How brands are successfully communicating their sustainability efforts — and how their stakeholders are asserting their own needs and preferences
On Tuesday morning, over breakfast at SB’16 Copenhagen, Filip Engel, head of DONG Energy Group Sustainability, and Ryan Bell from VRScout showed us virtual reality’s (VR) transformational power in sustainability communication. Modern energy companies have their share of challenges, as Engel told us.
Cross-Posted from Consumer Behavior Change. In a rich and fascinating afternoon workshop on Monday, behavioural design experts Sille Krukow and Teis Andres of Krukow Behavioural Consulting explored their theory and tools on how conscientious companies can design the right environments in which consumers can achieve their sustainability aspirations.
“The sustainability movement has been slowly gaining momentum, but I think we would all agree that it isn’t moving fast enough and the world we live in can’t afford for us to continue moving at the current pace.”
Certification, standards and labels have long provided an effective mechanism for raising awareness around a range of sustainability issues – from deforestation and overfishing, to carbon reduction and energy efficiency.
How can a brand or a company cut through the noise of our modern media landscape and truly connect with a short-attention span public about the social and environmental issues it really cares about? Documentary film might not seem the obvious solution, given that the medium demands an audience’s full attention for a good chunk of time. Increasingly though, marketers are turning to documentary storytelling to cut through all that social media noise and tap into a growing consumer demand for content that isn’t simply a throwaway video snack.
Are traditional gender norms of “manliness” slowing the advancement of the sustainable economy? Turns out, they might, according to new research in the Journal of Consumer Research. But while prior research attributes this gender gap in sustainable consumption to personality differences between the sexes, the new study proposes that it may also stem partially from a prevalent association between "green" behavior and femininity, and a corresponding stereotype — held by both men and women — that sustainable consumers are more feminine.
Cross-Posted from Innovation & Technology. Meet two racers who share a need to push the envelope - whether the subject is figuring out how to go a few millimeters per second faster than before or preserving endangered species.
When your smartphone receives a message or a call while you’re driving, do you answer it? For most (64 percent of) Americans, the answer is yes – but only if they’re driving alone. Interestingly, only 36 percent look at their phone screens with passengers in the car and just 30 percent do so if there is a child in the car. But as AT&T’s latest ad demonstrates, even if you’re alone in your car, you’re never alone on the road.
A new study reveals that consumers’ demand for product transparency is on the rise – overall, they desire more product information and are inclined to be more loyal to brands that provide more detailed insights. About 40 percent say they would switch to a new brand if it offered full product transparency, and 81 percent say they would consider a brand’s entire portfolio of products if they switched to that brand as a result of increased transparency.
With about one-fifth of the world’s population, China has the ability to significantly contribute to the success of the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The country made impressive strides in pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals, particularly in poverty alleviation, and is well-positioned to build on that progress in the post-2015 development agenda despite the challenges it will undoubtedly face.
The number of Americans with limited access to fruits and vegetables has climbed to nearly 30 million. In other words, the ‘food desert’ crisis affects roughly one in every ten people in the United States.
Growing consumer demand for healthy, responsibly produced food is leading more and more big food companies to embrace transparency, simplify their product formulas and highlight the integrity of their foods: Examples include Campbell’s and Chipotle, which both launched ‘what’s in my food’ campaigns in the past year; Panera,
Canadian health charities are teaming up to battle the problem of childhood obesity in a way that the food and beverage industry is not going to like. More than ten organizations have joined the Stop Marketing to Kids Coalition, including some of Canada’s largest and most influential health charities, to campaign against advertising junk food to children. And to avoid the risk of unhealthy products pretending to be healthy – they’re pushing for a complete ban on all food and beverage advertising aimed at people age 16 and younger.
This month, Canadians may have noticed that The Body Shop has been monkeying around on the dating app Tinder. The brand has created a profile for Reggie, a Red Shanked Douc monkey from Vietnam, as part of a new ‘gorilla’ marketing initiative to promote its new Bio-Bridges program. Since it was announced in May, the program has been promoted through the ‘Help Reggie Find Love’ campaign, online and in-stores. The playful campaign is intended to raise awareness around the challenges that monkeys and other endangered species face in living safely and finding a mate.
After passing the Senate last week, a bill proposing a federal labeling standard for foods with genetically modified ingredients - and blocking states from creating their own standards - sailed through the US House of Representatives on Thursday, and is now on its way to President Obama. The bill, which passed by a landslide 306 to 117 vote, directs the U.S. Department of Agriculture to create a national labeling standard that allows food producers to choose how they want to disclose the presence of genetically modified ingredients - manufacturers will be able to use text, symbols or a QR code that consumers must scan with a smartphone to relay the information.
This week, the Beer Institute announced a new initiative to encourage its member companies to display specific consumer information on products, packaging or websites.
Will the power of love help Chipotle recover from its food safety woes, defecting customers and still-struggling stock price? The fast casual restaurant chain has once again produced an original animated short film in an attempt to advocate for fresh, unprocessed ingredients and ‘cultivating a better world.’
As the controversy over genetically modified foods continues to rage amongst consumers and researchers, Greenpeace recently came under fire from 110 Nobel Laureates calling them out for their consistent anti-GMO stance, in particular, against “Golden Rice” — a rice product genetically engineered to biosynthesize beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, in the edible parts of rice.
Mr. Potato Head was first manufactured back in 1952 as a bundle of plastic parts and pushpins, the idea being that you would stick them into a real potato that would serve as the toy’s head. The first toy ever advertised on television, Mr. Potato Head would rely on root vegetables from family kitchens until 1964, when rotting vegetables were replaced with everlasting plastic shells. Despite the strange practice of storing spare face parts in his butt, Mr. Potato Head has remained a childhood favorite, now marketed under the Playskool brand owned by toy giant Hasbro.
Struggling to cover basic expenses such as food, housing and education, the roughly 40 million garment workers in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia and other parts of Asia regularly risk physical violence, sexual harassment, starvation, and even death for the sake of cheap clothing.