Climate Age

It is time for thousands of educators at American higher education’s marketing schools and secondary education’s business and marketing career development programs to step up on skills development for sustainability and a greener economy.

One of the most powerful influences on U.S. lifestyles and culture comes from the practice of marketing. Many people will describe marketing as simple sales and promotion, but it is so much more than that.  True marketing is the practice of sales and promotion built around sophisticated research into your wants and hopes. Do you want to be thinner? More confident? Impress your friends? Enjoy tastier food? Feel safer and more financially secure?  These, and thousands more such questions, are the behind-the-scenes inquiries that marketers will pursue while aiming at smarter product and services development and design. Marketers also research these wants and hopes by age group, income level, locale and other demographic factors.  This they call “market segmentation,” and it is another powerful tool.  

How big a deal is marketing?  It is, on average, 5% to 10% of most major company budgets. There are many articles and a common assertion that people in the U.S. see an average of 3,000 to 10,000 ads per day. This information mostly comes from Web and social media companies. Experiments of real people tracking in real time indicate that it is more like hundreds of ads per day, but even this smaller number can hard wire our brains. Anyone who watches television, listens to the radio, uses email, surfs the Internet or uses social media will see ad after ad. Notably, there are sophisticated algorithms to focus in and closely identify your interests. They then serve tailored content and promises aimed right at you. Artificial Intelligence will only increase the ability of marketers to conduct such “micro-targeting.”

We are also talking big dollars. In a $25 trillion annual U.S. economy, marketing gets, let’s say, an average 5 percent share of company revenues.  Coincidentally, that is about the same amount that we spend on public education in the U.S.  Marketing is surely a vast, powerful and pervasive force in our lives. So how can it become a more powerful tool for tackling climate change and sustainability? 

Progressive DC-based public relations expert, David Fenton, notes that the many forces that have worked to address climate change including public agencies, science and economics institutions, policy think tanks, public interest advocacy groups and foundations have largely ignored marketing and advertising.  A systemic way to fill this gap would be to deploy greener marketing education at all levels in the United States and beyond.

Already, there are many examples of green marketing and sales efforts that are aimed at improving the health of the planet. These include electric cars, sustainable packaging, renewable energy, dietary changes and more. There are also examples of marketing principles being used to develop new products and services that are easier on the environment. This is all good news for greener marketing but let’s look at how much more there is to do. There are signs everywhere that the global economy is shifting toward becoming greener with the potential to be more socially just and less wasteful. This trend is boosted as nations commit to reducing their carbon emissions and finding new ways to make corporate and consumer environmental footprints smaller. Research also shows that a majority of today’s consumers are likewise seeking greener and more environmentally sustainable products.

So what is the state of marketing education for a greener planet? One might expect that marketing education would be thoughtfully preparing students to understand and succeed within this shift toward a green economy. There has surely been some movement in this direction by educators, but it does not yet seem to be keeping pace with the challenge. A 2023 survey of marketing schools in 42 countries, led by researchers at the University of Arizona and others, found that about one third of marketing educators actively integrate sustainability and climate into their classrooms. About one half of marketing educators recognize they should be doing more but stick with tried-and-true marketing education methods and the remaining group is hard-wired to traditional marketing education.  These numbers also seem to hold true for the United States. 

The American Marketing Association (AMA) is the lead U.S. organization for certifying and providing continuing education and updates to more than 30,000 marketing professionals. While the AMA does not seem to have an official policy on climate and sustainability, its communications platforms have been addressing the subject for several years. Importantly, the AMA supports an educational framework that could be bolstered and tailored to strategic planning and positioning on climate, the green economy and sustainability.  The organization also has a Collegiate Hub with some 320 student chapters and younger people today have a stronger interest in climate change and sustainability.

Formal marketing education in the U.S. is robust and exists at the high school, community college and four year/graduate level. The Association for Career and Technical Education supports marketing education as part of the standard business career clusters that are offered at thousands of high schools and community colleges. Moreover, there are hundreds of institutions of higher education that teach marketing at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The thought here is that well-educated marketers can help address climate change and, in turn, help move the economy toward greater sustainability.  Evidence indicates they are uniquely positioned to do so:  

• Marketers are crucial to almost any consumer products campaign.  Their research helps to design advertising and messaging that helps motivate people to take action.

• They are central to most company branding efforts. This includes value statements, slogans, logos and overall public appearance.

• They can encourage innovations and new products.  Most climate solutions authorities agree that many thousands of new product and product designs will be need in the global effort to turn global climate change around.

• Marketers can also create stronger alignments between a company’s core business and social justice needs.

Getting America’s marketing education establishment more on board with educating students and marketing professionals on how to consider sustainability will not be easy. But there is much room for hope. There is no shortage of ideas and content for marketing educators to be advancing in schools.  Information-based companies such as GreenBiz.com are thought leaders and idea incubators for how all types of businesses can improve revenues and cut costs through more sustainable practices. The Green Marketing Academy offers on-line support via thought-provoking courses, reports and commentaries on ways that professional marketers can tap into greener marketing skills.

There are also numerous policy reform opportunities. The America COMPETES Act supports innovations in technology (including green technology), the national Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act provides funding for advances in business education, the national Higher Education Act has largely unfunded provisions to advance centers of excellence in sustainability called the University Sustainability Program.  States likewise have employment training and education, and Perkins CTE plans that can incorporate climate and sustainability education.

Marketers have an important and significantly underplayed role in addressing climate change and advancing sustainability.  Our marketing education system needs to get in front of this opportunity and prepare students to put the power of market research, segmentation, sales and promotion to work for saving the planet.