The Image Power® Green Brands Survey is an annual global study that assesses consumer perceptions of brands and corporate behavior regarding environmental issues. The survey is sponsored by a partnership of three WPP agencies (Cohn & Wolfe, Landor Associates, and Penn Schoen Berland) and Esty Environmental Partners, an environmental strategy consultancy. The 2011 survey polled more than 9,000 people in eight countries: Australia (1,100 interviews), Brazil (1,106), China (1,102), France (1,100), Germany (1,100), India (1,101), the U.K. (1,200), and the United States (1,200). The interviews were conducted online with respondents from tier-one cities.Some of the survey’s questions are the following:

• Do you think the state of the environment in this country is headed in the right direction?
• Which of the following do you feel is the most important green issue today? (Energy use, climate change, air pollution, water issues, …)
• When you think about what brands to buy, how important is it to you that a company is environmentally friendly?
• In the next year, do you plan to spend more, less or the same amount on green products or services?
• What do you think are the biggest challenges to buying green products or services? (too expensive, limited selection, difficult to find, poorly labeled, low quality…)

¹Tier-one cities are major metropolitan areas in a country.

To access the complete survey and its findings, visit http://www.slideshare.net/WPPGreenBrandsSurvey/2011-green-brands-global-media-deck. 

a. What do you envision as the key challenges in developing a global survey such as WPP’s Green Brands Survey? 

b. This survey was conducted online. What are the main benefits of doing the study online compared to more traditional data collection methods? What could be some possible downsides?

b. How could insights from this survey benefit a global consumer multinational like Unilever, Colgate, or Heinz?