For over 130 years, National Geographic’s multifaceted media platform has
captivated millions; its award-winning team of explorers, photographers,
journalists and filmmakers showcases the beauty, innovation and wonder —
alongside the tragedy, injustice and need for change — around the world, through
the power of effective storytelling. Nat Geo’s efficacy lies at the nexus of
science, entertainment and purpose; this signature blend will be felt throughout
the Storytelling track at next week’s SB’19
Detroit.
We caught up with Nat Geo CMO Jill Cress to learn more about how this
‘purpose-native’ media behemoth maximizes its impacts through strategic
partnerships.
I've heard you refer to Nat Geo as a ‘purpose-native’ brand. What does that mean?
Jill Cress: For more than 131 years, National Geographic has been exploring,
protecting the planet, and telling stories that matter. We believe that when
people understand the world and their role in it, they will care more deeply and
take responsibility for it.
Purpose has been at the core of National Geographic since its inception, and it
continues to drive everything we do — from the stories we share within the pages
of the magazine, across our television channels, on our social and digital
platforms, to our marketing strategy, to the partnerships we make.
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This long-held sense of purpose — that, through exploration we can make a
difference by helping consumers care more about the world around them — this is
the core of our business, and this alone can be credited for the quality,
authenticity and impact consumers synonymize with our brand. It helps us drive
conversations on topics that matter and inspires us to infuse every piece of
content with our mission and brand purpose.
What are some examples of this in action? What have been the results/reactions from consumers to those examples?
JC: One of my favorite examples is our global Planet or Plastic?
initiative
– aimed at raising awareness about the global plastic waste crisis and reducing
the amount of single-use plastic that reaches the ocean.
Each year, 9 million tons of plastic waste ends up in the ocean. Some estimates
suggest this plastic could remain in the environment for 450 years or longer,
and the problem is only getting worse.
So, in 2018, we launched Planet or Plastic?, which asks consumers to make a
choice and help reduce the amount of plastic waste reaching the ocean.
Planet or Plastic? leverages all of our unique assets — our award-winning
storytelling, unparalleled social footprint; and nonprofit, scientific
organization — and strategic partnerships with like-minded companies to explore
why single-use plastic ends up in our oceans in the first place, and develop
solutions that will have a measurable impact on reducing how much plastic
reaches the ocean.
More than 20 countries launched Planet or Plastic? consumer awareness
campaigns as a part of the effort. To date, people have
pledged to help prevent more than 230 million
single-use plastic items from reaching the ocean, helping us meet a goal of
preventing 1 billion single-use plastic items from reaching the ocean.
And it is actually helping to bring a new set of consumers to Nat Geo. Roughly
two-thirds of the people who have engaged with us via Planet or Plastic? had
never interacted with our content, product or service before.
Jill Cress delivers a keynote at SB'18 Vancouver | Image credit: Sustainable Brands
Additionally, we just wrapped a Planet or Plastic? partnership with
Wattpad,
the global multi-platform entertainment company for original stories, to raise
awareness of the global plastic crisis through a creative storytelling
challenge, aimed at Gen Z. The contest alone resulted in more than 6,000
original Planet or Plastic?-related stories from young authors, and more than
75,000 individual pledges from the Wattpad community to reduce their single-use
plastic footprint.
This is an initiative that we are passionate about and consumers are paying
attention to. We will continue to think of ways to make everyone aware of the
situation and how small changes to their habits can have a great impact on
plastic pollution.
How does a heavy focus on purpose translate to Nat Geo's partnerships?
JC: Time and time again, we have found like-minded companies excited to join
forces to amplify our purpose and drive consumers to make an impact.
As in the case of our Wattpad storytelling partnership — through which we aimed
to inspire the next generation to do their part to protect the environment
through creative storytelling and artistic activism — all of our partnerships
must align with our central mission: to cultivate curiosity and care about our
planet. As a result, we’ve seen our partnerships resonate deeply with our
audience.
With Brita, we aimed to educate and activate consumers around our shared
goal of reducing the amount of single-use plastics used by consumers. In support
of our Planet or Plastic initiative, the multi-platform program included a
sponsored New Year’s pledge offering consumers the opportunity to cut plastic in
the new year, a New Year’s social campaign, and a moving custom video of Nat Geo
photographer Pete McBride tracking the path of a plastic bottle and
explaining the plastic pollution he’s seen firsthand.
With Stella Artois, we partnered to support their #1Chalice5Years
campaign, aimed at ending the global water crisis, tied to World Water
Month. Our custom, cause-based partnership with Stella in 2017 centered around
World Water Day, with a social media takeover in March; a one-hour
documentary, “Our Dream of Water”;
and custom content pieces featuring filmmaker talent spotlighting key water
issues, that aired on the Nat Geo Channel throughout Water Month. The campaign
raised awareness of the clean drinking water issue with more than 200 million
impressions; and more importantly, resulted in more than 500 people gaining
access to clean and sustainable drinking water (from 160K chalice sales).
We’ve followed similar partnership models with organizations like GSK Consumer
Healthcare — with whom we teamed up on a challenge to inspire, engage and
ignite consumers everywhere to become catalysts of change in the world, in
support of our “GENIUS: EINSTEIN” show on the Nat Geo Channel. The series
called for world-changing ideas across three areas: building a more sustainable
planet, improving global health, and feeding an eventual population of nine
billion. The Chasing Genius
challenge
ended with winning a Shorty Social Good
Award for Environment &
Sustainability, and resulted in 225 million impressions and 3,000 ideas
submitted.
As in the examples we’ve shared, we recognize that partnering with other
organizations for good can result in a bigger impact. Collaboration is the only
way we can make a marked difference on some of these big issues the planet is
facing, and that’s why we’re excited to join the Sustainable Brands Corporate
Member
Network.
We’re looking forward to collaborating with this tribe of like-minded companies
using their power to drive a sustainable future.
Nat Geo's strength in driving change is through storytelling — what impacts have initiatives such as Planet or Plastic? and the ACTIVATE platform made to date? What can we expect next from those initiatives? Are other such platforms/campaigns in the works that you can tell us about?
JC: Great question. As I mentioned earlier, we are very proud to be using
storytelling to raise awareness of the plastic pollution crisis with Planet or
Plastic?, and it has been exciting to see our readers and audiences around the
world pick up the mantle and take the pledge. This is just the beginning for
Planet or Plastic? and we expect to have more important features coming out
around the science of what we’re seeing. For instance, the National Geographic
Society just launched an international “Sea to Source” expedition, studying
plastic pollution in one of the world's most iconic waterways — the Ganges
River — and we’re excited to work with the interdisciplinary, all-female
expedition team to report on what they’ve been documenting.
And you can expect to see more from
ACTIVATE
in the near future, as well! ACTIVATE, as you mentioned, is our multi-platform
storytelling partnership with P&G and Global Citizen to raise awareness
about the critical issues of global poverty, inequality and sustainability –- or
in other words, to ACTIVATE global citizens and drive change. The program
features a series of celebrity-led documentaries around the topics of clean
drinking water and sanitation, racial bias and criminalization of poverty,
girls’ education, responsible sourcing, plastic waste and disaster relief. The
six-part documentary series will air globally this Fall on National Geographic.
As our president of National Geographic Global Television Networks, Courteney
Monroe, said at the outset, we hope that each episode will serve as a
“rallying cry that we hope will move audiences around the globe from ‘intent’ to
‘action.’”
As always, more exciting initiatives to come.
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Published May 31, 2019 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST