Recently I was on a business trip and couldn’t sleep. I turned on the TV and within the course of 1 hour I spotted 4 commercials for company’s touting how “green” they were. Exxon Mobil, Starbucks, Seven-Eleven and Target each with branding messages espousing the benefits of being green and what a great “green” company they were. I mean who doesn’t want to protect the environment and save precious resources right? Yet this very clever branding is much deeper than that. It is about Affinity Marketing.
Affinity Marketing is basically saying to a group of potential customers or employees: “hey , we are both on the same track here. We both support the same causes and have the same ideals. You should buy our products or work for our company because we’re compadres in a greater cause than ourselves.” Affinity Marketing is nothing new. It has been done in a modern sense for decades. Remember the 1971 Coca Cola commercial where everyone is on a hilltop in flowered shirts singing “I’d like to teach the world to sing…”? They sang alright. They were singing, we are cool. We are groovy. We think like you. Buy our product.
In “Green” branding, the cause is much deeper and the emotions are more well established. Being green is more than being cool. It is a necessity. We MUST protect the planet, stop polluting our rivers and streams and be more conscious about our use of non renewable energy resources.
A study conducted by Harvard concluded that all things being equal, potential employees will choose an employer more than 80% of the time based on its values and social responsibility; even when another company offers more money. That’s astounding and it is precisely why we created the Green Employers Network. The network is not about jobs in renewable energy or solar, though some may be found there. It is about companies communicating to future employees that they get it, that they think like the employee does and they value “green” initiatives.
By placing your employers in the Green Employers Network which consists of Green-Employers.com and GreenEmployers.net, you are helping them brand to future employees. You are giving them an 80% edge when they are competing with other non “green” oriented companies. Let’s face it. Who will be attracted to those job boards? The answer is simple, people that think “green” is something other than the color of money.
One of the world’s largest “Green” organizations is CarbonFund.org and every time you post a job with the Green Employers Network we make a donation on your behalf to this worthy organization. In fact, last year we donated more than $10, 000 to help jump start renewable energy projects.
So the next time you have an employer on the line that would like to hire top notch candidates ask them if they want to be a “green” company, offer them the Green Employers Network and give them a leg up on the competition. They’ll thank you for it and you will be doing your part to help the advertiser, your newspaper, Green Employers and the environment in a very real way!
