Challenges Faced by Large Organizations in Adapting Sustainability
The sustainable marketing skills are the standard skills that have been formed based on the analysis of the sectors where sustainability had a huge influence on the marketing objectives. If any organization is claiming that it is sustainable, it should address all the necessary aspect of the organization. The product manufacturing, service delivery and the organizational operations should be prepared with the aim of sustainability. Once the organization has committed to be a sustainable one, there are some additional costs which sometimes act as a burden for the authority (Varadarajan 2014). Even though some of such activities are self financing, there are always matching cost savings. In order to have the competitive edge in the market, sustainability is mostly seen as the benefit even if most of the activities remain invisible for the clients. However complete sustainability is not necessarily suggested as the values in business world changes continuously (Moriarty et al. 2014). At the realistic level, working towards the sustainable development is more important. However, the organizations should understand that a benefit will be only considered to be a benefit if it has a positive impact on the business performances. Therefore marketers can make their strategies in a way which will satisfy the customers that any of the sustainability claims can be properly substantiated. This essay will discuss the role of marketers and whether they are not putting sufficient effort for directing the target market towards a sustainable development.
The companies tend to determine the business environments for themselves where they operate with the help of optimization of the capital productivity of the specific organization. The profitability of any organization is generally utilized as a short term management tool for achieving the financial objectives (Stoeckl and Luedicke 2015). As marketers, the primary job is to satisfy the customers along with maintaining the financial gain. In addition to that, they are also supposed to ensure that the sustainability claims are being maintained and those are worthwhile. For building the sustainability credentials for the services and products, the marketers require being capable of identifying the brand or the product attributes which are persuasive and valued with the business framework and also embedded within the designs of products (Zeriti et al. 2014). There is always an emerging requirement for the marketers for collaborating and determining the potential ones and the desirable ones. Sustainability is one of the biggest issues that are being targeted by many organizations. Through communications and marketing, the marketing community should take some of the independent initiatives that is related to the information campaign for the business and public, rather than the band or product development. Clearly, it can be said that the through PR and advertising, the marketers need to reach to the customers for driving them towards sustainable consumption.
Opportunities for Small Companies and Factors behind its Choice
However, one of the most significant issues can be considered that the brands are presenting the lifestyle images that need to be associated with the benefits and the price points for their target audience. The marketing opportunities that are mostly offered by the sustainability are considered in a very cautious way by large organizations. They consider this sector to be with possible risk factors for the brand reputation. They mostly fear that if the organization fails to get ample numbers of orders, there may raise numbers of questions regarding their level of justified sustainability claims (Hurth et al. 2015). The benefits that can come from the sustainability claims have not been enumerated because of restricted customer research as the marketers mostly focus on the major factors such as availability, price and service for supporting and securing their market shares. This factor is specifically evident when the companies choose not be provide specific differentiation regarding their sustainability claims (Naderi and Strutton 2015). On the other hand some small companies have already made sustainability a part of their product branding.
Hurth et al. (2015) has claimed that, this is entirely because the larger companies are considering this factor as related to potential risk factors. On the other hand, the small companies can adopt the sustainability opportunity if they identify the market advantage. There are some factors that are behind this choice where the marketers from the small companies are opting for driving their target audience towards the sustainable consumption:
- As they have to deal with a small market penetration, they may have to follow a singular focus strategy, not multiple ones like the larger companies do.
- They are way more agile and they may be capable of adapting the changes with low resistance from the obtainable non-sustainable products and practices in their target market.
- They also become more open to the competitive pricing of the sustainable services and products.
- The small companies are mostly led by the value of their management or directors. If sustainability is included in those values, it is highly possible that the behavior of the business will follow this.
- The small companies are also exposed to the threat exposures.
Johe and Bhullar (2016) has indicated that there are several marketers working for high profile companies that have focused their strategies of market entry and developed their size of market segment and already had a major share of the market on a whole, had impacted the leading brands.
It has also been recognized that the sectors with direct marketing service and consumer retail have taken a lead in terms of representing sustainability as the part of the business and specifically to the brand. These companies are mostly close to the trends related to consumer attitude; therefore they provide the most authentic evidences for carrying out the sustainable market research. Naderi and Strutton (2015) have found out that the most of the decisions taken by the consumers make a great difference for the banking, retailing companies. At the same time retailers also have a significant role for influencing the choices of customers. Therefore, the marketers working for such companies that are selling or capitalizing the products which may have sustainability credentials can satisfy specific demands of customers. M&S have taken a considerable lead with their campaign named ‘Look behind the Label’ where they have been quite careful for not making the sustainability claims, rather they indicated to their huge range of behind the scene activities. Tesco had also made specific claims on some products without even adopting the principles related to sustainability and they have been in a place where the consumers were suspicious of their green wash, even though they have been rated highly for their sustainability investments.
Importance of Sustainable Marketing
There are major drivers for the organizations in order to adapt and converse their sustainability as a major part of their service and product offering. The marketers of such organizations present the policies, emerging attitudes and the buying behavior of the consumers with opportunities and risks. There have always been restricted evidences of the market research on the sustainable behaviors and attitudes of the consumers used for making the business strategies of any organization. No other sector, apart from service and retail sector has shown evidence for triggering the sustainability issues and implementing those on the marketing strategies (Zeriti et al. 2014). There is also very little evidences of the marketers adapting sustainable marketing approaches after giving response to the policy drivers or legislative. This probably reflects the requirement for the companies for complying from a competitive outlook. However inherent cost advantage is not even an option here even though there are few problems over the global competition from the less-synchronized sources. There have been no such examples where marketers are adapting sustainable position due to these sustainability drivers, only with the exception of retail and construction sector.
There have also been little evidences of the strategic and structured approaches adapted by the marketers that acknowledge sustainability. The companies which have already incorporated sustainability in their organizational and marketing culture, it can be understood that it still in the evolutionary stage, rather than a properly planned one, Even if the companies have turned sustainable, they have only done it as a consequence of regulatory compliance (Varadarajan 2014). However, these regulations also have restricted applicability as it is not always possible for regulating majority of the financial activities. Therefore, the culture is not being able to enable the spill over in other activities.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, it can be said that the companies have only been engaged with sustainability where it has already reached a crucial mess of different activities that are adequate for many questions rising for giving sufficient explanation for their approach. Probably, it can be said that sustainability can never be asserted, but an organization can claim that they are making considerable progress in this matter. This can also be considered as a journey or an evolutionary procedure that are to be achieved with the course of time. For instance the ‘look behind the label’ campaign was considered more of an evolutionary procedure than any strategic development. If any large company is creating any marketing campaign, they purposely do not do much for driving it towards the sustainable consumption, as this has a huge impact on their financial activities and can any day influence the business fundamentals.
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