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Thomas Kolster

Founder / Author / Speaker
Goodvertising Agency

Thomas Kolster is a frontrunner and one of the most recognised thinkers globally where marketing, business and sustainability meet.

He’s an international keynote speaker who has featured in over 70 countries for companies like Facebook, P&G, and IKEA, to conferences like TEDx.

As author of Goodvertising (2012) and The Hero Trap (2020), he writes for the likes of The Guardian, Ad Age, and Adweek. Thomas continues to drive industry change through his active participation in leading forums, such as The International Advertising Association’s Sustainability Council and D&AD’s Impact Council.

Thomas Kolster is tagged in 28 stories. Page 1 of 2.
Lights, Camera, Climate Action? Advertisers Being Called Upon to Rein in Their Carbon Footprint
Lights, Camera, Climate Action? Advertisers Being Called Upon to Rein in Their Carbon Footprint

Marketing and Comms / Accurately measuring, tracking, comparing and reporting impacts for the process of producing, filming, displaying and running ads will be crucial for the industry to play its part in solving one of the big challenges of our time. - 3 months ago

Pomp, Personalities and Products Made for a Super Bowl with Little Purpose
Pomp, Personalities and Products Made for a Super Bowl with Little Purpose

Marketing and Comms / Product, product, product drove Super Bowl commercials this year; purpose and ESG communication were largely left on the bench. - 3 months ago

The Doomsday Clock Is Ticking on the World’s Biggest Advertising Festival
The Doomsday Clock Is Ticking on the World’s Biggest Advertising Festival

Marketing and Comms / The heat is on — from Greenpeace protesting Cannes to concerned citizens and legislative pressure — for advertisers to make their work count for more than selling more products to the Western world. Here are six key takeaways from this year’s Cannes Lions, and how your campaigns can be and do better. - 11 months ago

Study Shows Purpose-Driven Ads Fall Short in Gaining, Holding Attention; New Approaches Needed
Study Shows Purpose-Driven Ads Fall Short in Gaining, Holding Attention; New Approaches Needed

Marketing and Comms / Joint research by GfK and the Goodvertising Agency reveals value of 'transformational campaigns that empower consumers, rather than those that tout product attributes. - 11 months ago

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Secrets for Effective, Transformative, Authentic, Culture-Changing Brand Engagement
Secrets for Effective, Transformative, Authentic, Culture-Changing Brand Engagement

Behavior Change / To kick off the final day of Brand-Led Culture Change, attendees were treated to a broad series of examples, from a wide swath of experts, of clever strategies that lead to behavior change. - 11 months ago

Forget Selling Products. Change Lives, Instead.
Forget Selling Products. Change Lives, Instead.

Marketing and Comms / The happiness of buying new shoes is a short-lived dopamine kick, whereas finding better ways of living in balance with yourself adds lifelong value. It’s time to create a new offering: Who can you help people become? - 1 year ago

Climate Was the Big Loser in This Year’s Super Bowl – and So Were We
Climate Was the Big Loser in This Year’s Super Bowl – and So Were We

Marketing and Comms / Super Bowl LV wasn’t a year in which brands showed leadership with their sustainability messaging; but after the divisiveness, the climate emergency and the rampaging health crisis of 2020, it was a relief to have a laugh. - 2 years ago

2020 Goodvertising Awards Recognize Year's 10 Most Impactful Creative Campaigns
2020 Goodvertising Awards Recognize Year's 10 Most Impactful Creative Campaigns

Marketing and Comms / 2020’s winners cover topics ranging from calculating product carbon footprints, regenerative farming, healthier food and reusable packaging to DEI, supporting businesses during COVID and more. - 2 years ago

Kolster to Brands: Tout Not How Great Your Product Is, But What It Can Help People Become
Kolster to Brands: Tout Not How Great Your Product Is, But What It Can Help People Become

Marketing and Comms / In his new book, The Hero Trap, Thomas Kolster says rather than promoting what’s good about their company or products, brands need to shift their focus to their customers — specifically, their brand’s role in helping its customers transform their lives. - 2 years ago

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Kolster to Brands: Avoid the ’Hero Trap’ and Close the Intention-Action Gap
Kolster to Brands: Avoid the ’Hero Trap’ and Close the Intention-Action Gap

Walking the Talk / Internationally recognised speaker and author Thomas Kolster, also known as Mr. Goodvertising, takes a hatchet to his earlier beliefs around purpose-driven brands in a new book, “The Hero Trap.” He says the one question brands need to be asking and acting on to change behaviors at scale and unlock sustainable growth that benefits all is ‘Who can you help people become?’ - 2 years ago

The Coronavirus Is Making Public Discourse Sick
The Coronavirus Is Making Public Discourse Sick

Marketing and Comms / When it comes to Coronavirus, the climate emergency or any other disaster, we shouldn’t antagonize; rather, we should empathise. If we learn to see beyond the tips of our noses and adopt a global empathy, we'll be able to tackle this virus — and the even bigger crisis of the climate emergency. - 3 years ago

Super Bowl’s $5.6M Question: Can Snickers Really Fix the World?
Super Bowl’s $5.6M Question: Can Snickers Really Fix the World?

Marketing and Comms / At least the game was fun to watch, because this year’s commercials make the United Nations’ sixth edition of the Global Environment Outlook report seem like interesting reading. This year, corporate America chose to laugh rather than voice an opinion. - 3 years ago

Sell Responsibly… or Else? It’s Time to Face (Over)-Consumption and Come Up with Creative Solutions
Sell Responsibly… or Else? It’s Time to Face (Over)-Consumption and Come Up with Creative Solutions

Marketing and Comms / We shouldn’t lure people into buying more than they need; but rather, help people make it all add up to a more meaningful life. Brands might be able to keep afloat on a short-term strategy and hide behind a cloak of innocence, but every dinosaur step is one closer to extinction. - 3 years ago

SB’19 Montevideo: The Road to a Healthy World Is Paved with ‘Transformative Promises’
SB’19 Montevideo: The Road to a Healthy World Is Paved with ‘Transformative Promises’

The Next Economy / In the first gathering of the SB community in Uruguay, change agents from a wide swath of perspectives shared their visions of what’s necessary to course-correct our way to a healthy, flourishing future — and where the power really lies in driving change. - 3 years ago

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Screw the Nice Gestures, Advertisers — We Need More Real Impact
Screw the Nice Gestures, Advertisers — We Need More Real Impact

Marketing and Comms / A behind-the-scenes look from a Sustainable Development Goals jury member at last week's Cannes Lions. - 3 years ago

Was I Asleep During This Year’s Super Bowl?
Was I Asleep During This Year’s Super Bowl?

Marketing and Comms / Quick laughs, bad jokes, celebrities — but very few with a message - 4 years ago

SB Nordic: Actions Speak Louder Than Words
SB Nordic: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Walking the Talk / So, what do a slave-free chocolate brand, an activist bank and a blindfolded panel of diversity experts have in common? - 4 years ago

Corporate America Swings from Sobs to Silence in This Year’s Super Bowl
Corporate America Swings from Sobs to Silence in This Year’s Super Bowl

Marketing and Comms / It was a sad Super Bowl. Sad, as only Trump can say it. Saaad. One minute I had a cunning, fast-talking clown trying to sell me stuff in true ad-land fashion. The next, I felt emotionally mistreated by a sobbing stranger playing curling with my heart. Corporate America appeared not to care at all — and if it did, it cared too much — which is exactly the problem. Of four quarters of fast-paced commercials only around 10 aimed for something bigger than product plugging. - 5 years ago

Cannes Lions: Worst Year Ever Was Best Year Yet for Goodvertising
Cannes Lions: Worst Year Ever Was Best Year Yet for Goodvertising

Marketing and Comms / Leaving Cannes last week, I felt even more schizophrenic than I did during my hard-working years in ad land. On the one hand, it’s been the best year ever in the Festival’s history for advertising that does more than sell snake oil - call it ‘Goodvertising,’ if you will. On the other, it seems like most agencies and marketers are treating the biggest issues of our time as a new trend, as if doing good is simply the ‘new black’ or perhaps pink (judging from the number of women’s equality campaigns on show). - 5 years ago

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Sign o' the Times: This Year's Super Bowl Had More Goodvertising Than Ever
Sign o' the Times: This Year's Super Bowl Had More Goodvertising Than Ever

Marketing and Comms / The political unrest seems to be good for advertising with a conscience, as this year’s Super Bowl saw the highest number of Goodvertising campaigns ever. - 6 years ago

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