Is there gold in green marketing? We are witnessing a global revolution as the ethic of sustainability seeps into more and more industry sectors. Environmental and economic changes dictate that we must develop and successfully market sustainable products. Ironically, business leaders often are several steps ahead of their customers.Many consumers are slower to embrace the value of sustainability – particularly if they think they need to pay more for it. The worldwide recession also muted the growing drumbeat for a green economy.
The target audience for this seminar is executives with responsibility for marketing, new product development, and/or communicatons. The presentation explores the concept of sustainability – primarily as today’s consumers understand (or misunderstand) it. We will review some of the fundamental drivers of consumer behavior and understand how these processes either faciliate or impede market acceptance of green products.

Facebook is not a social media strategy. Like Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare and other platforms, Facebook is only one tactical solution to a more fundamental strategic issue: How do marketers relate to customers who want to play a much more proactive role in determining the value, and indeed the very meaning, of their brands?

Welcome to The Metaverse. Individual consumers around the globe today use digital technologies to connect to a larger community of people and “crowdsource” to build their identities. Brands are the bricks that give shape to these identities – technology platforms are the mortar that binds them together. The Metaverse is a digital universe of shared meanings that unites consumers via websites, blogs, virtual worlds, augmented reality, and other social media platforms. Like other business domains such as apparel and automobiles, technology at its core is a fashion product: specific styles enter and leave the stage, but the underlying motivations to express identity do not change. Platforms like Facebook will come and go, but the new partnership between marketers and customers is here to stay. In the traditional business world, we market to customers. In The Metaverse, we market with them. Social media is the means to an end, not an end itself!

In a stormy economic climate it’s tempting to slash prices and hope for the best. But, not everyone can be (or should be) a Dollar General brand. When the going gets tough, the tough get more loyal to the core brands that hold deep meanings to them. These meanings are more important than ever when we have to ration our purchases and pick only those brands that will maximize personal ROI. Consumers won’t necessarily opt for the cheapest brand, but they do need a solid reason why they shouldn’t.
Anxious buyers cling tenaciously to safety nets as they try to weather the economic storm – and their favorite brands need to be within reach. Building and preserving hard-fought brand equity matters more than ever, but today new thinking is needed to nurture these bonds. A new emphasis on frugal chic means consumers want their brands to work harder for them. In tough times, don’t push away the ones you love!
This presentation will review emerging techniques to ramp up consumers’ reliance on the brands that matter to them – even as they jettison the ones that don’t. These approaches involve changing the way marketers think about their customers – elevating them from pawns to partners. Some specific ways to do this include social networking, mass customization, open-source marketing, engaging shoppers in immersive 3D computer platforms and integrating lead users into the product design cycle. Attendees will benefit as they take away new ways to think about enhancing the value they deliver and in the process calm the nerves of anxious customers.

Evolving trends in technology and lifestyles are fundamentally changing the ways relationships between consumers and companies are formed, maintained -- and dissolved. Many people now feel empowered to choose how, when, or if they will interact with corporations as they construct their own consumerspace. In turn, companies need to develop and leverage brand equity in order to attract the loyalty of these consumer "nomads."
● What are some significant changes in consumers' values and lifestyles that influence how they search for product information and evaluate alternative brands?
● How can we better understand consumer/product relationships -- from the consumer's vantage point? We need to appreciate how products and services are used in the enactment of daily rituals, the animistic qualities of products, and the role these goods play in defining consumption communities.
● How are firms innovating to optimize their presence in consumerspace? Reality engineering strategies such as social networking, product placement, advergaming, virtual Internet communities, and guerrilla marketing are some alternatives for penetrating consumer awareness.
● How can firms perpetuate consumer satisfaction by transforming passive buyers into active partners? Mass customization, personalization of shopping environments and Web sites, open-source marketing of lead users into the product design cycle have the potential to let producers and consumers work together to map the brave new world of consumerspace.

From Second Life to World of Warcraft, Habbo Hotel to MTV’s Virtual Pimp My Ride, today millions of consumers live a parallel, digital life in virtual worlds that make up The Metaverse. A virtual world is an online representation of real world people, products and brands in a computer-mediated environment (CME). To many mainstream consumers and advertisers, this is largely an unknown or underground phenomenon – but it has real marketing consequences. It’s estimated that by 2012, 53 percent of kids and 80 percent of active internet users will be members of at least one virtual world. Indeed, the Harvard Business Review predicts that within the next five years virtual worlds are likely to emerge as the dominant internet interface.

Clearly virtual environments will fuel new marketing trends over the next decade. These platforms have exciting branding and promotional implications for consumer-facing companies. They also hold great value to B2B firms who can harness them for virtual trade shows and sales training programs. These engaging interfaces provide highly cost-efficient and environmentally friendly options because expensive travel is minimized and participants’ engagement is much higher compared to more traditional, “static” platforms like chatrooms or videoconferencing.

However, due to the newness of the medium companies still struggle to figure out the best way to take advantage of these environments – or to decide if they should enter them at all. This presentation examines best practices to engage with virtual worlds and distills learnings from successful and not-so-successful applications to provide a map that will help companies navigate these brave new worlds.

Learn how firms have successfully used modern-day consumer rituals and magical beliefs associated with activities and products from bathing to blue jeans to drive their marketing communications and positioning strategies.

A One Day Executive Program Presented by Michael R. Solomon, Ph.D.

Facebook is not a social media strategy. Like Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare and other platforms, Facebook is only one tactical solution to a more fundamental strategic issue: How do marketers relate to customers who want to play a much more proactive role in determining the value, and indeed the very meaning, of their brands?

Welcome to The Metaverse. Individual consumers around the globe today use digital technologies to connect to a larger community of people and “crowdsource” to build their identities. Brands are the bricks that give shape to these identities – technology platforms like Facebook are the mortar that binds them together.

The Metaverse is a digital universe of shared meanings that unites consumers via websites, blogs, virtual worlds, augmented reality, and other social media platforms. Like many products such as apparel and automobiles, technology at its core is ruled by the whims of fashion: Specific styles enter and leave the stage, but the underlying motivations to express identity do not change.

Platforms like Facebook will come and go, but the new partnership between marketers and customers is here to stay. In the traditional business world, we market to customers. In The Metaverse, we market with them. Social media is the means to an end, not an end itself!

Attendees will understand how the fundamental way they relate to customers must evolve as today’s digital natives increasingly migrate to The Metaverse. This is a new form of hybrid existence that allows consumers to seamlessly move back and forth between physical and digital identities.