the media loves absolutes and hyperbole and has no time for all this qualified language.

However, we would be daft not to take on board every one of these new rules. 

It’s not as if it’s all so alien – the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) published guidelines on communicating about sustainability two years ago.

Green marketing is no different from regular marketing.  Business ethics still hold. Waging war on little green lies will protect corporate reputations, build more confident businesses and counter the cynics out to knock the industry.

10 top tips to avoid greenwash

1. If you talk about sustainability, energy,  waste, water, raw materials, noise,  air quality, global warming, greenhouse gases, wildlife, human health, toxins or other environmental topics in your marketing and PR, make sure you read up on the new codes and international standards like ISO 14021 which clarify requirements on environmental labelling.
2. Do an audit. Check the words, the pictures, the colours, the logos. 
3. Look at everything through the eyes of your most cynical competitor. Then apply what I call the Mum Test (would a “reasonable consumer” understand what this claim really means?)
4. Watch out for words like ‘reduced energy’, ‘reduced waste’ etc. Always make it clear what has been reduced.  Only make a feature of it if it has resulted in a significant environmental improvement taking all aspects of life cycle into account.
5. Verify as much as you can.  At the bottom of your advertisements, press releases and marketing literature, provide links to a section on your website where you publish the independent scientific evidence that backs up your claim.
6. Not everything has to have a full dossier addressing every conceivable impact of the product on the environment, but the greater the value being placed on the claim, the more robust verification needs to be.
7. If you’re planning a major campaign to promote your green credentials, first do some thorough consumer testing and perception research.
8. Reassess your claims regularly. Check whether circumstances have changed or what the latest scientific and technical evidence says.
9. Communicate the journey, not just the end result.  No one expects you to be zero carbon today. But you can gain respect by honestly communicating what actions have been carried out to help you work towards it.
10. Make sure your PR, advertising and digital marketing agencies understand the technical details.  No more fluff.  Demand compliance with the new legal requirements and best practice in communicating about sustainability.

PS. Need more advice? Check out my earlier blog posts on the '10 steps to absolution' from the 'Six Sins of Greenwashing'!

I was asked by an editor to give some thought to what makes for good marketing and business in the face of another year of hardship in the building and construction industry. So below are my 5 Tell-Tale Signs of what, in my humble opinion and my experience of two severe industry recessions, mark out the winners from the losers.

You can also read our 'Seven Day Plan' (top tips for a week's worth of things companies can do to improve their marketing and communications) in today's TTJ magazine - see page 22.

What would you add to this list? Please do drop me a comment below.

1.  Winners invest in relationships
… and they invest in the people who forge these relationships. They listen closely to the sales team and front line staff, and are passionate about little things that make a big difference.  They find time for real conversations. 

2.  Winners wear their customers’ socks
They keep looking outwards, eyes firmly on the horizon.  They actually know more about their customers’ businesses than they know about their competitors (never the other way around). They prioritise market research and market intelligence, have a powerful contacts database or CRM system, and they could make spookily well-informed guesses about the issues that will be discussed at their customers’ next Board meetings.  They sell solutions, not materials with a mark-up.

3.  Winners don’t let the stress show
In recessions, customers need a lot of reassurance.  Winners always stay true to their corporate values and keep communicating.  They remain easy to do business with. They are seen to treat people well.  They pay on time. They bring their best suppliers much closer to the business so that people are more willing to go that extra mile for them.  Word soon gets out that this is a confident company that you want on your side in rocky times.

4.  Winners keep their heads above the parapet
A big part of building confidence is about maintaining visibility – particularly through cost-effective tools like PR, awards, networking events, online communications and social media.  They don’t spend loads but are highly targeted and focused and they integrate all these marketing activities very tightly together so they squeeze out every ounce of value.

5.  Winners just get on with it
Recessions don’t last forever – this time next year the market will be entirely different, and to be honest the most successful clients we are working with today have been vigorously lobbying, meeting journalists, manoeuvring into position and shaping that market since last January. They are much more likely to say “we never waste a good crisis” than “let’s put that on hold until we see what happens after the election”.