Notes from the March 10 2015 Corporate Member Meeting

2. • How are “branded houses”
keeping their messaging
consistent while allowing each
brand its own voice?
• Lessons for retail; employee
engagement; social media;
behavior management
• How do we get consumers to
grasp the connection between
technology and sustainability?

3. • Getting messaging through the “noise” of all
other customer messaging
• How do you initiative or facilitate dialogue about
sustainability with customers?

4. One of our members is facing a unique
predicament: the company’s sustainability-
branded category has become “too strong”,
potentially fostering the consumer perception
that the company’s other products underperform
on sustainability indicators. Consequently, the
company is considering killing the
brand/category and distributing sustainability
messaging across all products. Has anyone else
dealt with such a decision? Let’s discuss in the
forum.
• NOTE: this is a current consideration for the
company, so please keep the discussion
anonymous per the Chatham House Rule.

5. • Some companies have begun measuring sustainability
against their Net Promoter Score (NPS) with meaningful
correlation (statistically significant?). Has anyone else
been able to identify a statistically significant positive
correlation?

6. Sustainability has become
an emotional and political
issue for some. How do we
change the frame and take
the emotion and politics out
of sustainability story-
telling?

7. • Customer “personas” can be an important
tactic for identifying different types of
customers and the need for communicating to
each in different ways, i.e. the messaging for
one persona might have no effect on other
personas.
• Similarly, ensure resources/effort/spend for
each persona is reflective of the business
value of each persona, i.e. don’t spend a lot of
time/money communicating to personas who
either don’t care or don’t represent significant
revenue potential.

8. • Customers don’t want to feel like they are
simply helping the company’s profit margin.
They want to feel that they are benefiting
themselves, their loved ones, their
community, etc. with their sustainability
actions. They want to feel like a “hero”.
• Uncover what makes your customers feel
like a hero, it may be different for different
segments. Grandparents feel like heroes for
benefiting their grandkids; Millenials might
feel like heroes for actions that support the
bottom of the pyramid, polar bears, or
conflict nations.

9. • Reach your customers “where they are”…
» Put communications at the point of physical contact,
e.g. QR codes on the bathroom mirrors, at eye-level
in the shower, on cups, trashcans.
• …and/or…“where they are bored”. Don’t miss an
opportunity with a “captive” audience, e.g. when
they are waiting in line to check-in or check-out.

10. Games and gamification:
• Create gamification with a customer
“treasure hunt”, encouraging them to
seek out sustainability
communications, share with their
network (social media), and receive
rewards in return (affinity rewards, bill
discounts)
• One member created an actual
mobile game app to promote recent
sustainability achievements and the
game became their second most
successful.
Clif Bar introduced activity
challenges, when a customer
completed a challenge they were
to share a picture on social media

11. Many customers don’t want to have to do
anything extra to behave responsibly.
Reward them for actions they are already
taking--or might do with minimal non-
intrusive effort--and of which they may not
realize the benefit.
• For example, many people do not
know that hanging the “Do not disturb”
sign on the hotel door means that
housekeeping will skip your room
instead of default restocking cups and
towels, etc.

12. In this context it is important to keep in mind the opt-in/opt-out question.
Which behavior do you want to be the default? Should guests have to
“opt-out” of getting new towels and cups every day by hanging the sign, or
should guests have to “opt-in”, hang a sign to request housekeeping
services? What kinds of default behaviors do your own customers exhibit;
are they the behaviors you want?

13. • Similar communications lessons can also be
applied to internal comms
 Tailor messaging to internal segments, different
employee segments respond to different messaging
 Use incentives that matter to employees
• What does it really mean to “improve a life”?
 How do you quantify that?

14. • If brands pooled the intended results of their
sustainability efforts in a collective consumer-facing
comms campaign, they might get significantly more
attention and traction than any brand's individual
comms effort is getting currently.
 Thus, it may be a great idea for the SB member group to
think about creating a master list of all the ways in which
this group of brands is improving lifestyles together.

15. • There was disappointment over some members
being forced to discontinue successful
sustainability efforts, and there was a sentiment
that SB members need to engage their
respective company’s executive leadership
better to avoid regressing and undoing earned
progress.

16. • The SB Corporate Member group will next
convene:
 SB’15 San Diego
 Tuesday, June 2nd, Lunch, 12:30-2pm
 Sunset Terrace

17. • Collaboration Workshop
 Hosted by HP, facilitated by CollaborateUp
 July 30
 Palo Alto, CA
• New Metrics Member Meeting
 Hosted by Iron Mountain
 October 6th
 Boston, MA
• December Member/Advisory Meeting
 Date TBD
 Location TBD – We are currently looking for a host for this meeting, if you
are interested please contact Matt Eversman, matt@sustainablebrands.com

18. Carbon impacts from this and all 2015 SB events have been
offset by Offsetters, SB’s Official Carbon Offset Partner.
offsetters.ca