Can you feel it?

Gord Cooke says marketers don't use the sense of touch enough in their marketing? Do you know of any good examples where this sense (or for that matter, the senses of taste or smell) might work effectively?

Gord Cooke president of Air Solutions Inc. from Cambridge, Ontario, made an interesting point when he presented the case for rationally including environmental considerations in your marketing strategies: marketers don't use the sense of touch enough.

Speaking to the annual environment dinner meeting at the Greater Ottawa Home Builders' Association (GOHBA), he said, to sell 'green', marketers need to find the emotion in the decision. "Its about finding logical reasons to help people make emotional decisions," he said.

Cooke said granite counter tops sell well, even though they aren't terribly practical, because "it feels great".

"How can we get people to touch green?" he asked, citing the marketing success of the original textured coke bottle "designed to make you feel comfortable whenever you touch the bottle."

"Our sense of touch isn't used enough," he added. "here's lots of logical side to green. What we tend to lack is emotional side."

Cooke added however that most consumers want 'green' but don't want it to change their lives -- they'll buy into systems which improve energy efficiency and save environmental waste, but don't want to have to 'water their sofa' (made out of green plant material) or walk on bamboo floors.

And he made a telling point that you can realistically sell you are making green improvements by just finding a 20 to 30 per cent improvement -- with modest cost and virtually no stress, these kinds of advantages are possible now, and allow everyone to get involved in the process.

Sustainable building and construction marketing

We are partners with Tree Canada and the Green Building Festival (Sept. 9 and 10 in Toronto). These are worthy initiatives, and reflect the sort of environmental participation and initiative you should consider for your business. But if you wish to achieve real leadership in environmentally responsible construction marketing, you will have to do much more.

Undoubtedly one of the major trends in the construction industry in the last few years has been increasing recognition of the importance of sustainable buildings and environmentally responsible construction practices. Virtually every substantial general contractor and most building industry suppliers are jumping on the bandwagon, recognizing the trend in public interest and concern for the environment. There are practical applications, as well, as fuel costs rise to astronomical levels -- energy efficiency saves money in life cycle costs, quickly paying back additional initial construction costs.

Some contractors and developers have staked out their market positions effectively as leaders in this field; notably, you can see how Jonathan Westeinde in Ottawa has positioned Windmill Developments in Canada, and Paul Spry of Spry Construction in Louisiana has used Youtube videos to relate his progress.

Sponsorship and affiliation opportunities of course are available through Green organizations. In Canada, we've partnered with Tree Canada (we plant about eight trees for every one we consume -- and recognize our advertisers for their support by planting a tree for each advertisement). We are also sponsors of the Green Building Festival in Toronto Sept. 9-10, and you might want to consider similar participation. Of course you can also explore LEED certification through the U.S. or Canadian Green Building Council organizations.

Nevertheless, I invite you to think with some imagination and resourcefulness in defining your place in the Green economy. You can look at it in two ways (both are reasonable to me). In the first, your objective is simply to show respect for the trend -- you are not trying to be a leader; you simply want to have enough 'goodness' in your picture that consumers and organizations concerned about the environment won't regard you as an albatross. (You also will need some basic capacities, if anything, to bid on many public sector projects requiring LEED or similar certification.)

If these are your goals -- and they are reasonable -- you don't need to do too much to achieve your objectives. I would advocate appointing an environmental 'Evangelist' from within your staff to gather the necessary certifications and documentation, and implement simple practices within your marketing strategies. then, when you do something interesting or relevant, issue a news release and of course let your clients know through your other conventional marketing processes, such as your website, e-letter, brochures, and so on.

But if you want to define leadership within the environmental space -- a potentially extremely lucrative place to be -- you will need to do much more, and think on a much higher level. To achieve this, you must not be 'number 2' in your market segment. If someone else has already taken the place as the 'environmental' contractor, you have two choices; default to the first option, or define a niche or area of specialization where you can grab the Number 1 position.

For example, if you build the first LEED certified project in your area, you can claim leadership -- if another contractor has already done that, you can certainly obtain LEED certification, publicize it, and so on, but you will simply be in a holding space; okay, but not a leadership role. So you either must focus more finely your niche, or do something different (while of course maintaining the LEED capacity as you will need it to compete for projects requiring certification in the future.)

Secondly, once you have satisfied you are the first to act, you must let everyone know, and build on it with sustainable and repeated marketing, especially of any subsequent accomplishments. Use the media effectively here -- coupled with newsletters, announcements and (increasingly) video. Blog about your participation in environmental projects and initiatives and let me know. Speak out, be assertive, and let everyone know.

Third, and this is vitally important, if you are aspiring to the leadership role, you must absolutely do what you say, and be consistent in your practices. You will have a serious public relations disaster on your hands if the market finds you are driving a Hummer and you serve bottled water everywhere while you espouse environmental leadership. These inconsistencies are not so important if you are just seeking an 'okay' status (option 1) but you cannot afford to risk being found out as a phony and hypocrite if you are going for the gold (perhaps literally, as in LEED certification).

I'll admit as a business we are more in the first option category than the second, higher, level of environmental marketing. Sure, we produce more trees than we consume (good) and we lend our support to healthy environmental practices (excellent); but we have a long ways to go to define ourselves as leaders in environmental construction. But then, again, we aren't producing publications specifically tailored to the environmental construction market -- others do this quite well -- and our place in construction marketing news and ideas is broader than the specific environmental niche. So 'okay' may be good enough for us here.

So, in thinking environmental and green, decide which of the two options you think is right for your business and pursue the one you think is best. Just be aware that you must absolutely 'do something' because ignoring this trend will be costly for your market share, as well as the environment.

To Toronto and Welland

Soon, I'll be flying to Toronto to meet with Zulq Malik from BECC Construction. We will be visiting the Calloway Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) site in Welland, ON, a 40-acre Wal-Mart anchored development that has achieved LEED (Leadership in energy and Environmental Design) Core and Shell Development Registration.

When my visit there concludes, I'll head back to downtown Toronto to the CaGBC's "Shifting to the Mainstream" national summit and a meeting with Chase before returning home late in the evening.

While I'll be learning a lot about environmental trends/issues here, I won't be (totally) practicing what I am preaching -- with short haul flights and long drives in a truck I doubt my practices are going to win environmental sensitivity awards.

Blogging may be less frequent and intense than usual for the next couple of days with travel and writing for the print publications (and overall business management responsibilities, as well). I'm gathering some interesting material, however, including updates on how SMPS is progressing in Canada.

Green, trees, and (construction) marketing

We are media sponsors for The Canadian Green Building Council (CaGBC)'s Shifting Into the Mainstream National Summit in Toronto June 11-12.

Seth Godin has taken a pot-shot of ill-conceived "Green" marketing campaigns -- that is, businesses claim to be 'Green' but are they walking the walk they are talking? "Green" of course is taking on increasing significance within the construction community as LEED certification and claims of environmentally sensitive and sustainable construction are now virtually essential elements of most marketing claims within the industry.

But turning action into substance, Seth rightly points out, requires quantification -- and you had better be sure of your numbers before speaking too loudly.

So, how have we handled the Green issue? We made arrangements with Tree Canada to plant a tree for every ad in every issue of our publications -- then we called our printer to find how much newsprint we consume to produce them. And we learned that the arrangement with Tree Canada will result in planting 70 trees for every 11 we consume. (I realize our suppliers may be cutting down mature trees for pulp; and the new plantings will be seedlings, but still think the ratio is reasonable).

We've taken this alliance with Tree Canada a few steps further. Chase made arrangements for us to be media sponsors for the Canadian Green Building Council (CaGBC) Shifting into the Mainstream National Summit in Toronto June 11-12. And we called Tree Canada and they are joining with us at our booth to promote the Tree Canada initiative to the construction community.

These initiatives, from a business perspective, are surprisingly inexpensive -- they help our brand, and we can track enough actual advertising sales from the process to more than cover our costs here.

I agree with Seth that if you wish to make environmental claims, you should validate them with concrete numbers. Right after we made arrangements with Tree Canada, we validated them with our printers. And we therefore have the right to claim that we are the first Canadian print publishers who truly produce more trees than we consume.

Promoting environmentally friendly homes and cottages

Dean Reads is using the blogging technology to create a simple -- yet effective -- website to promote his eco-friendly cottage/home construction process. His objective: To show how you can build simply, without complex tools or resources, a home/cottage with minimal environmental disruption.

Read's Greenspace Homes and Cottages blog now focuses on the construction process for a prototype vacation rental cottage in Irondale, 2.5 hours drive from Toronto, about 15 minutes east of Kinmount, Ontario and about 20 minutes south of the village of Haliburton. Exterior walls are straw bales -- but supported by other, more conventional building materials and engineered to standards that comply with Canadian building code and insulation requirements.

Read's website includes progress photos, a detailed description of the project origins, cottage rental information, and other updates -- resources to help you understand the project and its quality.

We'll be profiling this project in an upcoming issue of Ontario Construction Report.

Planting trees

This week, we entered into an agreement with Tree Canada to become I believe the first Canadian print media publisher that plants more trees than it consumes.

Under our arrangement, we will plant a tree for every display advertiser in every issue of our publications. I estimate we will plant 80 or more trees per month. Our printers estimate that the newsprint we use to produce our newspapers consumes 11 trees per month. So, we'll end up contributing about 70 trees to the environment -- obviously something exceptional for a business that relies on the forests for its raw production material!

Michael Rosen, president of Tree Canada (treecanada.ca), says his organization plants trees in areas where conventional forestry stewardship programs don't operate. While forestry companies are required to replace their tree resources, they can't be expected to fill the void when natural disasters or non-forestry urban or industrial use decimates the Canada's woodlands. We'll have a general idea of where the trees are to be planted -- some will most likely be in the Sudbury, Ontario area, where a reclamation project is under-way in the area near Inco's nickel smelter.

This is obviously good news for the environment, but let us look at some of the other implications here.

• Our advertisers, without any effort, will contribute to solving the global warming problem -- every time the advertise, a tree is planted, capable of turning CO2 into Oxygen.
• We'll promote responsible, honest and effective environmental stewardship, both in our editorial columns, with free space advertising for Tree Canada and, most importantly, in the connection we will help make between Tree Canada and our advertisers (who will receive information about the Tree Canada initiative with every invoice.
• We are taking a leadership role in an important environmental area -- in a practical, as well as symbolic, way, we are turning our publishing enterprise into an environmental contributor rather than consumer.

On a marketing level, I think you can see how this helps our brand. I wish to thank Chase, in St. Catharines, for his initiative in introducing this idea. Sometime within the next year I hope to see some of the trees we are planting changing the environment in Northern Ontario.