Bereichsbild Mobilität und Lebensstilanalysen: Bildausschnitt unscharfe Joggerbeine

Mobility and Life-style Analysis

 

 

 

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ecobiente - More successful design of sustainable goods

Preliminary report, drawn up within the framework of the research project “More successful design of sustainable goods ” (ecobiente)

Konrad Götz und Bente Zahl

Frankfurt am Main, December 2002

Summary of the result:

In short it can be said: there are several fundamental orientations within the subgroups of society, which every target oriented strategy has to take into consideration: there is always a strong traditional group. There are fun and pleasure orientations, there is a group with the strong wish for exclusivity and distinction, last but not least (for the most part) also a group, that is exceptionally committed to music and arts. Finally there are underprivileged groups (often with corresponding underdog orientations), even if not all typologies identify those.

The introduced lifestyle typologies have in common that they also include groups in which ecological orientations are distinctively strong or rather weak. At the same time it can be noted that "alternative" lifestyles, which were still clearly visible during the 80's, are slowly disintegrating. Today ecology is not to be found in a cohesive environment anymore, which defines it, but has become a variable, distinctive element in various groups. Therefore it is quite possible, that social groups, that are very committed to the field of nutrition, show a different kind of attitude toward the subject of housing. Ecological orientations have also become an element of lifestyle patchwork (see Reusswig 1994, p.101).

Additionally ecological orientations can unfold in various ways. With some their attitude toward the environment expresses itself in the form of protest, with others through indignation or passive disobedience, for instance traditional product loyalty and disapproval of aggressive advertising and packaging.

To sum it up it seems to be useful to apply lifestyle groups to certain examination topics (energy, mobility or also construction/housing), to get more exact findings concerning ecological motives and attitudes, and also behavior and – build on that – to derive specific target oriented communication and marketing strategies.

There are also strong indications, that consumers desire professionally made, well designed, high quality products, with which they can have fun and with which they can rest assured, that the management of complex ecological difficulties is delegated to the producers or the product itself.

An ecological product – depending on the target group– does not have to be recognized as such in every case. This makes great demands on the design. One purpose of the project ecobiente will be to analyze possible forms to translate this difficulty empirically in various target groups.

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