Pam Danziger, the head of the Unity Marketing Company and the author of “Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience,” is an active proponent of a new kind of luxury consumers – the “greens.”
According to her, the modern consumer looking to go green is increasingly likely to be an affluent professional woman wearing an eco-friendly and animal-free Stella McCartney suit.
And if you want her money and her loyalty, you need to pay attention to the priorities she finds important when making her selection of luxury goods and services.
Green luxury consumers look for social responsibility before making a purchase.
According to Unity Marketing’s latest trend report on luxury, “Green Marketing and the Luxury Consumer,” luxury consumers are concerned about the environmental issues that hit closest to home, citing fuel and energy shortages and the use of renewable energy sources as top concerns.
However, luxury consumers are also looking beyond their pocketbooks to larger issues, like protecting the environment, global warming and avoiding water and air pollution. And the leaders on these issues are affluent women. In all of the green issues studied by Unity Marketing, women popped as being much more concerned than men. This is an important signal for luxury marketers to sit up and take notice, as women are often the major shoppers for a family, making the primary decisions about the products and services the family will purchase. For luxury consumers, an increasing number are looking to a company’s environmental practices before making a purchase.
A lot of marketers are skeptical about the green trend. Danziger is convinced that this issue is only going to gain momentum in the future, with the affluent consumers in particular taking the lead as early adopters of green living.
So the call is for luxury brands to connect with their customers who are increasingly green aware by making green marketing a part of their strategy. Luxury marketers can learn by studying trend-setters who are creating a dedicated following among green-living luxury consumers.
As is reported, thanks to a new public-service announcement airing on cable television and online, consumer awareness of the Diamond Empowerment Fund (a non-profit organization established by Russell Simmons) has grown exponentially in a matter of weeks.
The announcement was created pro-bono by J. Walter Thompson advertising agency and supported with $1 million of airtime donated by De Beers. It was launched June 23 on a variety of national cable channels. Additionally, the spot can be seen online on YouTube.
Since that time traffic to the Fund’s Web site has increased by 2,000 percent, says Ellen Haddigan, the Fund’s executive director.
Additionally, CPX interactive, an on-line advertising agency, provided pro bono banner ads for the Fund. When clicked, the ads took people directly to the public-service announcement, embedded in the Fund’s Web site.
The public-service announcement was also posted on Russell Simmons’s MySpace page.
The Birmingham Assay Office will stage “The Great Debate” during the International Jewellery London on September 3, 2008. The Assay office “continues to be concerned about ethical, humanitarian and social issues associated with the jewellery trade and is keen that these be confronted and the challenges met in a transparent way.”
“This house believes that the global jewellery industry will deliver an ethically responsible supply chain in line with consumer demand,” the Assay Office announced.
Marion Wilson, sales and marketing director, said, “Our concern is twofold. We would like to think we operate within an industry which acts responsibly with regards to ethical, humanitarian and environmental issues. We are also concerned that jewellers meet increasing consumer demand for evidence that their products have been produced responsibly. If they don’t it could be very damaging to the jewellery trade as a whole.
We are delighted that Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham, Minister for Trade and Investment has agreed to chair the debate. His presence demonstrates the importance of these issues and we are guaranteed a lively discussion with Lord Jones in the Chair.”
Swiss watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre started its cooperation with actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio within a fund-raising program to the benefit of his green activity.
The “Time to Care” program developed to support the Leonardo DiCaprio Fund will be engaged in selling two unique timepieces in the fall of 2008, the brand’s press release says.
Both will be the first of a limited series of watches that feature technology never used before. All 100% of proceeds will go to the Leonardo DiCaprio Fund.
The watches will be presented exclusively at the new Jaeger-LeCoultre Boutiques in Boca Raton and Beverly Hills, scheduled to open in summer and fall of this year, respectively.
The longstanding efforts of Jaeger-LeCoultre to preserve the environment drew its attention to the environment protection activity by the Leonardo DiCaprio Fund from its establishment in 1998.
Jaeger-LeCoultre has formalized its sustainable growth initiatives into a comprehensive working plan, called “Making Time More Beautiful.”
Additional substantive initiatives are to be implemented in the months ahead, including recycling and only using recyclable paper goods, a company transport system for employees and a number of carbon-offsetting measures.
JCKOnline is afraid the jewelry industry, which recently survived the problems aroused by “Blood Diamond,” may face a new challenge from the film industry about to launch a “Sopranos” (a famous serial depicting the U.S. mafia) styled TV series dedicated to the diamond industry.
As reported by Rob Bates, apparently, AMC – the cable channel that brings you “Mad Men” – is making a pilot of “Ice,” a weekly drama set in the diamond district, for consideration in 2009.
“There’s an old-fashioned crime aspect to this,” AMC executive Christina Wayne said. “The diamond industry has always been considered incredibly dangerous. This is a way to do a family drama set in a distinctive world.”
Well, it is indeed dangerous, but in the sense that there is always a danger of being robbed. If she means dangerous and “old fashioned crime” in the “Blood Diamond” sense, we could have a problem here, Bates says.
Reportedly, this show was pitched to HBO at one point. There was no deal with AMC yet. But if it will happen, this probably won’t be a good kind of news for the industry definitely in need of consumer attention.
