Reaching the LOHAS Consumer

Here are some interesting demographics regarding the size, media habits and location of Americans concerned with issues of sustainability and health. The all important LOHAS segment (acronym for Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) represents a $200 billion rapidly growing market for goods and services that appeal to consumers who have a meaningful sense of environmental and social responsibility and incorporate those values into their purchase decisions. According to Ad Age, the nation's shelves will be stocked with more than 1,500 new products featuring green messages by the end of this year.

This is what the consumer environment, based on environmental values looks like*:

• LOHAS (19% of U.S. adults): LOHAS consumers are dedicated to personal and planetary health. Not only do they make environmentally friendly purchases, they are active stewards of the environment.

• NATURALITES (15% of U.S. adults): This segment has a strong personal health focus through consumables. NATURALITES are not, however, as committed to the environment nor driven to purchase eco-friendly durable goods.

• DRIFTERS (25% of U.S. adults): These consumers have good intentions, but factors other than the environment influence their actual behavior. They are, however, driven to sustainability based on the trendiness of the topic.

• CONVENTIONALS (24% of U.S. adults): This very practical segment doesn‟t have far-reaching green attitudes, but they do have environmental behaviors such as recycling and energy conservation.

• UNCONCERNED (17% of U.S. adults): Simply put, the environment is not a priority to consumers in this segment.

The NATURALITES are an interesting niche - a group that has a strong personal health focus but are not driven to purchase eco-friendly products. This is likely a group we’ll see more and more products targeted at with messaging around simplicity and transparency of ingredients. For example, in March 2009, Haagen-Dazs launched a new premium product line called Five. Five was developed with fewer, more recognizable ingredients (the name reflects the number of ingredients in the product: milk, cream, sugar, eggs and a natural flavor such as vanilla bean.) In just eight months, Five sales have grown to account for 10% of Haagen-Dazs business.

In terms of targeted media vehicles, it is interesting to note that the LOHAS segment are heavy users of both magazine and the Internet, while NATURALITES under-index in heavy usage of the internet but are heavy TV users.

Profile of LOHAS Consumers Heavy Media Usage
	% more likely to be a heavy media user
	LOHAS	NATURALITES
Heavy Magazine User	+16%	+6%
Heavy TV User	-23%	+6%
Heavy Internet User	+21%	-10%
Source: MRI 2009 Survey of the American Consumer

And if you ever wonder what the top DMAs for buying organic food are, here they are:

Top 10 DMAs in which reside adults who buy foods labeled natural or organic:

1. San Diego, Calif.

2. Seattle/ Tacoma

3. Philadelphia

4. San Francisco/ Oakland/ San Jose

5. Washington, D.C. (Hagerstown, Md.)

6. Portland, Ore.

7. Denver

8. Baltimore

9. Sacramento/ Stockton/ Modesto, Calif.

10. Colorado Springs/ Pueblo, Colo.


* source: MRI

Brands - the sticky factor

In my last post on t-Mobile's “Liverpool Station Dance” (aka flash-mob), one of the questions I asked was around the stickiness of the t-Mobile ad. Would viewers notice and, more importantly remember that it was a t-Mobile ad? Since then, I came across an interesting snippet from Martin Lindstrom who reports on brands for Ad Age. He did a piece on what works (or not), in large-scale advertising campaigns and presented some of the conclusions from a research project using “neuro-marketing” – a type of brain scan where participants are exposed to marketing and communications stimuli.

According to the results of this study in which 2000 people participated, it seems that most product placement and sponsorships do not work. For a brand to be effective, Lindstrom suggests, you need an integrated approach to storytelling. You also need to be relevant and consistent in your message in order to help consumers store brands in their long term memory.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1370868150/bctid9433620001

To summarize, his key findings are as follows:

1. Logos alone don’t create any consumer awareness and in fact can create consumer suspicion. This is bad news for the billboard industry or sponsorships that basically sell you ad space where your logo is a dominant part of the medium. (It seems the Pepsi folks aren’t aware of this research as they are relying heavily on outdoor to launch their updated “smile logo” with words like “Change”, “Hope” and “Yes you Can”)

In the t-Mobile spot, the logo is the last thing you see, almost like production credits with t-Mobile’s distinguishing jingle/sign-off. Very subtle but perhaps also very effective. It begs the question at the end of the Liverpool Station Dance video – who made this cool thing?? Thus allowing the viewer to discover the advertiser vs being bombarded with logos.

Guess who else is using this strategy? Hint: it starts with a G.

2. Brands need to be put into a relevant context and you need to be consistent. The key, however, is that the storyline needs be told in an indirect way and the story needs to be incorporated into all you do – live what you say versus “all hat no cattle” as they say in Texas.

t-Mobile has created a powerful platform for “Life is for Sharing”. Isn’t it wonderful that you can capture a spontaneous moment and share it with your friends and family through the phone? And think about the cool ways they can build on this idea in an integrated and fun fashion.

3. In-direct signals like colour, shapes and sound are more powerful memory triggers than logos. Ten out of ten for t-Mobile.

What about Pepsi?? (Not that I wanted this post to be a t-Mobile vs Pepsi discussion – Pepsi deserves it’s own post). Let it suffice to say that Pepsi has spent a ton of $$ launching the new logo as part of their “Refresh” campaign. I’m not sure that using words like “Hope” and “Change”, (words also heralded by the Obama campaign) are inspiring when juxtaposed besides a revamped Pepsi logo. And while the music track of the now infamous Super Bowl Pepsi ad is catchy, seeing a Dylan selling his once youthful and rebellious soul to a soft drink company feels a little like Joan Baez being the spokesperson for Sleep Number beds - incongruent in a "doesn’t sit right kind of way".

What do you think?