Secret to Success: Consistent Action instead of Empty Promises

Two separate studies verify great trust in the sustainability of the Frosch brand

Genuine sustainability generates trust. That hasn’t been a secret for a long time. Even now, however, consumers consider only a few brands to be credibly ecological. One of the few is the Frosch brand from the detergent and cleaning products manufacturer Werner & Mertz of Mainz. Snce its founding 36 years ago, Frosch has stood for ecological and powerful cleaning products. Two independently conducted studies conclude that the Frosch brand stands for reliable and consistent sustainability and thus enjoys a very good reputation among end consumers.

For the nationwide study Sustainability and Brands: Much Talk, Little Action, the agency “ESCH. The Brand Consultants” asked a representative sample of 1,000 German consumers which brands they associate with the subject of sustainability.

Of the sustainable brands, Frosch dominated the field of household cleaning products most frequently named, the ESCH study reported. The creators of the study call Frosch a true “sustainability champion”. They wrote in the study, “Through an effective, consistent communication strategy, Frosch makes sustainability real. Frosch brings up the subject of sustainability at all points of contact with the customer, from the packaging to communication in actual and digital media.”

The study also showed that brand strength and sustainability are interdependent, that is, the more sustainable a brand is perceived to be, the stronger it is and vice versa. What counts is the the company behind the brand truly makes a positive contribution to society and the environment and treats sustainability as a major issue. After all, surveyed customers say they pay more for sustainable products. The study concludes that brands which embed sustainability in their core and pursue intrinsic sustainability motives generate a higher willingness to spend (up to 29 percent more) than brands which act sustainably in pursuit of their own interests.

Ecological credibility is gaining ground. According to the study, 40 percent of surveyed consumers say sustainability will play a greater role in brand selection in the future than it does today. Among Generation Z respondents, it was even higher – at 43 percent.

Besides the ESCH sustainability study, another survey provided proof of the great trust in the sustainability of the Frosch brand. In 2021 for the Trusted Brands Study conducted annually by Reader’s Digest, nearly 4,000 consumers were asked about trustworthy brands in specific categories. In the “Sustainability and Environmental Protection” category, the Frosch brand was named most often by a wide margin in all sectors, including foreign brands, and was mentioned more times than Alnatura and Tesla.

In both independent studies, the question about sustainable brands was unprompted, which means consumers are not given a list from which to choose. The consumers alone come up with the names of brands they trust most. So in both cases, brands can be named which are available in Germany, regardless of the category and the country of origin (domestic or foreign).

Because they pose different questions, the two studies complement each other perfectly. While the ESCH study starts at the beginning of the marketing funnel with the perception of the brand, the Trusted Brands study goes a step further and asks explicitly which brand consumers trust – and finds where there is a commitment to the brand. Frosch was ahead in both studies and, in the Trusted Brands study, was even further ahead, a fact that underscores the honesty of the Frosch brand.