To embrace sustainability effectively, brands need to first understand the specific emotions that drive consumers to make sustainable choices.
Brands must identify the barriers that keep consumers from pursuing a sustainable lifestyle and how customers react to such barriers. For instance, the economic barrier to making a sustainable choice can leave consumers feeling emotions of exclusion, stress and anxiety.
On the other hand, the knowledge barrier can confuse customers and leave them disillusioned. After identifying such barriers and the resultant emotions, brands need to segment customers to understand their responses better. Segmenting audiences can help brands understand customers based on factors like who is more concerned about climate change or who distrusts the brand regarding its environmental claims.
Using such insights can help brands target specific customer motivations and focus on evoking suitable, sustainable customer behaviour. Similarly, highlighting elements like recyclability along with product quality can help customers overcome concerns about product performance.
[3 minute read]