How brands are evolving in the area of sustainability marketing and communications — and how their stakeholders are asserting their own needs and preferences.
It’s National Drinking Water Week, but new survey results suggest Americans may have more concerns on their minds than reasons to celebrate. Most Americans feel unknowledgeable about what is in their drinking water and are concerned about contaminants.
Which brands do you really care about? Is there one you simply couldn’t do without? It’s a question that we rarely ask — so prevalent and dominant are companies and brands in our everyday lives. But while we’re dependent on the products and services that enable our modern existence, do we really care who makes them? The history of consumer culture is littered with once-dominant consumer brands that were replaced by newer, more relevant offerings. Today, in the Internet age, the shelf life of major brands is shorter than ever before. Consider powerful brands such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: None of these existed 15 years ago. Would you like to bet they will be around 10 years from now?
For decades, the ASPCA has been advocating for better breeding practices and adoption for dogs with campaigns that focused on educating the public on where pet store dogs come from. But over time, the influx of digital technology has completely transformed how people get dogs. And Millennials, the largest generation of dog lovers ever, are increasingly relying on online sources, which makes it difficult to track where our furry friends are coming from.
Today’s customers are choosing how to spend their dollars based on one of two factors: convenience or shared values. For example, Blue Apron, a grocery delivery company that makes it easier to cook healthy meals, is winning on convenience. But when you have the option of choosing between convenience services, as many customers do in the ride-hailing market, values determine the victor. Lyft is riding (pun intended) on the sharing-economy movement and gaining market share because of its commitment to fair practices with customers and employees. Customers tell their friends they “took a Lyft” as a signal of shared cultural values.
Proposing a new idea and convincing others of its validity is no easy task. Even more so when you’re dealing with complex issues such as supply chain transparency, or trying to shift the ‘take, make and waste’ model of the fashion industry to one of circularity.
People can now see, in detail, what goes into choosing each of the ingredients that are used in SC Johnson products.
Nearly 50 years ago, the U.S. passed legislation to ensure the air we breathe and water we drink is clean, and that endangered animals and federal lands are protected. For 20 years, enforcement of these laws ranged from full swing or lapsed, depending on the political winds. And then something remarkable occurred: The American people took over and started a movement, spurring action to protect the environment.
CVS Health continues to put its money where its purpose is. Following up on the promise it made in January to stop altering imagery for beauty products, the company’s retail division, CVS Pharmacy, has launched an advertising campaign, “Beauty in Real Life.”
Is there any better platform than Instagram to turn the jealousy of wanderlust into environmental awareness? Followers scroll through the feeds of travel influencers, admiring the photos of scenic destinations and express their enjoyment with a 'like' and their envy in the comments. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and ad agency TBWA\Paris saw this as an opportunity to highlight how many beautiful places are being lost to pollution, clear-cutting and other forms of environmental destruction.
In February, KFC in the United Kingdom had a bit of an issue — it ran out of chicken.
Sustainability reporting focuses on the challenges that most affect business performance and matter most to key stakeholders. From understanding consumption and cost of inefficiencies and anomalies, clear reporting is mission critical to any organization’s ability to meet sustainability goals. But sustainability reports are only as impactful as the quality of the data that is being used. If the data driving your reports is incomplete or inaccurate, you could be compromising the nature of your assessments. Just like the quality of soil is important for the growth of a tree, the quality of your data is just as important for growing your sustainability programs.
Outdoor apparel brand Icebreaker has reinforced its commitment to the use of natural fibres and sustainable production with the launch of its inaugural Transparency Report: Made Different. Touting it as an industry first, the report gives readers a full behind-the-scenes view of the brand’s entire operation. “Our thinking was simple. What if our customers could see everything we do?’’ explained Greg Smith, the CEO of Icebreaker.
The Sustainable Restaurant Association’s (SRA) latest campaign is “helping people understand what sustainable food looks, smells and tastes like,” says its president Raymond Blanc OBE.
While textile waste and human rights are often the focus of conversations surrounding sustainability in the fashion industry, most consumers remain unaware of the sector’s impact on forests and the wildlife and communities that rely on them. In a bid to raise awareness around the need to protect this valuable natural resource, Canopy, an environmental organization dedicated to protecting the world’s forests, has launched a new video for International Day of Forests that connects clothing to the rainforests of Northern Sumatra.
One in 10 people around the world lacks access to clean drinking water, yet the majority of US consumers are unaware of the extent of the global water crisis, new research from Procter & Gamble (P&G) shows.
A new report from CDP and the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) shows a gap between the way companies identify climate-related risks and opportunities, and how they are preparing to tackle them.
Electricity and gas company E.ON Energy has launched a new campaign in hopes of challenging the norms in the utilities sector and exploring what can be done differently. The first ad shows Barcelona’s city streets transformed into a giant swimming pool that is heated by E.ON’s air source heat pumps. This E.ON technology has already heated an Olympic-sized swimming pool by harnessing energy in the air, combined with electricity. The ad, of course, imagines this technology’s capabilities on a much larger scale.
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is challenging the marketing industry to use its influence to help deliver a more sustainable future with the launch of Project Extraordinary, a global video challenge that will see creative agencies produce short films to demonstrate how sustainability can be desirable and sexy.
Over the past fourteen years, photographer Ashley Cooper amassed the world’s single largest collection of images documenting the impacts of climate change and renewable energy projects around the world, which have just been published in a book entitled Images From a Warming Planet. Jonathon Porritt, who wrote the foreword for the book, called it “An extraordinary collection of images and a powerful call to action.” Here, Cooper recounts the highs, lows and lessons learned during his journey.
At a moment when the world is beginning to more fully acknowledge the power and voice of women, big name brands and organizations are using their influence — and some creative marketing — to shed light on issues such as the gender pay gap and the lack of opportunities for women in STEM.