LOHAS – Getting Waterproof Towards Advertising
This week I read in the Swiss magazine “MK – Marketing und Kommunikation” an article about “LOHAS continue to be on the rise”. I never heard about LOHAS, a marketing target group, before. Wikipedia describes it as “an acronym for Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability that refers to a demographic defining a particular market segment related to sustainable living, “green” ecological initiatives, and generally composed of a relatively upscale and well-educated population segment.” Another variety is LOVOS, “an acronym for Lifestyles of Voluntary Simplicity which are oriented to health and sustainability, and are critical of consumption and consumerism.”
Oh, I thought, now they have a scheme into which they can put me in their profiling. For I discover elements of LOHAS lifestyle as well as LOVOS. The MK article describes the LOHAS that they are very web-affine, have priorities in environmental questions, social responsibility and awareness. Trustworthiness is very important to them and they don’t easily believe what marketeers say, but orient more with the opinion of family and friends. When they are convinced, they stay with a product, and with an enterprise that sells it. If the enterprise, however, behaves irresponsible, they won’t buy it. And the percentage of LOHAS is increasing.
The article started with the lines: “Change of values. The central task of marketing lies in defining, creating, conveying and transmitting values. What happens, however, when the values in the society change and new lifestyles are forming?” Poor marketeers, hurry up to orient towards deeper values. It seems their claiming of “defining, creating, conveying and transmitting values” is an empty effort, when the society doesn’t behave the way they would like it to have, and the marketeers are running behind.
Hopefully people will come to the point of orienting more towards the real needs and not get caught by the desires foamed by marketing strategies, like it is still often the case. May they get more and more waterproof towards the temptations of the guild of market criers.
Putting posters on an advertising pillar
