Ted Ning And The Lohasian Nation
By Jenn Breckenridge
Filed Under Arts & Culture, Conscious Commerce |
Deep in the heart of Gaiam’s new corporate digs, behind the desk of a modest office amidst many modest offices, sat the Man Behind The Music,”Mr. LOHAS,” Ted Ning himself. His face was unexpectedly open and soft, his voice quiet and warm. This alleged powerhouse of a man was the kind of person you’d let look after your kids, or your money, or yourself. He appeared to be one of the new breed of executives, forgoing the old “greed is good” model of the 80’s and 90’s, for the refreshingly straightforward “good is good” model of the new millenium. Ted Ning, Director of eco-marketing giant LOHAS, was none other than a sweet and gentle guy. After realizing all this, I relaxed and sat down.
Well, first of all, what is “LOHAS” anyway, I wanted to know. Is this a Hawaiian massage technique or the name of some airport in the Pan-Pacific region? No, LOHAS stands for “Lifestyles Of Health And Sustainability.” This marketing term, originated by the Natural Marketing Institute (NMI) in the early 2000’s marked the defining of an era…or at least the defining of a very powerful demographic. NMI realized that three seemingly disparate consumer groups-spiritual folks, environmentalists, and health fanatics-had very similar purchasing patterns. Once NMI pooled the buying power of all these groups into a study of one large consumer base dubbed LOHASians, the corporate giants of America finally realized there was real money to be made in doing right by communities, wildlife and ecosystems. According to NMI, that “real money to be made” was about 209 billion dollars worth. LOHAS was designed to help companies speak the language of this newly defined group.
The LOHAS Forum, the crown jewel of the LOHAS organization, 
is a yearly conference that brings together the best and brightest minds of conscious commerce, eco media, and green marketing to speak to hundreds of companies about topics the LOHAS community thrives on. For its twelfth year in production, LOHAS is coming home to roost in the heart of Boulder, about twenty minutes away from the Gaiam/LOHAS headquarters in Louisville, Colorado.
The morning I met Ted, the 530-person capacity venue at the posh St. Julien Hotel & Spa had just completely sold out. Their ease at reaching capacity, despite the steep $1000 ticket price, is easy to understand once you take a look at the speaker list. The eco queen of Sundance Channel’s green programming-Simran Sethi, the founder of Aveda and Intelligent Nutrients-Horst Rechelbacher, world-famous yoga teacher Rodney Yee, the hardest working man in soap business-Joshua Onysko of Pangea Organics, and eCo Times favorite-Bianca Alexander of Conscious Living TV…these people are major trailblazers of this modern Green Movement we’re experiencing in the US.
Beyond the speeches and panels, there’s the hobnobbing, deal-wheeling, and parties that accompany the event. According to Ted, the stellar keynotes account for only 30-40% of the attendees, the other 60-70% of them come solely for the networking opportunities. I asked him if any great “marriages” have sprung up amongst the conscious business leaders at LOHAS. He concurred with a lengthy list of dream partnerships, from Native Energy joining forces with An Inconvenient Truth to provide their climate offset program, to Steve Case investing $25 million in Gaiam, Inc. The LOHAS Forum is undoubtedly a breeding ground for the synchronistic merging of social and environmental consciousness with capital.
The one partnership he didn’t mention at that point was distinctly obvious to me…Ted Ning and LOHAS. This competitive mogul skier from Evergreen (note: the town South Park is based on), traveled to Japan to work as as a ski coach and returned to Colorado to ride the short and sweet dot com boom in the 90’s until it went bust. After months out of work, Ted felt desperate. He put in applications at Home Depot and PF Chang’s, and finally answered an ad for a Data Entry Analyst in Broomfield. He got the job and takes little crdit for his rapid rise to the top. According to Ted, he spent two years with his nose buried in his work while everyone around him fought with one another and eventually fled the company. He was one of the last folks standing…or sitting, actually. Jirka Rysavy, Founder of Gaiam, turned to Ted one day and asked him if he wanted to take the helm of this exploding multi-pronged organization: journal, website, Forum and all. As Ted loves to say about the outcome of this unexpected partnership, “The rest is history.”
The execs on the LOHAS attendee list range from massive corporate guns like Mercedes-Benz and L’Oreal to mid-sized mission-driven dynamos like Seventh Generation and Clif Bar…and they all want to know how to market to the principled and unpredictable “LOHAS consumer.” I asked Ted if he thought that handing non-green corporations, like Maytag or Proctor and Gamble, the marketing strategies to be successful with the LOHAS community was also handing them the tools to successfully greenwash their conventional product lines. He leaned back and admitted that a scenario like that is always a possibility, but that it’s probably a very small percentage. He offered me some logic I couldn’t refute. “A rising tide raises all ships,” he said.
That it does, Ted.
Want to connect with LOHASians or become one yourself?
- Sign up for the LOHAS weekly newsletter
- Use the LOHAS Directory to source companies practicing “responsible capitalism”
- Check out the LOHAS Stock Index featuring publically-traded companies with the LOHAS stamp of approval
Posted on June 17, 2008 |
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4 Responses to “Ted Ning And The Lohasian Nation”
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Great blog of a great guy. Thanks, y’all–
Refreshing to hear about The Man behind the B2B Movement. Though I was disappointed to see that there were no price breaks or incentives for local companies.
Due to the sheer length of the article, I couldn’t fit this part of the interview in:
eCo: A lot of smaller business owners balk at the $1000 ticket price of the LOHAS Forum. What would you like to say to those people?
Ted: THIS IS AN EVENT DESIGNED TO COMBINE LARGE MID AND SMALL COMPANIES. PRICE IS RELATIVE TO THE NATURE OF OUR AUDIENCE AND IS NOT DESIGNED FOR EVERYONE. WE TOO HAVE TO MAKE SURE WE ARE FINANCIALLY SUSTAINABLE. WE ARE SOLD OUT SO OUR PRICE SEEMS NOT TO BE A FACTOR FOR MANY.
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