Marketing is a sector that is facing huge disruption and change. In the new marketing environment many, if not most of the old approaches do not work. Sustainability thinking offers many solutions to help marketers be successful in this new landscape. This presentation explains how brands can become better marketers through sustainability, and references many examples where it is already happening. It also explains how corporate structures need to transform in order to take advantage.

1. Can
sustainability
be a route to
becoming a
better
marketer?

2. What is the job
of marketing?
“Marketing people like to say that a product is more
than a physical object. There is a story a promise -
that’s what the brand represents.
Sometimes this story is true and sometimes
unfortunately it is not. The process of marketing is to
uncover and coax out a story that is buried inside the
product.
What happens next is a battery of focus groups,
ethnographies and brainscans to uncover what the
consumer wishes the product really was.
Then the marketing budget is spent telling lies about
the product”
Baked In by Alex Bogusky and John Winsor
Adding some
sheen?

3. What is the job
of sustainable
marketing?
Adding
some green
sheen?

4. Green sheen is definitely not the answer!

5. An evolutionary
perspective on the
new challenges of
marketing...
and how
sustainability
thinking can
overcome these
challenges

6. what works - has changed
what is possible - has changed
what people want - has changed
the rules
the players
the platform
platform rules characters

7. what works has changed
Advertising
In ads we trust resistance
Belief that companies generally tell
the truth in ads has fallen down
from 13% to just 6% 2002 to 2006
The brand bubble ­ John Gerzema and Ed Lebar

8. “Advertising does not reflect my life nowadays”
% who agree / strongly agree, by age within country
Source: nVision Research
Base: 11,000 aged 15+ / 5,000 aged 16-64 (Nordics), 2006

9. what works has changed
Can’t get my
Media message across
monopoly
TV viewing (UK.) No of programmes in
the UK that reached over 15 million?
1999 – 177
2006 – 2
2007 – 0
Barb data
Source: Jupiter/Merrill Lynch/Deloitte State of Media 2007, Big Six Study 2007 (US/Germany)

10. Simultaneous TV watching & internet use
Source: nVision research
Base: 9000 internet users aged 15+

11. what works has changed
Trust and Falling trust
respect in and respect
brands
Y&R research from
2008 shows a 50%
drop in TRUST in the
last 9 years
The Henley centre in the UK has
recorded that since 1999 the 17
largest iconic brands have shown a
16% decline in consumer TRUST

12. Sustainability thinking can help...
Engagement
Trust is more important to us than it has ever been.
Global chief marketing ofSicer McDonalds
From loss of trust to
Build trust and respect sustainability champions
Behaviour - the company is
the message

13. what’s possible has changed
Hide behind Digital
the brand transparency

14. what’s
possible has
changed
Brand People
directed directed
media media

15. what’s possible has changed
Product Commoditisation
di≠erentiation
Brand differentiation decline ­ 40
out of 46 categories showed a
decline in ability to differentiate
based on Copernicus brand metrics

16. Sustainability thinking can help...
Di≠erentiation
Reputation risk/
opportunity
Open dialogue

17. what people want has changed
Inhuman Human
companies companies
“A business has a voice. You can usually hear it
-- authentic or unauthentic -- most obviously
and transparently, on its Web site. Even before
the last graphic finishes downloading, you can
usually tell if the company speaks with passion,
if it’s lost or uninterested.
The Cluetrain Manifesto - Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger.

18. what people want has changed
Brand Authenticity
identity seeking
40% of Europeans now claim that
they actively try to “support small
brands or producers whenever I
can” according to nVision Research.
Aegis Media research

20. what people want has changed
Meeting short Fitting with
term needs long term
Values
The brand bubble ­ John Gerze
ma and Ed Lebar
“In ‘Built To Last’, Jerry Porras and Michael
Collins demonstrate that – in the medium
and longer term – purpose‐driven businesses
outperform businesses with similar asset
bases, from similar locaEons, of similar age,
etc. by a large margin.”
Mark Earls, HERD
Vision
“The market for
something to
believe in is infinite”
Hugh MacCleod

21. Sustainability thinking can help...
Relevance -
Empathy
Authenticity
Leadership

22. Using
sustainability to
answer the new
marketing
challenges
means re-thinking
corporate
structures

23. Inside out Outside in
Sustainability
Marketing
The lines become blurred

24. “Brand Ecosystem”
Operations CSR Marketing
HR Product
Suppliers Employees Customers
Every part of your business is under scrutiny
But when imbued with sustainability thinking, every part can be brand building

25. Patagonia - just logistics?
Digital transparency
16 products
Interactive
Open discussion
“ We believe it’s
important for
our customers
to know the true
environmental
and social
impact of a
garment they
purchase.
Casey Sheahan,
CEO, Patagonia

26. Zappos – just human resources?
“ To us, customer service
isn't just a department --
it is the entire company.
$2000 to quit
random acts of kindness
10 core values
employees in ads
$1.2 billion

27. Nike greenxchange – just product development?
open-source
collaborative
400 patents shared
innovation communities
“ Our hope is this will unleash new
innovation to help solve current
obstacles to sustainability issues
Mark Parker, Nike CEO

28. Dole - just supply chain management?
3-digit farm code
25+ farms
traceability
digital transparency
“ It's not enough for the
customer to love your
product. They have to love
your process as well.
The Cluetrain Manifesto

29. News Corp – just corporate comms?
leadership on big issues
“ Imagine if we succeed in
inspiring our audiences to
reduce their own impacts on
climate change by just 1 per
cent. That would be like
turning the state of California
off for almost two months.
carbon neutral
Rupert Murdoch, CEO News Corp
educate and engage
drives a hybrid

30. Danone Grameen - just CSR?
“
new market
A great opportunity to make
partnership progress and take another
huge step towards fulfilling
multinational social business our mission: to bring health
through food to as many
6¢ people as possible.
1,600 new jobs
Franck Riboud, CEO Groupe Danone

31. Pepsi Refresh – beyond brand communications?
“We decided that this
year it was time for the
brand to actually go
within culture and
actually move
something forward, so
that it was actually
$25 million
$5,000 - $250,000
getting engaged with
consumers. 6 categories
Frank Cooper, CCEO, PepsiCo
1155 ideas this month

32. “Brand Ecosystem”
Operations CSR Marketing
HR Product
Suppliers Employees Customers
Every part of your business is under scrutiny
But when imbued with sustainability thinking, every part can be brand building

33. “ The future belongs to a very
different kind of person with
a very different kind of mind
– creators and empathizers,
pattern recognizers and
meaning makers.
Daniel H. Pink