Sustainable marketing: AI as a success factor?

Sustainability in marketing

Good marketing can be sustainable in terms of having a lasting positive impact on a range of business goals, including brand recognition, corporate image, and sales. However, good marketing can also be sustainable in other ways: think “green marketing”. We’ve already explored this megatrend in the marketing industry several times in the past. It’s all about using resources responsibly and creating fair working conditions for people in the sector. In essence, it’s about a positive shift in thinking – away from making profit at any price toward ensuring a socially just, environmentally friendly, and economically sustainable advertising industry.

Whether a shared value approach, corporate societal marketing, cause-related marketing, or responsible media planning, countless promising sustainability concepts are emerging. Many major media planners and agencies alike are putting the topic of sustainability at the top of their agenda. This evolution is especially being driven by concepts such as corporate digital responsibility, which is being very positively received in the digital and advertising industry. For example, the German Association for the Digital Economy (BVDW) recently provided important momentum with its practical “CDR Building Bloxx”. This framework offers guidance for a wide range of social and environmental sustainability aspects of digitalization. Modern advertising and digital companies can simply no longer avoid incorporating sustainability as an essential part of their business, since it has long been the dominant topic in industry discourse …

Sustainability and AI in marketing

… but then AI entered the picture. No other topic has caused as much of a stir in the digital and advertising industry as artificial intelligence. When OpenAI launched ChatGPT a year ago, it triggered a torrent of innovations and catapulted the industry into a new era from one day to the next – something that was really highlighted at DMEXCO 2023, where a multitude of new tools , presentations, panels, and fireside chats revolved around artificial intelligence. For example, Holger Feist from Nunatak, a digital growth consultancy firm, explored AI’s potential in his German-language lecture “Beyond the Experiment: Capitalizing on AI in Marketing & Communications”. We also take a deep dive into the topic in our story “GenAI in Marketing: What’s next after the hype?”.

But what about sustainability? Has the hype surrounding green marketing died down and are all eyes now on AI? Was green marketing just a one-hit wonder? Far from it! Sustainability in marketing is still a top priority for media planners and agencies. What’s more, the new superhype of artificial intelligence acts as a turbocharger for green marketing.

Fresh potential: artificial intelligence and sustainability as a marketing strategy

Sustainable marketing and artificial intelligence are a promising combination. AI-based tools offer companies a whole range of new opportunities for green marketing. AI solutions make it easier to plan and successfully implement green marketing campaigns. Particularly in the area of data analysis, artificial intelligence can help companies collect, process, and evaluate information more quickly, which can positively feed into their green marketing campaigns on many levels. Among other things, AI makes it possible to better analyze environmental data or information on user behavior. As a result, marketers can gain insights and draw new conclusions for developing data-based advertising strategies. AI enables a better understanding of target groups and sustainability-related shopping preferences.

One advantage of artificial intelligence is being able to personalize green marketing campaigns by leveraging AI-based data analyses to identify patterns. People’s attitudes to sustainability-related issues could be of interest here, for example whether someone is a vegetarian or vegan, prefers products with a long life, or favors brands that only produce their goods in Europe. These and other findings can be used to generate and display tailored and automated advertising content. Green marketing campaigns can thus be geared even better to target groups – with programmatic advertising even automating the entire process.

Plus, marketers acquire more information about the needs of their target groups and can better diversify their products and services. Artificial intelligence can also help improve a company’s environmental monitoring and sustainability management. The AI-based analysis of environmental data makes it possible to better understand the environmental footprint of supply chains and devise new solutions for energy efficiency measures. Overall, companies can utilize AI to make their business more sustainable, giving them new positive arguments for their green marketing and sustainability communication.

Sustainable marketing and artificial intelligence – a winning combination

Artificial intelligence can support sustainable marketing in a number of ways. In particular, AI-based data analysis offers enormous potential and will definitely keep marketers on their toes in the near future. Companies already embracing sustainable marketing would therefore be wise to explore AI. At the same time, it’s essential to stay abreast of new developments in the industry. You’ll be sure to learn more about the promising link between green marketing and AI at DMEXCO 2024 at the latest. Until then, our stories will keep you up to speed with must-read updates!