Unsurprisingly, one of the key themes of our Brand-Led Culture
Change event
this week is best practices for brands aiming to nudge their customers toward
more conscious habits and behaviors. Here are takeaways from an array of experts
who shared their insights on day one …
How brands can build a purpose movement by prioritizing people
L-R: BCLC's Emily McDonald, ASICS' Alice Mitchell, Aveda's Paula Marrs and Traditional Medicinals' Jamie Horst | Image credit: Sustainable Brands
Brands aren’t the heroes; their customers are.
That was the message Thomas
Kolster of Goodvertising
Agency shared in a Monday morning workshop on
creating a purpose movement by prioritizing people.
The 50 Liter Home: Lessons from a multi-industry global collaboration
Join us as leaders from Electrolux and Procter & Gamble share insights and progress to date on ‘The 50 Liter Home’ — a partnership aimed at reducing water consumption in the home, while also generating awareness that leads to better lifestyle choices for sustainable water use — Wednesday, Oct. 16, at SB'24 San Diego.
“Brands are pretending to be superheroes,” Kolster said. “If I go into a bar
tonight and scream out ‘I’m the world’s best lover;’ at some point, someone’s
going to find out that I’m not. And unfortunately, it’s often quite the same
with brands.”
Kolster calls this “The Hero
Trap” — an
all-too-common phenomenon where brands position themselves as the
heroes
consumers need to lead fulfilling lives. Instead, brands must be help their
customers transform their lives by empowering or inspiring them to be their own
heroes. Most of the time, Kolster said, brands are talking at people, not with
people.
“Think about how to help people along on their own journey instead of obsessing
about yours,” he advised. “Who can you help people become?”
Transformative brands insert themselves into culture, rather than mirroring it.
Retail brands such as IKEA are democratizing their offering by empowering
would-be
customers
to be a part of the purchasing journey — a shift from a transactional mindset
toward one into experiences that transform.
Then, a panel of speakers from Traditional
Medicinals,
Aveda, British Columbia Lottery
Corporation and ASICS
provided tactical examples of how brand leaders can build transparent and
authentic strategies and campaigns that can become movements toward lasting
culture change.
Authenticity and experimentation — both internal and consumer-facing — are
essential elements in becoming a transformative brand that empowers people to
become the heroes of their own journeys. As Aveda’s Paula
Marrs pointed out, new challenges
arise every day; so, it’s essential to constantly examine and reexamine company
priorities. Workplaces are a place of collective action, said Jamie
Horst of Traditional Medicinals — so,
build a system that empowers employees to become the change they want to see;
then, scale that system to empower customers, as well. This means rejecting
growth as a key KPI and instead embracing others such as biodiversity,
education, waste reduction and more.
To engage folks in climate change, we need to make it fun!
Image credit: AWorld
Another Monday morning workshop explored the powerful intersection of
gamification and rewards in culture change, led by two inspiring speakers and
companies: Jenny Gottstein,
formerly of IDEO and creator of the climate-action gameshow, “Beat! That!
Heat!”; and Alessandro
Armillotta,
CEO of digital sustainable behavior game “AWorld.”
According to Gottstein, a “climate doom” mentality has become widespread due to
the scale and complexity of solving global climate challenges; and the world
needs more fun, exciting and engaging solutions. The audience enthusiastically
agreed.
Drawing on a decade of experiential design leadership experience at IDEO,
Gottstein created Beat! That! Heat! — a climate-action gameshow based on three
core design principles:
-
Design for laughter
-
Dial up wins and dial down shame
-
Make space to integrate.
“What if Family Feud,
Celebrity Lipsync Battle and Double Dare all joined forces to defeat climate
change?” the game’s site posits.
Gottstein took the audience through the game’s four rounds:
-
Feeling the feels
-
Understanding the solutions
-
Celebrating wins
-
Taking climate action.
Beat! That! Heat! is available for partnership with organizations of all sizes
looking to engage their workforce in the climate-action fight in a light, fun
way.
Similarly, AWorld is a sustainability-themed game experience — but entirely
digital. Created by Armillotta and his cofounders — CTO Alessandro
Lancieri and Italian football star Marco
Armellino — the game
leverages the latest research in behavioral psychology and social science to
inspire, engage, educate and measure the impact of individual and collective
sustainable actions.
Participants can sign up and learn about and commit to take measurable
sustainable actions, and can also issue and participate in team-based challenges
within their organization.
The game has measured more than 11 million actions to date and partners with
leading organizations in the US and Europe including Prada, Blackstone,
the UN, the EU Commission, Cambridge University, the University of
Florida and more.
Content creators for good: Partnerships that value the influencer as much as the brand
Image credit: Vladamua
The influencer space has grown into a recognized career field. The brands we
care about now place great emphasis on aligning with customer values and wish to
partner with those who demonstrate such. As brands present their offerings to
target audiences, so do online content creators who cater to a specific segment
of consumers — this is known as micro-influencing.
As Christina Lampert —
Director of Growth & Innovation at HowGood, known online
by her followers as the Sustainable
Millennial — points out,
micro-influencers curate inspirational content that conveys passion, sincerity
and a willingness to be seen as a peer within the community they cater to. The
first set of panelists on the subject discussed how to ensure brand-influencer
marketing partnerships are authentic for both the brand and the content creator.
Jessica Padula of Nespresso
highlighted the notion that it’s not as authentic for a brand to showcase its
own achievements, rather than when others get talking about the brand.
“It is good to educate, but also tell the story from others’ perspectives,”
Padula said.
When it comes to a successful brand strategy, creating partnerships that are
values-driven is top of mind. It’s a two-way communication in how you can tell a
story in a way that works for both brands. Cosmetic artist influencer Vlada
Haggerty, founder of Vladamua
LLC, is currently partnering with Sustainable Brands
to promote the SB Nine Sustainable
Behaviors — a
campaign that generates awareness of the ways that both consumers and brands can
create positive change — in a digestible format, with Haggerty providing the
artwork (example above). This kind of two-way communication ensures collaboration and values
remain consistent throughout.
On the content creator end, influencer Dominique
Side of The Luxury
Vegan shared that she makes
it her job to spend time educating others on what her values are. “I approach
veganism with a compassionate mindset,” Side said, adding, “The Luxury Vegan is
a consultancy. We help thought leaders on being compassionate and authentic.”
The second set of panelists, moderated by Tara
Nolan of Fractional, discussed the
growing creator economy — currently estimated at $100 billion. Consumer reports
show that people are searching online for ways to make an impact — and
influencers are an increasingly trusted
source
for connecting customers with brands that can show them how.
“Creators are creative; they are not only content publishers,” said creative
development executive and producer Davida
Hall. In order to establish
win-win partnerships, brands cannot treat creators as just salespeople; trust
should be placed in the creators’ hands that what they produce will resonate
with their audience.
Attendees of the session got to put the Dos and Don’ts of influencer
partnerships into practice. Groups identified a potential creator to partner
with and outlined key criteria to ensure a successful, ongoing partnership that
created trust between the influencer and the brand’s audience.
If brands are to create an influencer strategy that advances both its business
and impact goals, it is critical to place faith in the influencer’s own
creativity and values that drive them in the content they promote and the
audiences that they connect with.
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Jeremy Osborn is a NYC-based entrepreneur and and senior consultant with a background in marketing and communications, tech, strategy, governance, and sustainability. He holds an MA in Resources, Environment, and Sustainability from the University of British Columbia and has worked for leading brands in a wide range of industries and sectors — including food and ag, consumer goods, built environment, industrial manufacturing, energy, finance, transportation, and more.
Christian is a writer, photographer, filmmaker, and outdoor junkie obsessed with the intersectionality between people and planet. He partners with brands and organizations with social and environmental impact at their core, assisting them in telling stories that change the world.
Demitri Fierro recently earned an MBA in Sustainable Solutions from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. For the last two years, he has served as Program Manager for the Consultancy Shadowing Program, as well as sustainability consultant for a variety of clients. Determined to apply his background to bring sustainable solutions to storytelling and media, he is a contributor for the Environmental Media Association in Los Angeles. When he is not working to solve the climate crisis, he can be found journaling, enjoying a nice hike, watching a basketball game or learning about anthropology at a local museum.
Published May 24, 2023 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST