LOHAS stands for "lifestyles of health and sustainability," a US$226.8 billion marketplace that includes 63 million other Americans. While there is no one typical LOHAS consumer, they tend to see the world through its connections, and have real interest in facilitating the health of various physical, political and climate systems. An apple is seen as simple nourishment that will provide nutrients and antioxidants – providing it hasn’t been grown with chemicals, the labourers who picked it were paid fair wages, and it hasn’t been shipped half way around the globe via petroleum-fuelled vehicles.

 

In many ways, marketing the LOHAS message isn’t that different to marketing other brands: ideally, every brand will uphold basic principles like telling the truth and taking responsibility. But with so much corporate, media, and political deception coupled with unending ad messages, many consumers are cynical and suspicious of almost every new sales pitch.Transparency, especially to LOHAS consumers who really see the world as a series of interconnections, is especially important.

The biggest opportunities for companies looking to tap the market may lie not so much in formulation but in positioning and communication, of creating imagery and messaging that really speaks to the interests of the LOHAS community.

“The LOHAS buyer is looking for things that are healthy, that are independent, with a somewhat unique positioning away from the mainstream,” says Larry Levin, Synovate Americas executive vice president, sales, marketing and client relationships.

 

“Marketers who are seeing linkages between diet and hybrid and solar-powered log cabins are seeing the consumer in a more holistic sense. Segments like diets and housing do tie together. Individuals that are focusing on a healthy diet are trying to be more environmentally active, and more conscious of things like pollution.”

Alternative health care

Claire Taylor, a London-based marketing executive for Synovate Healthcare, is seeing the availability of alternative practices change before her eyes as urbanites flock for aloe vera and St. John’s Wort at shops like Holland & Barrett and Doctor Herb.

“There’s been a shift in recent years, especially in the capital,” says Taylor. “More and more, even in the high streets, Chinese medicine shops are popping up everywhere – acupuncture is now commonly used. It fits in with the general trend of people thinking more carefully about what we’re putting in our bodies – not just the blanket approach of antibiotics. People are becoming more and more aware and starting to disregard the notion that alternative healthcare is airy-fairy and ineffective.”

Similar phenomena are happening on both sides of the Atlantic. The US population’s growing distrust of the medical system means that more people are trying to self-manage their health. Awareness of alternatives is rising in part because of the internet, allowing people to do their own research and self-prescribe available treatments.

Bad press about pharmaceutical companies pushing pricey prescription drugs with serious side effects – or, in some cases, pulling them off the shelves altogether when they’re banned, are also factors.

“This kind of scare means that people are also more keen to try something which is perceived to have fewer side effects,” says Taylor. “It’s a gradual thing. If people go to health food stores, they see other remedies which they pick up and try. Companies that develop natural remedies are generally smaller than the global pharma giants, and are likely to have a lower marketing spend.”

Celebrity and commerce

The Environmental Media Association (EMA) doesn’t do product placement per se, but the celebrity-powered non-profit organisation does seek to change public perception of environmentalists from
“hippy-granola” to “sexy-cool.” The EMA helps place eco-friendly threads in TV shows and movies – such as Lisa Simpson’s vegetarianism on The Simpsons or Larry David’s hybrid Prius on Curb Your
Enthusiasm.

 

Stars like Emmy award winner Ed Begley, Jr, who lives off the electric power grid, and film siren Raquel Welch, who’s been practicing hatha yoga for three decades, recognise that they are role models and,
accordingly, advocate environmentally responsible behaviour in the characters they portray.

 

Debbie Levin, the EMA’s president, says that the American public gets 78% of its environmental education from the media – TV, movies, and the internet. Since most people are getting their info via entertainment, Levin says that “weaving in bits of environmental information into fiction is our best bet. It’s the responsibility of people in Hollywood, who are photographed all the time, to consume responsibly.”

Greenwashing

While some companies or products have embraced LOHAS values from their inception, consumers are often leery of corporations with poor track records that suddenly come out with a product or advertisement that smacks of greenwashing.

 

For example, when Ford launched its “Hybrid Escape Tour” in nine US cities, the Rainforest Action Network protested at every event. Ford’s approach was not to apologise for its other products, but to engage people about the positive aspects of the Escape.

“We make an effort to support companies like Toyota or Ford,” says Levin. “We’d rather support hybrids coming out every year rather than yell about [their] trucks. BP is an oil company, but also the largest supplier of solar panels – they’re making an effort where others aren’t.”

From the inside out

When Estée Lauder bought Aveda in the late 1990s, Aveda returned more sales than virtually any other part of the company, says Chris Hacker, Aveda’s senior vice president of global marketing and design. Estée Lauder bought Aveda for its profitability, but it didn’t take long for them to see that reducing use of raw materials would improve the entire company’s bottom line.

“Our products come from strange places,” says Hacker. “Most cosmetics companies buy giant vats of goop from chemical companies, which are derivatives of petroleum. Our packaging from the beginning is environmentally responsible: lipstick cases made from seeds that were pressed for oil, containing about 70% recycled materials. Many other companies that are trying to get in [to the LOHAS market] are thinking, ‘What can we do to make this green?’ at the other end, rather than from the beginning.

“If my biggest competitor walked in today, I would tell them how to do it,” says Hacker, “because my mission is to help make the world a better place.”