Advertisers will spend an astonishing $495 billion worldwide in 2007. Green media includes: yoga magazines, organic products magazines, green online communities, environmental magazines, national geographic magazines, non-profit communities, and health magazines.

What we do know is that the LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) consumers are taking the world by storm. It is a $230 billion market segment in the United States alone and a $546 billion market worldwide. Indeed, countries around the world are showing interest—Japan, Taiwan, China, Australia, New Zealand, India, Germany, Holland, England, France, Canada, and more—all want to understand and integrate LOHAS principles into their own cultures. LOHAS now represent 23% of the population (about 50 million adults) in the United States, and 29% of the population in Japan (about 37 million).

People do not actually call themselves LOHAS, LOHAS is just an industry term. Consequently, LOHAS consumers are difficult to reach, however LOHAS consumers set trends which then become important cultural shifts. Big business has taken notice. For example, companies like Coca-Cola, Office Depot, Starbucks, and GM are racing to go “green” and to set up new Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) departments. LOHAS consumers are predictors of future trends and cultural shifts. The product lifecycle goes like this: LOHAS consumers become aware of products such as green dry cleaning, organic foods or alternative health therapies, and then they try the products, adopt the products into their lifestyle, become loyal customers and then influence their families and friends. They are leading the way in sustainable economy, personal development, ecological lifestyles, healthy lifestyles and alternative health care.

As the LOHAS phenomenon grow, Internet advertising will continue to be an important part of the green media mix; in 2007 $31 billion (approx. 10%) was spent on Internet advertising, supporting countless news sites, social networks, video exchanges and blogs. There is little doubt today that a hefty portion of advertising dollars will shift to the Internet from TV, radio, print and elsewhere in the coming years. In the United States, the top 50 Web sites accounted for more than 90 percent of the revenue from online ads in the first half of 2007 (source: Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers).

Online advertising is a boom for the Long Tail world. The theory of the Long Tail is that the economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of ‘hits’ (mainstream products and markets) at the ‘head’ of the demand curve and toward niches at the ‘tail’ of the demand curve. Google is a business created by the Long Tail of advertisers globally. Many advertisers are too small to purchase traditional media.

In the Long Tail world, we are also witnessing a blossoming of niche content, aided by four converging developments: (1) the development of low cost and easily accessible content creation tools, (2) the spread of the Internet as an infrastructure for content distribution, (3) the growth of new forms of access devices. and (4) the emergence of new types of distribution businesses facilitating the transition to pull models ("see Don Tapscott's book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything to uderstand the pull model ") of content distribution. For example, rather than relying on music companies to pre-determine the mix of songs on a CD, an increasing number of music listeners are downloading individual tracks and assembling their own tailored sequence of songs.

Another good example is blogging tools that provide everyone with the capability of quickly “publishing” their perspectives and creative content like music, photos and even video and making it broadly available to others. Media production is no longer the exclusive province of professionals – talented pro-ams are harnessing these new tools to make their voices heard and creative talents seen. Suddenly, those who never published before like Joi Ito, editor of the Joi Ito Web blog, and Ana Marie Cox, editor of the Wonkette blog, are emerging quickly on the Internet and attracting large audiences.

As bandwidth has increased and compression algorithms have improved, we have seen a migration from text-based content to music and now to video in terms of using the Internet as a platform for access and distribution. At the same time more powerful, compact and mobile access devices like MP3 players and digital video recorders like Tivo are making it easier to find and connect with relevant content.

Our AdCharity - ad delivery and ad auction program, in combination with our E=MC² Creative Friends Network will benefit small green marketers by allowing them to reach more people interested in the LOHAS lifestyle, including the 50 million Americans. Advertisers that need to reach targeted audiences were subject to the limited ad time available on TV, radio or billboards. These media have perishable ad inventory that is rare and can not be recaptured once time passes. Economic implications: small advertisers can’t aggregate enough demand in a single local market to afford this expensive linear mass-market advertising inventory. The AdCharity program solves this problem.

Online communities will continue to drive the green media industry, as green living becomes more mainstream. About 100 million Internet Users belong to online communities, says Pew Internet Project. eMarketer predicts that, US social network ad spend is estimated to reach $2 billion by 2010; it will total $865 million by 2007 (up from $350 million the year earlier). MYSPACE.COM, acquired by News Corp. for $580 million, takes the lion's share of the ad spend, at $525 million. The rest is then carved up between what eMarketer calls 'generic social network sites' which includes FACEBOOK, BEBO, and 'portal' social networks such as MSN SPACES, YAHOO 360, and AIM PAGES. LOHAS leaning online communities include: Sustainlane Community, GAIAM Community, National Geographic Community, E=MC² Creative Friends Network, Facebook.com Causes, Change.org Community, and numerous non-profit communities.


Media Reaching the LOHAS Crowd

As the advertising moves to the mainstream consumer it's causing a gold rush among magazines that can appeal to the LOHAS ethic. The green media market is growing fast.

Not surprisingly, Rodale was one of the first publishers to get it. Founder J.I. Rodale first applied the scientific term "organic" to a way of gardening and living, with his seminal magazine, Organic Gardening, in 1942. Granddaughter Maria Rodale, the current vice chairman, saw the LOHAS trend coming in the late 1990s and launched Organic Style to address it. The response to Organic Style's slick-yet-sincere formula has been so strong that Rodale now talks about someday growing circulation to as much as 2 million.

Gaiam founded by sociologist Paul Ray and psychologist Sherry Anderson, co-authors of The Cultural Creatives, was also instrumental in the creation of the non-profit LOHAS journal and LOHAS forum, a primary resource for information about LOHAS. Interest in the LOHAS journal and LOHAS forum are growing.

Another magazine that is well positioned for the LOHAS trend is Yoga Journal. Started as an 8-page newsletter in 1975, the magazine plugged along at about 90,000 circulation until it was bought in 1998 by former Citicorp investment banker John Abbott. Since then, the magazine has ridden the yoga phenomenon to a circulation of 300,000 and even has a spokes-celeb, Christy Turlington, as an editor-at-large on the masthead.

As for trade magazines, New Hope publishes four magazines for natural food retailers, including Nutrition Business Journal and Natural Food Merchandiser. The company controls close to 50 percent of the trade advertising market for natural products. The company also runs the hugely profitable Natural Products Expos in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, which attract natural product distributors and retailers.

Other media trying to reach the lohas crowd include yoga magazines, organic products magazines, green online communities, environmental magazines, national geographic magazines, health magazines, such as:

Green media for consumers, such as: Organic Style, Yoga Journal, Health, Shape, Real Simple, Self, Sustainlane Community, Discovery Channel, Body + Soul Magazine, Mother Jones Magazine, GAIAM Community, Organic Chic Magazine, National Geographic Magazine, Natural Health, Shape, Fit Pregnancy, Living Fit, Delicious Living, E=MC² Creative Friends Network, Men's Journal, Martha Stewart Living, Outside, Utne Reader, Facebook.com Causes, Change.org Community ....etc.

Green media for industry, such as: Natural Food Merchandiser, Nutrition Business Journal, Natural Business Journal, Whole Foods Magazine, Natural Products Industry Insider, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) Wire, AdCharity ...etc.

The green phenomenon and the ads have begun leaking into more mainstream books, and magazines. Even Conde Nast's shopping bible Lucky had an eight-page "The Best of Green Living" section, and has started to win advertising from Aveeno, Earth Therapeutics, and Queen Helene, makers of chemical-free cosmetics.

Furthermore, celebrities such as Leonardo Di Caprio and Al Gore continue to push the issues of the environment and sustainability, the green media industry will continue to profit from people's newfound healthier and more sustainable lifestyle.