Linguist Benjamin Whorf said, “language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.” Since advertising is the most read text in our culture (between 300 and 3,000 messages a day), the role that advertising’s language plays in shaping thinking about sustainability should not be ignored.
To look at this issue in a bit more depth, we completed a survey of 100 green print advertisements from both mainstream and green-minded publications. The ads were for a variety of goods and services, including building products, food and beverage, automobiles, airlines, investing, electronics, detergents, pet food, and cosmetics among others.
Understanding the most commonly used green words of today, reveals insight into the communications trends of tomorrow. As a marketer, understanding ubiquity and saturation is one of the steps in identifying what’s next. It is then important to recognize that the pulse of modern language provides the market advantage of differentiation.