A study conducted by Stanford University’s researchers, has opened a door to solve the global plastic pollution problem: they have found larvae forms of the darkling beetle, mealworms, that can eat plastic. In their study, it is shown how mealworms been fed only by plastic are as healthy as those eating a normal diet, which means that plastic is not damaging the larvae.
The study has only tried some types of plastic when feeding the mealworms. Some forms of polystyrene (Styrofoam being the most successful one) have been proved to be the most reliable ones. Mealworms are able to convert about half of the Styrofoam into carbon dioxide, and the other half into biodegraded fragments which can be safely used as soil for crops. (For extended information see this article).
If we focus on the 4C’s of the Marketing Mix, we could argue that thanks to this finding, one of the C’s would be affected: Communication. Companies being first in introducing the mealworm’s new way of addressing the plastic pollution problem, would be able to communicate it through all the Communication Matrix’s tools (public relations, advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and direct marketing) and thus, take first movement advantage.
In order to do so, companies knowing about the Stanford study’s finding would have to introduce a post-use system in which they collect plastic-used products from their customers in order to convert them into both carbon dioxide and biodegraded fragments, using mealworms.
Once the company has introduced such a system, they could use paid and owned media (their own website) in order to spread the message of them having this new post-use system. Or maybe they would be lucky enough not to have to use such media, but an earned one, in which case they would be able to save a lot of money due to “free advertising”.
After the company has spread the message (being the first to do so), customers would be attracted to such an innovation and prefer them over other alternatives because of the fact that our company has been able to address the plastic pollution problem in an innovative and successful way.
The point of my blog is basically that we have to bear in mind the importance of companies being able to take advantage of such interesting findings and find a useful way to use them. If nobody does anything with the incredible Stanford University’s finding, it would just remain as so, an interesting finding.
