Case Study: How One Product Could Market to Green
and Non-green Audiences
T
oo many makers of green products focus only
on green customers. But that’s leaving a lot of
business on the table. Most green products and
services can be successfully marketed to both green
and non-green markets.
Even market niches that are created by green
thinking—products or services that would not exist
without the green consumer—can also find appeal
outside the green world. Remember the five
questions we suggested in Chapter 4 in developing
your new product? Let’s put that into practice with
a real product: Why Flush?—an all-natural enzyme
compound that reduces the odor and stain of urine,
allowing it to remain in the bowl with no ill effects.
Because the toilet is flushed far less often, the
primary benefit is saving water.
Problem/Desire: Thousands of gallons of water per
household are wasted flushing small amounts of
urine. An entrepreneur would like to help people
save this water.
Possible Solutions:
There are several possible ways to fix this, such as
composting toilets, graywater recycling (so that the
water for flushing has already been used once, in a
sink, dishwasher, shower, bath, or washing
machine), and European-style two-way toilet
switches that allow you to select a large flow for
solids or a smaller flow for liquids. But this particular
entrepreneur chose a different route.
Advantages:
Most of the other solutions involve extensive
hardware modifications, and that’s expensive. Why
Flush?, by comparison, is cheap to buy and easy to
implement (a couple of squirts on a standard handoperated spray pump such as you’d use for window
cleaner).
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Strictly Marketing Magazine May/June 2016
Possible Markets:
Green consumers who care about saving water are an
obvious market—and because of its low price and
intuitive use, the product appeals not only to
homeowners but also to renters. But there are several
other markets, too.
Large consumers of water have economic reasons to
save. Think about how much water is consumed in
the bathrooms of sports stadiums, concert halls,
schools, transportation terminals, and so forth.
However, to reach this market, there would have to
be a way to control the flush schedule and add the
product remotely, which might be difficult in most
circumstances (other than public urinals, some of
which already use a timer instead of individual flush
handles). So this would be a back-burner market, to
pursue later once the technology catches up or the
social expectations around flushing have shifted
enough to create a space in the market within the
society as a whole.
There are at least two other huge markets that are
much easier to approach: First, homeowners who live
with septic systems and private water supplies (their
own or a neighborhood well). Unlike the owners of
large public bathrooms, this group has no
technological or sociological challenges in
implementing Why Flush? and has a strong economic
interest in conserving water. These homeowners
extend their infrastructure’s lifespan while decreasing
the number (and thus the cost) of septic tank
pumpouts.