As a company offering clean technology products, you may have a great story about how your product is better for the environment than your competitors’ offerings. But, if your message does not resonate with your target market, it will fall on deaf ears. How do you get your cleantech message across when environmental benefits are not of primary, secondary or even tertiary importance to your target – especially if you, personally, think they should be? Should you evangelize the environmental benefits with the hope of changing your customers’ value systems? Most for-profit companies would not undertake such a quixotic quest. This sort of values evangelism is even more doomed to failure when you are selling to a market segment where you already have a strong market position and an established track record and brand. The Lexus hybrid marketing team takes an interesting approach to this dilemma. They acknowledge that their affluent customers do not want to sacrifice design, quality, performance or luxury when buying a hybrid vehicle. In an interview with CleanTech WebLog last week, Lexus marketing manager, Kimberley Gardiner, told us that her customers’ “luxury car needs must be met, first and foremost.” After that, the customers are willing to entertain other benefits such as lower emissions, higher gas mileage and fewer trips to the gas station. The Lexus hybrid tagline -- “gives more to the driver, takes less from the world” -- embodies this priority of perceived values. Once Lexus customers are engaged in a dialogue about the environmental benefits of choosing a Lexus hybrid, they may begin to explore other aspects of what Lexus calls “Hybrid Living” or how they can “minimize their impact on the environment without sacrificing comfort and luxury.” This seems to build on the idea that when you buy a Lexus, you are buying more than a car. You are making a “lifestyle purchase.” So, Lexus has created a lifestyle website, Lexus Hybrid Living that highlights “luxury ecodesign,” covering eight different product categories from architecture and art to travel, food and wine. Of course, transportation, featuring Lexus hybrid vehicles, is one of those categories. The site displays high production values, with luscious photos and video. It serves up the environmental message in a way that is informative, entertaining and palatable to the affluent Lexus target customer. In tone, it is quite consistent with the Lexus rewards program that is open to all Lexus owners – not just hybrid owners. Perhaps the Hybrid Living website will change the behavior or impact the values of some of the Lexus hybrid vehicle owners. But those changes do not have to happen before the consumer purchases the product. Because Lexus knows its customers and understands their needs and wants, the company can speak to them in a way that will actually be received. The “values evangelism,” if you choose to call it that, is soft-peddled, not preachy, inviting, not strident. Over the long haul, it just may have a small, positive impact on the values of a group of consumers with significant purchasing power. Lexus has found a way to tailor its cleantech messages to its target market by focusing on how environmental messages best fit into its customers' needs and perspectives -- a lesson to us all.

Tags: go to market strategy, Green Marketing, green opportunity

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