What separates two companies' two companies with identical products being sold at identical prices? What is it that sets apart one company and distinguishes it from the pack? One might respond that leadership or teamwork are the deciding factors in the success of a business, or one might suggest that it is luck or good fortune which determines the rise and fall of a great business, but the savvy and tactical businessman knows that it is the public-with its fickle passions and short attention span- that decides the life or death of a business venture. The ebb and flow of public opinion can mean long-term success or immediate destruction for a company trying to find its place in the stream of private commerce.
The key is to find a niche which you can successfully and consistently market to on a regular basis. In this way, business is like politics: one has to solidify and rely on ones base while taking the occasional risk into the opponent's territory. One has to be willing to make the big decision but still be conscious of the people who got one where one is- to wit, one has to find an angle. Any businessman worth their salt knows that brand awareness is the way to build support and ensure success, it is the way you market your brand that determines the type of 'awareness' that the public has of your product. Currently, one of the best opportunities to expand brand awareness is through environmental appreciation and sustainability. Know the facts of the environmental craze and increase your dominance in the market.
Firstly, it cannot be stressed hard enough that the passion being demonstrated for environmentalism is not one that will soon be gone. While the public has shown a history of short-lived and meaningless fancies- the flapper chic of the 1920s; the gloom and doom of the 1980s- the current popularity of environmental activism is a trend that is built on more than a momentary alignment between pop culture taste-makers and political opportunists. Perhaps the most accurate analogue would be the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s.
Many businessmen at the time took the passion of the public for women's rights and equality as being a trend without substance. Aside from the fact that this mistake was clearly the result of poor thinking and may have been built on prejudice, these businessmen missed on one of the most profitable currents of marketing sensibility- it was the businesses that were able to harness the power of the Sexual Revolution and reinvent themselves as being hip and knowledgeable that thrived, the conservative businesses floundered and were excluded from the profit making of the 1960s.
Because the environmental movement has emerged from similar circumstances- a real political goal coalescing with pop culture via media and Hollywood- the businessman would be wise to heed the gathering support and ride the wave of environmental stability. If a business is successfully able to align themselves with environmental ethics and import sustainable practice, they will position themselves at the top of the curve and be able to ride the environmental wave for all of its potential; potential that shows no signs of slowing down or fading away in the near future.
