When Yvonne Kehl told her daughter, Autumn Hill, she was laid off from the job she’d held for 23 years with a Fox Valley manufacturer, she didn’t get the kind of sympathy she would normally expect.

“Now we can start a business,” Autumn said enthusiastically.

That was in 2004, and Hill explains, she was just trying to put a positive spin on her mother’s bad news that day.

The “positive spin” led to Autumn Hill Creative, a Kimberly green marketing and communications firm owned by the two women. It does Web site development, marketing and media strategies, graphic design and printing and sells promotional products. Six years after its founding, the firm’s sales have reached $200,000 and the employment totals five persons. Last year, the two women introduced a line of environmental promotional products under the name Viva El Verde (Translation: Long live green.).

Many environmentalists cringe at the term “green marketing” due to greenwashing, the attempt to clean up an environmental bad performer’s image with slick public relations or ads. The term conjures up the green claims of Detroit automakers
producing gas-guzzling SUVs or bottled water purveyors touting the greenness of using less plastic in the plastic cap on its plastic bottles. 

That’s not what Autumn Hill Creative is about. While there is no certification for green marketers, Autumn Hill was judged to be legitimate by the Midwest Renewable Energy Association, says Doug Stingle, program director for MREA. In fact, the association permitted Hill and Kehl to give the fair’s first green marketing presentations at its fair in Custer this summer.

How does green marketing work?  Autumn Hill Creative develops materials for clients that appeal to the differentiated markets that are likely to respond to a green appeal. They use the market dimension segments developed by the research firm Earthsense LLC in its 2008 Eco-Insights Survey.

The four segments most likely to respond to a green appeal based on this survey are: the “Enthusiasts,” 7 percent of the U.S. population (15.6 million people);  the “Believers,” 16 percent of the U.S. population (37.7 million);  the “Strivers,” 17 percent of the population (40.1 million); and the “Habituals,” 3 percent of the population (6.5 million). Using the demographic, income and other characteristics of these segments, they target the message to best reach the groups their clients want to sell to.

To varying degrees, Hill said, the different market segments say they’re concerned about the environment, but studies have shown that “they think they’re more green than they actually are.” At the same time, “they’re hard on themselves and inadequately informed on environmental issues.”

So a strategy of “gentle education” about the environment can work. “Don’t make it seem too hard to do what’s right about the environment,” Hill says.

Another generalization, she notes, is that women tend to be more concerned about the environment than men. That bodes well for green businesses because women in this country make more of the buying decisions than men.

Some other public relations and marketing firms do green marketing, but don’t emphasize this component of their business.

Others even seem embarrassed about it.  

“We’re green and we’re proud of it,” Hill says. Adds Kehl, “It’s what differentiates us from other media firms.”

Looking to the future, Hill sees a continued growth in green business and green marketing.

“The oil spill in the Gulf has heightened awareness of the environment,” she says. “If there’s any silver lining from this absolute tragedy; this is it.”

By John Hill

You can contact John Hill by e-mail at jhoythill@sbcglobal.net.