In many supermarkets, next to the bottle with the well-known Persil detergent, there is similar packaging with a slightly lighter content. It also contains heavy-duty detergent from the Persil brand. According to the labeling including the blue environmental angel, however, a more environmentally friendly one with “80 percent natural-based ingredients” and “100 percent Persil performance”.
The two products of the Dax group Henkel provoke questions: If the more environmentally friendly gel really washes just as well as the conventional one, why is Persil still offering the old gel at all? Or does the eco-recipe “Green Power” leave stains behind? And how harmful to the environment does the classic gel have to be if an eco version is used alongside it? Can you still be responsible for buying such a product?
The group replies that both products provide comparable performance at the same recommended price – and that the standard gel is also more sustainable than previous products. Persil wants to fulfill “various customer requests”. But Henkel does not explain how customers keep track of things.
The Persil dilemma illustrates a problem in the efforts of consumer goods companies to operate more sustainably. Actually, the expectation of the managers was that customers would prefer to buy organic products – and at best would be happy to pay a little more. The customers would have financed the changeover to more sustainable management for the corporations.
But that’s not how it happened. Market researchers have found that although surveys show consumers want sustainability, they tend to buy more on the supermarket shelf based on price and habit – the older they are, the more often.
Offers that are aggressively advertised as sustainable are often even a deterrent. As with Persil Green Power, they disrupt the unconscious buying impulse. This can lead to customers switching to another brand – or not buying anything.
“For consumers who have to sacrifice a sustainable lifestyle in order to get there with limited time and budget, this can create feelings of guilt and frustration,” warn experts from the Kearney consultancy in a study. Her advice to manufacturers and retailers: They should use subtle coercion to foist more sustainable products on consumers.
One key to this is to remove non-sustainable products from the range. Kearney expert Katie Thomas analyzes that consumers are simply too lazy to change their behavior – even if they actually want to do so: “It therefore helps consumers to achieve their goals if we simply remove bad options.”
An action by force is considered to be exemplary. The food maker quietly changed the recipe of its US best-selling Mac
In this way, Kraft was able to avoid criticism from regular customers, since they had already eaten the mixture according to the new recipe without noticing it – and therefore could not get angry about supposed taste changes. In the past, such protests had even forced global corporations like Coca-Cola to withdraw well-intentioned changes.
However, the secret approach goes against a basic principle that food lobbyists bring up against regulation: The PR departments, for example at Coca-Cola, always emphasize offering more and more sugar-free drinks – as a healthier option alongside the classics, which are thus shielded from criticism must. Lobby groups such as the Markenverband also rely on the argument of free choice, for example to avoid advertising bans on sweets.
“We recognize that the very idea of ’enforcing’ consumer choices is sacrilege to almost everything we think we know about retail,” admits Thomas. From their point of view, however, the new strategy solves a conflict: while the older, affluent target groups cling to the old products and associate eco-labels with poorer taste or less effect, the younger generation is particularly sensitive to environmental and social standards.
New brands such as the start-up Everdrop, which offers cleaning agents in effervescent tablets without plastic packaging, are attracting such customers. The traditional brands are in danger of losing support among the younger generation if they keep the traditional products unchanged, warns consumer expert Jim Doucette from EY. In a survey conducted by the consultancy, 24 percent of consumers say they avoid at least one brand because of poor sustainability.
This means: In order to remain attractive to new customers, the manufacturers have to expect changes from their regular customers – if possible without friction. One way is not to advertise the topic of sustainability in the mass market even if the new products are better in this respect – but rather to praise improved taste or cleaning effect.
In this way, the manufacturers do not confuse regular customers in the store, but can show progress in sustainability reports. These are relevant not only for eco-conscious consumers, but also for shareholders. “In order to do justice to this complexity, the majority of our member companies formulate their own sustainability goals and pursue them as part of special programs,” confirms the Industry Association for Personal Care and Detergents.
The problem: consumers who are particularly interested in sustainability can hardly tell which manufacturer is doing particularly well. The negative examples tend to be anchored in the minds of consumers.
This brings some companies to drastic measures. Nestlé, always a target of critics, took the water brand Vittel from the German market – ostensibly to focus on premium brands. However, industry experts assume that Nestlé is reacting to the constant criticism that the group is damaging the water supply at the French source. At Unilever, too, the real reason for parting with the mini salami brand Bifi a few years ago was the fear of becoming involved in one of the scandals in the meat industry.