By Tory Patrick

Although the implementation of smart meters has elicited varied opinions from the areas impacted, the bottom line is that restructuring our infrastructure will be beneficial for everyone in the long run. Hence, the increasingly competitive smart-grid marketplace, where there are new technologies sprouting up on a weekly basis. Smart-grid companies are faced with a market that isn’t completely understood or accepted by consumers yet, but at the same time is a fiercely competitive battleground. This market juxtaposition makes it more critical than ever for companies to fully understand the sector, have a clear message, and ultimately stand out among their competitors.

So how do they do it? For the most part, the critical factors mentioned above can be achieved with some good old-fashioned PR tactics.

Understanding the market

To truly know what is happening in your market, you’ve got to understand what is going on outside of your company. While you may have a great product, if you’ve got blinders on it becomes impossible to learn from others’ mistakes and triumphs, or hear about what your clients may be demanding, how the market is evolving, etc. One way of getting out there is through tradeshows, although most companies know about this one.

The other, slightly more intimidating avenue, is through social media (you knew this was coming, right?). Social media platforms are a great source of news. On Twitter or Facebook, you should be following or becoming fans of relevant people, publications and companies, and thus being fed information from sources you care about instead of sifting through aggregate information sources. Social media platforms can also connect you to an audience you may have not been aware of, and can therefore strengthen your understanding of the marketplace.

Developing a clear message

One of the best ways to do this is to write, write, write! Figure out what you want to say, to whom, and why. Most tradeshows host Calls for Papers where anyone can submit to speak at the show. This forces you to think long and hard about what the key issues are in your industry and how you want to accurately address them. Plus, if you get a speaking slot you get to practice talking about those ideas, which can help in sales meetings and more. The same goes for award submissions — look for relevant awards to submit for which celebrate your company as well as your personnel.

Conclusion

Employing some of these simple tactics can make a big difference for your company’s bottom line, so if you haven’t started leveraging them — get to work! The $4.3 billion that was put toward smart-grid development and deployment by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) continues to be leveraged by smart-grid companies — aka your competitors. This surge in development translates into a rapidly moving market, so you should make sure that you’re moving with it!

This was a guest commentary by Tory Patrick, an account manager with Vantage Communications.

Energy, engineering and infrastructure giant Siemens, for example, foresees rapidly growing demand for its services not only in the Middle East and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries but in nations like Chile, Indonesia, Mexico, Colombia, Poland, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam. The German firm has made it a priority to expand its reach in those markets over the next five years.

Strong economic growth in emerging-market countries is creating an “enormous” demand for solutions not only in power generation and transmission, but also in healthcare and sustainable urban and industrial infrastructures, according to Siemens.

The Chinese government’s twelfth five-year plan, for example calls for — among other things — massive investments in renewable energies, smart grids, electric mobility and improvements in the healthcare system. And India says it needs to be feeding an additional 200 gigawatts into its power grid by 2020 to meet its exploding energy needs.

Siemens also foresees growth in the market for entry-level “SMART” products that are simple, maintenance-friendly, affordable, reliable and timely-to-market. In China and India, for instance, demand for such products is growing by 10 percent a year.

“The emerging markets are still the growth engines of the global economy,” said Roland Busch, a member of Siemens Managing Board.

Not to belittle an anti-litter campaign, but the logo accompanying Keep Britain Tidy and Defra’s campaign does — as the BRC notes — miss the point. Preventing litter is a noble goal, but illustrating the only solution as a waste bin is, in the BRC’s words, “a message that belongs to another age.” Recycling is, without a doubt, preferable to what the anti-litter logo depicts: a crumpled piece of paper (obviously recyclable) being tossed away.

Of course, there’s an admitted dose of self-interest in the BRC’s admonishment: it recommends that companies instead promote recycling through its own On-Pack Recycling Label. The little catch there? Taking the BRC labelling route costs £700 a year. (Plenty of firms, so far, have shown themselves willing to pay that, among them Boots, Kingfisher Group, Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury’s.)

The obvious verdict in this little dispute? Why not an anti-Judgment of Solomon campaign in which, rather than splitting the baby, the two offspring — one anti-litter, the other pro-recycling — are joined? A “Toss it if you must, but first consider recycling” message might be less clever and catchy, but isn’t that really the goal all the parties involved here?

Back to the drawing board with both of you, we say.

Short answer: not much, probably.

Yes, as Dudley himself has said, the new BP will end up a much smaller version of the company today, with $30 billion in assets expected to be sold to help raise revenues to cover the costs of the Gulf disaster. And it’s likely the oil firm will try to adopt stricter standards and controls for its operations, if for no other reason than to appease investors’ concerns about exposure to future risks.

But the company’s fundamental raison d’etre won’t change. Despite BP’s green branding efforts over the past decade, don’t expect it to now — for real — move “beyond petroleum.”

Because, so long as there isn’t a fair and universal price on carbon, petroleum is the energy source where the money is to be made. It’s also an energy source that’s growing ever harder to extract, with a rising proportion of world reserves now located in politically troubled, dangerous parts of the globe … or in deep, deep reservoirs far below the ocean floor. Unlike, say, fine cigars or vintage wines, though, petroleum isn’t a product people stop buying when their wallets run thin. So whatever it costs BP to extract the world’s remaining oil, it knows it will be able to pass those costs on to consumers.

In other words, the Gulf oil disaster (along with all the other petroleum disasters that receive less scrutiny in our corner of the world) in the long run isn’t BP’s problem … it’s ours. And it will continue to be until the global price of carbon reflects the true cost of our oil addiction.

At least, that’s what researchers in California have found after studying thousands of different wines from California vintners. Seems that, when a nice bottle costing $25 or more is slapped with an “organic” label, the prices oenophiles are willing to pay drops considerably.

The study, which looked at 13,426 wines from 1,495 California wineries, found that vintages made with organic grapes were judged superior to non-organic varieties and — grape for grape, year for year — were able to command an average premium price of 13 per cent more per bottle … so long as the wine didn’t feature an eco-label. Once the appellation “made with organically grown grapes” was added, though, that premium disappeared. In fact, the label typically drove the price per bottle down by 7 per cent.

The researchers aren’t sure why, but speculate it might be due in part to shoppers confusing wine made from organically grown grapes with organic wine, which is made without sulfites and other chemical preservatives.

“Organic wine earned its bad reputation in the ’70s and ’80s,” said Laura E. Grant, a PhD candidate in environmental science and management at the University of California, Santa Barbara.. “Considered ‘hippie wine,’ it tended to turn to vinegar more quickly than non-organic wine. This negative association still lingers.”

In fact, many California wineries seem to be aware of the perils of an eco-label. The study found that only one-third of vintners that use certified, organically grown grapes in their wines advertise that on their labels.

“Producers of two-thirds of these wines must suspect that consumers, for whatever reason, wouldn’t appreciate the use of organically grown grapes,” said Magali Delmas, an environmental economist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the study’s lead author. “Otherwise, why would they refrain from drawing attention to this benefit on their labels?”

For wines that do carry green labels, Grant added, the winery’s loss is the customer’s gain:

“Wine made with organic grapes — especially if it has an eco-label — is a really good deal,” she said. “For the price of conventional wine, you get a significantly better quality wine.”

DC Power Systems of the US will market Evance’s Iskra R9000 5-kilowatt turbine in the US through its network of 250 dealers. The distributor expects home owners, light commercial sites and agricultural sites to be among the first to buy such turbines.

Evance has also appointed CIRKEL ENERGI as its distributor in Denmark, strengthening its European reach following May’s announcement of new distributors in Germany and Poland.

The American Wind Energy Association’s (AWEA) “Small Wind Turbine Global Study” (for the year ending 2008) projects a 30-fold growth in installed small-wind capacity in the US within five years.  Much of this estimated growth will be spurred by the new eight-year, 30-per cent federal Investment Tax Credit augmented in February 2009.

Michael Miller, wind power sales manager for DC Power Systems, said of Evance’s Iskra R9000, “We chose the turbine because of its elegant variable pitching mechanism, overall engineering and construction quality and suitability for the US market.”

Evance says its new Iskra R9000 turbine heralds a significant advance in efficiency, reliability, durability, corrosion resistance, and reduced installation time and cost. The turbine is an evolution of Evance’s Iskra AT5-1 and has been developed over two years, including continuous monitoring and evaluation on Evance’s test sites, and has been instrumented and measured according to IEC standards.

The support programme is designed to help high-potential enterprises in South East England increase sales, create new products and take advantage of the growth in environmental markets.

The launch event, to be held at the Guildford Holiday Inn, is being organised with support partners Pera and BVG.

Topics to be covered during the event include:

• How to access top-quality global market research and intelligence on environmental technology and service;
• Assistance available for trading in the key global markets;
• How to find new business partners and sources of business support;
• The routes to market for innovation to create new products;
• How to identify markets and sales opportunities in the private and public sectors; and
• How to benefit from the supply chain opportunities in the wind and marine renewable energy industry.

Goldenson and parter Dev Nag co-founded a firm awhile back called PlayCafe. The Internet television network for games was a hit with users who found the site, but didn’t draw in users in large enough numbers to generate success.

Goldenson’s hard-earned lessons from the experience?

1. Line up funding as quickly as possible, rather than hope for top-name investors who might not come on board fast enough;
2. If you’re starting a content-based business, realise it’s an “order of magnitude harder than technology”;
3. Aim for speed and “good enough,” rather than take too much time trying to achieve perfection;
4. Understand that your time is worth money;
5. Unless you yourself are an expert at marketing, hire a pro;
6. Know — and manage — the cost of attaining each customer;
7. Take advantage of partnerships, even informal ones;
8. Raise more money than you think you’ll need;
9. Always leave yourself options in negotiations; and
10. Realise there’s a difference between knowing and doing.

The ASA’s survey found 94 per cent of ads with environmental claims were compliant with the advertising codes.

The research was prompted by a significant rise in ‘greenwash’ complaints about consumers being misled or confused by ethical claims in ads last year.

The ASA has also clamped down on greenwashing this year, publicly rebuking Shell and ExxonMobil over environmental and sustainability claims made in advertising material.

Of the 195 ads assessed across TV, radio and non-broadcast outlets, just 12 (six per cent) breached advertising codes.

Director general of the ASA, Christopher Graham, said:

“The compliance survey demonstrates that the ASA is making real progress in ensuring environmental claims do not mislead through exaggeration, ambiguity or omission. The ASA will continue to listen to consumers and work closely with advertisers to improve standards in green and ethical claims even further.”

The full ASA Environmental Claims Survey 2008 Survey can be found here.

Mintel Comperemedia has observed more US financial services companies going green in recent months and says While not only an good thing to do, green marketing and eco business tactics can help save companies money and help them attract new customers. Mintel spokeswoman Susan Menkes said:

“Going green can help financial services companies cut overhead costs, attract environmentally aware consumers and stay ahead of the competition. Although the economic crisis is the story of the moment, it’s important for companies to look beyond market ups and downs to the long-term trends of tomorrow. We expect ‘green living’ to affect businesses for years to come.”

Mintel sees numerous companies going green in direct mail and email advertising. Paperless statements and online bill pay, which eliminate waste and save on printing and mailing costs are becoming extremely popular. Some companies plant a tree for every customer who stops paper statements with others rewarding customers with green prizes and sweepstakes for paying bills online.

Other companies promote their green credentials to set their products and services apart in today’s market. Menke said:

“With economic woes top of mind, many Americans are looking for tangible real-life benefits from companies who go green. Incorporating green elements across business and marketing plans can help financial services companies stand out today while setting a course for growth tomorrow.”