Coca-Cola does it. Nissan does it. Subaru does it.
I am talking about ‘Zero’.
Nada. Nothing. Null.
The term loved dearly by marketers for a couple of years.
The term that companies base campaigns on — or even product lines.
Marketing based on ‘Zero’ showcases what a product lacks — instead of what it has. Highlighting the absence of negative attributes became extremely popular. Modern society loves reverse marketing.
How did that happen?
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New parameters for product design
Zero crept in slowly.
It became a popular marketing slogan, attribute per attribute.
Zero sugar. In 2005, Coca-Cola launched its sugar-free Coke Zero to access an increasingly health-conscious market. Likewise, Sprite Zero was introduced.
Zero emissions. In 2021, Nissan launched its electric vehicle production hub Nissan EV36Zero as an ecosystem for zero-emission motoring. In line with that, there has been an enormous rise in campaigns about nullifying emissions.
Zero landfill. The car company Subaru advertises its “zero-landfill production plants”. Likewise, zero waste and zero plastics have become common buzzwords in corporate strategies.
In Germany, there is even a new cosmetic brand named “Nø”. Their core values focus entirely on what they do not want instead of what they want: “No Gender, No Models, No Social Pressure.”
These cases tell a perfect story about today’s Western society.
Let me show you.
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Transforming consumption: Towards a new normal?
Marketing is a perfect mirror of what society deems desirable.
It is a compass to society’s current ideals.
‘Zero’-based marketing perfectly shows:
We have identified a new, collective set of values.
And marketers react to new values. For the sake of sales.
historyoasis.com perfectly puts the new marketing narrative like this: “We’ve removed what you don’t want, but kept what you do.”
Thus, we as a society want to zero out what we valued in the past but find harmful today. ‘Zero’ is what is not on our wishlist anymore.
Sugar. Emissions. Waste. Gender Roles.
The pain of what used to be former product standards is bigger than the wish for new add-ons. We evolved to identify more about what we are not than what we are.
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The #1 psychological reason we love a good zero
Maybe, our love for zero is because of the millions of options we are given daily: What we do not choose weighs heavier than what we do choose.
Maybe, zero’s popularity is because we see the world is in multiple crises — and overconsumption is part of the problem. Thus, we aim to turn away from indulgence and adopt a more sustainable buying behavior.
Yet, the biggest motivation for ‘zero’ marketing might be:
Our guilt.
We feel guilty about past consumption patterns as these did more harm than good — for us (sugar, sugar), for the environment (emissions, waste), and for society (social pressure).
Therefore, ‘zero’ is the perfect illustration to make us feel we turn our backs towards these old patterns. We feel less guilty buying these new, better products.
And most importantly:
We keep buying.
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Thanks for reading the entire article! 
I hope you got more than zero value out of this. Besides I’d be really happy if you left some claps to support my writing and to steer traffic towards sustainability-related content in general, I am keen to know:
- How do you view zero-based marketing personally?
- Is it popular in your country as well?
- What is your approach to buying less or better-designed products?
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Unsplash / Mikael Stenberg
The post The ‘Zero’-Label: Gaming Our Guilt appeared first on The Good Men Project.