Being a good brand is the new brand

“People trust companies less and less. They do not believe companies, they do not believe CEOs, they do not believe advertisers”. So opens the trailer for a new documentary on the revolution in the advertising world: The Naked Brand.


The Naked Brand explains how the 21st century explosion in the use of social media is making brands more transparent – whether they like it or not. Today, consumers can easily look, search and find the reality of what the company behind the brand stands for. The film documents how an increasing number of brands are responding to this, recognising that these days they can’t just say they’re great, they have to actually be great. 

The film comes hard on the heels of new research from the UK, the US, Germany, China, India and Brazil, which found that two thirds of consumers say they feel “a sense of responsibility to purchase products that are good for the environment and society”.

I haven’t yet watched the full length film but it certainly looks like it’s setting out in the right direction. Especially encouraging is the director’s emphasis that it’s about doing good business because it’s the business-savvy thing to do, not because it’s a 'nice' thing to do. This is about sustainable business in its original sense – managing a company for the long-term.

But I’m less sure about the film’s target audience. Created by an ad agency, it looks like it heavily features and focuses on the role of marketing. Although I agree that it’s absolutely essential that brand and marketing teams are informed, supportive and activating around a brand’s values, this can only be done when the business has ensured it genuinely is standing for those values. You have to walk the talk before you start talking. Over the years, far too many brands have tripped up. The reputational crises that result have been widely reported, not least by us in Value with Values.

If this film triggers businesses to improve how they do business and then communicate it more effectively to consumers – great. But if it simply makes marketing teams think they’ve found an easy win without understanding how to do it properly, oh dear. We’ll be watching.



From Director Jeff Rosenblum (courtesy of Sustainable Brands):

“The big lesson is that social media makes brands completely transparent. They’re essentially naked. What that means is, if a corporation creates a crappy product — if they behave unethically — no advertising message can cover that up. Brands are spending a ton of time figuring out how they can create great content and ads for social media, but what they should be saying is, instead of facing outward, let’s turn our focus inward — let’s focus on our own behavior. When we establish excellent corporate behavior, people will carry that message on social media platforms much more effectively than we ever could with a paid advertisement. What we don’t want the film to be is a ‘green’ story — ‘be sustainable because it’s good for the environment.’ The story we want to tell is, when you start moving the planet forward, you as a corporation can make more money. And that doesn’t sound as nice as ‘you should behave better because it’s the right thing to do,’ but I think it’s more of a sustainable business practice.”

Not all crowds are mad

‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds’, first published in 1841, doesn’t paint a very flattering picture of crowds. It’s one of the most influential (and insightful) reviews of the irrational and rather stupid things that people do when swept up in speculative fever.

No doubt crowds still do very silly things (Mackay’s book is cited by some as the best ever written about market psychology). But recent decades have seen a more favourable view of the ‘knowledge of the crowd’ emerge – and recent years have seen that idea taken up in a big way by big business.

Companies are clamouring to hear your ideas – Which of these do you like best? What can we do to make your life easier? Help us design a new product!  Of course, not all are simply mining the public for information to help sales with no wider benefits; many see crowdsourcing as a way to do some good for the world and for the bottom line.

GE’s Ecomagination is perhaps one of the best established and best loved – a forum for imagination and innovation to create sustainable solutions to today’s environmental challenges, with the incentive that GE might just make your idea reality.

Ecomagination is huge. At the other end of the scale (but growing fast) are companies like Threadless – a T-shirt manufacturer that asks its online community of over a million members (growing by 20,000 each month) to vote for their favourite T-shift design out the 1000 that members posted that week. With minimal waste, 200% annual growth and revenues of over $30m, Threadless is demonstrating that a crowdsourced, on-demand model is good for the bottom line and its environmental footprint.
New crowdsourcing initiatives have flowed this year. We’ve had Heineken launching its IdeasBrewery, Tetra Pak’s second-phase renewable idea, Sainsbury’s asking for help to engage consumers in its ‘Love your Leftovers’ and ‘Million Meals’ campaigns, and Unilever’s Sustainable Living Lab, to name but a few. There are also closed communities sharing ideas - we helped Orange set up one of innovators, NGOs and tech experts to help us develop the detail behind the DoSomeGood app.

What’s driving this explosion in co-creation? Writing in the Guardian, Phil Drew offers some interesting analysis, highlighting crowdsourcing as a way to build new partnerships, to engage those causing the problem (consumers) as part of the solution, and as a new way to manage brand reputation: boosting opinions of a company by enabling consumers to shape its future.

But I think the crowdsource revolution is also a natural response to an age of social media. Corporate communications aren’t one-way any more. You’re part of a big conversation, whether you like it all not, and that has real implications for how you communicate what you as a business are all about. Yes, that opens up questions about reputational risk (what do you say? How do you say it? Who says it? What happens when something goes wrong?) but it’s also about opportunity. A rosy opportunity to show that your brand stands for something good, and it wants its fans to help it do it. While the internet is with us, co-creation will grow. Welcome to the world of crowdsourcing for good.

Measuring consumer perceptions, and what businesses can learn from it

Whilst we've always known that bad behaviour can effect consumer attitudes, it's still interesting to see just how much. And even more so when they can be measured so accurately by new technologies and tools.

Last month it emerged that Starbucks paid no corporation tax in the UK over the past year, despite making sales of almost £400 million. When exposed, it was met with public outrage, with newspapers condemning the behaviour, governments calling them to question and interest groups planning large protests. Whilst these groups have always shouted the loudest, it's perhaps more interesting to see how the alleged tax avoidance fared  in the eyes of the common consumer.

Research from social media agency, Yomego, & research company, YouGov, was able to shed some light on this matter. Yomego found that the popularity of Starbucks fell drastically from October to November, with 95% of comments on social media containing references to the tax issue. And YouGov's BrandIndex showed similar results. Buzz, which looks at whether people are hearing positive or negative news about the brand, found that (Starbucks’) scores dropped from 0 to -25 in October, and brand perception scores were also shown to fall from +1 to -11. The data therefore presents a picture of a consumer group that also cares about, and actively condones, this sort of behaviour.

As we see more stories like this appear, with measurement tools clearly showing the effect on brands, it’s only a matter of time before we see businesses realise the importance of meeting society’s expectations as key to successful enterprise.

Be innovative with your assets

It's great to see more companies thinking innovatively about what responsibility means. For businesses, responsibility is all about recognising the opportunity in business assets - to be a powerful tool to better the world and spread positive messages.

This week we see Coca-Cola showing it understands what this means, as it has replaced its corporate website with a dynamic digital magazine that showcases universally important topics, social causes and company news.

After realising that its corporate website was its most trafficked property, Coca-Cola chose to think differently about what it did with it. It recognised the responsibility associated with being a media owner, and saw an opportunity to leverage the website to engage and educate its visitors.

Coca-Cola's approach is something other businesses can really learn from. With some creative insight and thought, there are ways in which even the most unlikely of assets can be turned into a tool to drive social and commercial value.

Choose your friends wisely

I’m increasingly feeling that 2012 will be seen as the year that the supply chain took new dominance in the world of corporate reputations. 

Back in the day, 'corporate social responsibility' was all about showing that your business could do the cuddly stuff – that you had a heart, that you supported good causes, that you cared. Things moved on in many different directions, with many forward-thinking companies realising that they had to show that the way in which they did business itself was good.

But these days that’s not enough. Our newspapers offer enough scandal triggered by businesses' supply chain partners to give a Halloween fright to any corporate responsibility manager. We’ve got news of further rioting at Foxconn’s factories, no doubt deepening the headache for Apple about knock-on effects on its reputation; we’ve got BP’s never-ending deep water horizon battle, with executives still insisting “it wasn’t our fault!”, pointing in the direction of Transocean and others; while Sainsbury’s has been put in the ‘hall of shame’ over its treatment of suppliers.

It’s not just supply chain slip-ups that are repositioning the debate about what influences the ethical reputation of our biggest brands. This week’s Ethical Performance reports several stories involving multinationals publicly supporting 'pro-social' legislation whilst associated trade groups lobby for its downfall behind the scenes. So it’s not just what you do, and it’s not just what your suppliers do or you do to them, it’s also what your partners and associates do that’s in the spotlight.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that damaging supply chain and partner scandals are new. Nike and Gap’s sweatshop scandals in the ‘90s are a case in point that big brands have long been subject to such scrutiny. But I do think we’re seeing a more systematic assessment of what’s going on behind the scenes of big corporates – driven partly by the work of NGOs such as War on Want, Greenpeace and Global Witness, partly by investigative journalists and curious academics, and partly by an increasingly active and by-no-means homogenous ‘consumer’, empowered by rich data and networks offered by the internet and social media.

Can banks learn something from cycling's Team Sky?

There were always suspicions about Lance Armstrong and his use of doping, but the recent release of the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s report on doping in the sport has been nothing short of ground breaking. The scale, complexity and endemic nature of doping in cycling is quite remarkable.

But what has surprised me most, following the release of the USADA's report, has been the silence of the cycling teams. Until today not one of the cycling teams (many of which must have known something about the doping that was going on in the profession, if not in their own team) had come out publicly to say what their role was in this shocking situation or what they will do differently to clean up the sport.

Today, finally, a team put its head above the parapet and made a statement about what it was going to do differently. Team Sky has committed to making all its riders and management declare that they have never doped.

"We will ask everyone to sign up to a written policy, confirming that they have no past or present involvement in doping," said Team Sky. "Should anyone choose not to sign up, they will have to leave the team."

Making a clear statement like this and wearing your values on your sleeve is something that takes courage. What Team Sky will do if it finds any doping within its own team will allow us to see how serious it is. However, it’s commitments like this, and hopefully the actions that support it, that will play a key role in cleaning up the sport.

Interestingly I feel there is something of an analogy to be drawn between cycling’s predicament and what we are seeing in the banking sector. Here we have a sector that for too long has been riddled with cheating and manipulation (just look at the recent scandals on PPI and Libor, or back to the sub-prime mortgages) very much like the world of cycling. But those teams (banks), much like most of the cycling teams, that have been implicit in the corruption have yet to stand up and say what they’re going to do differently.

Sure we have seen a few CEOs (not many) come out and say how sorry they are and how what has been perpetrated by the banking sector has been unacceptable. But what has actually changed. Most are waiting for regulation to force any changes. We have the Vickers Report that, according to the Conservatives, will be implemented in full. But today we read that Paul Volker (the former chief of the US Federal Reserve and architect of the Volcker rule on America's regulatory reforms of banks) believes Britain is running the risk of bankers chipping away at the recommended reforms until they are rendered useless. The banks and their lobbyists are determined to see no change.

This all means we have yet to see any of the big banks put its head above the parapet and make a genuine statement about what it stands for and what it will do differently as a result of all the recent scandals.

As with the cycling world, if banks really want to regain the trust of consumers they need to take leadership. They need to demonstrate how things have changed and how they are genuinely committed to doing things differently.

And there in lies an opportunity for differentiation in the banking sector.

We need to see a Team Sky in the banking world making a statement about how what has been going on is unacceptable. And then we need to see that team (bank) show what it is going to do differently. It may seem simplistic but could Team Sky have the seed of a first step that a bank (or the sector) could do – introduce a code or ethical standard (similar to the Hippocratic Oath signed by doctors) for all banking employees.

It’s not a new idea, but perhaps it’s one that can start to help rebuild trust in the banking sector.

The Rise and Rise of Ethical Banking

There is frequently lots of talk around consumers saying they want businesses to be more ethical but when it comes to the crunch, do little to act on it.

It was therefore interesting to see stats published last month showing that the Co-op Bank has witnessed a 97% increase in customers requesting to switch to their current accounts in 2012.  And the mutually owned Nationwide also reported a huge 85% increase in new account enquiries -  signalling a shift in previously inactive consumer behaviour.

Louis Brooke from the Move Your Money Campaign says “Since January we estimate that half a million people have switched their current accounts to ethical alternatives” marking what appears to be a consumer movement towards ethical banking.

Moving to ethical finance is one of the ways a consumer’s choice can have the biggest positive impact with finance being so closely tied to all other elements of the economy. The Independent columnist, Simon Birch, predicts that this current revolution could well prove to be a significant moment for the wider ethical consumer movement.

Perhaps this will be the first wave of consumers really putting their money where their mouth is.

Spoofs - the art of calling businesses to action

There's a recent trend on social media to make spoofs of businesses adverts. Most recently Shell has fallen victim to these spoofs with its Let's Go campaign. It began as a way for Shell to communicate its expansion into alternative energy sources but after environmental activists got their hands on it it ended as a caption contest to highlight their investments in non-renewable resources. Almost 10,000 images were created which added different tag lines to Shell's original print adverts and these new posters were shared across social media channels.

We've also seen similar spoofs on Barclay's bikes after the recent rate-fixing stories and on Nestle and Unilever adverts following concerns about palm oil. You've got to admire the creativity of these activists and it  presents an important new concern for businesses.


Since Nike's experiences over a decade ago, businesses have always feared customers will boycott their products but this is a new bigger concern. Getting people to stop buying products or organising protests is difficult, and people are unlikely to share those messages. Spoofs on the other hand are funny, intelligent and simple, and as social media users are always looks for things to share they're an incredibly easy way to spread the message. For a business this could spell disaster. It's easy to ignore a few customers that stop buying products, but it's much more difficult to ignore a social media storm. After all, considering the 1:9:99 rule of social media, for every picture created, 9 others will comment on it and 99 others will see it. And whilst a businesses might spend hundreds of thousands on getting a positive message across to consumers, a clever negative message could be spread at practically no cost at all. It seems social media really is shifting the power balance and we may see more 'good' businesses as a result.

                               

Brand your house – transparently

How does being a “house of brands” rather than a “branded house” impact your approach towards corporate reputation management?

Research released today by Weber Shandwick polled 575 executives from a spread of corporates in Brazil, China, the UK and the US. Somewhat unsurprisingly, it indicates that those of single-brand firms are significantly more likely to feel that enhancing their corporate reputation is equally important to enhancing the standing of their goods – 92% agree, versus just 75% of their counterparts at house-of-brand companies.

But could this be about to change? 79% of all those surveyed agree that buyers are increasingly checking product labels to find out which company made them, and 77% think shoppers are now doing more research into the manufacturers of the things they buy.

This Friday, during the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, P&G will premier the TV broadcast of its cross-brand ‘kids’ advert to millions – highlighting the role of mums around the world and bringing to life a positive brand message for the parent company of Ariel, Fairy, Pampers, Olay and the like – brands united by ‘making mums happy’, the company says. This follows hard on the heels of the newly branded P&G Capital Clean Up campaign, calling on ‘community champions’ to transform London ahead of the Games. These social brand campaigns aren’t a sideline project – P&G’s current corporate tag line is touching lives, improving life.

We’ve recently seen similar efforts to unite house-of-brands corporate reputations from Diageo and Unilever. Like P&G, there’s a very clear theme here of demonstrating the positive social role of the brands united.

Multi-brand reputation management is increasingly important as consumers become more informed and pro-active. But it’s interesting to note that 65% of executives pursuing corporate branding strategies cite their main motivation as the “halo effect” on their goods. Carrot and stick are incentivising and necessitating greater communication about what a company stands for – but if it doesn’t stand for much, or if there are skeletons in the corporate responsibility closet, it risks being found out.

Whether a house of brands or a branded house, getting your house in order before you communicate your house’s values is key. The media, NGOs and social media are at the door. Transparency is the name of the game.

Culture-gate

It’s getting a bit annoying – ever since Libor-gate happened, people have been (quite smugly) asking me what I think about corporate responsibility now eh?! Comments not dissimilar to what I had to endure when there was the BP oil spill a couple of years ago – the event that, at the time, apparently spelled the end of CR as we know it. What has happened at Barclays shows that it – and it’s not alone in this – has a way to go before it can claim to be a truly responsible company. In fact, and now this is going to sound a bit smug, it vindicates the Good Business view that, to be a truly responsible business, an organisation has to have these values embedded across the entire organisation; it can’t be championed by a few individuals or wrapped up in a side-line community investment or employee volunteering initiative – it’s got to be at the core of all business activity.

What’s been interesting to watch is the demonization of Bob Diamond. He hasn’t really helped himself. His refusal to accept any responsibility for what happened because he was unaware of what was happening isn’t endearing him to anyone; he’d have been much better to apologise and take responsibility for the misdeeds done on his watch, whether he saw it or not. The word that I think is important in relation to Bob Diamond and Barclays is ‘culture’. Corporate culture is the collective way of doing things within an organisation and it’s pretty important because it affects the way people and groups in the organisation interact with each other, with clients, and with stakeholders. However, it’s also not something that can be dictated or artificially created; it’s moulded and shaped through the values, visions, systems and language of an organisation. And, what’s crucial is that there’s a genuine belief in the importance of building and leading this culture from the top of the business – that’s what makes it authentic. This doesn’t mean that you have to do a Steve Ballmer and run around the stage screaming about how much you love the company or, for that matter, make evangelical statements about your organisation during a Treasury Select Committee hearing; it’s about genuine, sustained and sometimes quite understated activity that embodies the values at the heart of the business. And when things go wrong that expose a failing or breakdown in the organisation’s culture, the people at the top should recognise their part in the problem. Oh and to all business leaders out there, it might help to know the founding principles of the business – I have a feeling the words ‘honesty, integrity and plain dealing’ will not be easily forgotten by 'Bob' in the future.

Start with the consumer and work backwards

Read Giles' contribution to the Base London report, outlining his thoughts on what will motivate the public to change their travel behaviours – to use different forms of transport or drive different vehicles or travel at different times or drive differently.

Vogue joins the fashion police

The fashion industry may be admired around the world, but historically it’s not been seen as one of the ‘nice guys’. Constantly criticised for fuelling eating disorders and encouraging the sexulisation of children, it doesn’t paint the prettiest of pictures.


Cast your mind back to last summer, when you might remember the storm over the French edition of Vogue publishing a 15 page spread of ten year old model, Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau. The pictures show Tylane wearing heavy makeup and, in one shot, a dress with a neckline plunging down to her waist. The backlash to these images was intense, with strongest criticism coming from across the channel, where parent groups and UK MPs expressed outrage and PM David Cameron called for more stringent rules on the depiction of children in advertising.


But this week, Vogue is making the headlines for all the right reasons. 19 editors of Vogue from around the world have come together to sign a 'health pact', to be published in their June editions. The pact outlines that they will only work with models who, in their view, "are healthy and help to promote a healthy body image". This means they’ll no longer use models under the age of 16 or those who they think may have an eating disorder. 


This step up in responsibility has impacts in the supply chain, too. Vogue is asking modelling agencies not to send them underage girls, requesting casting directors to check models' ages when casting shoots, and calling for healthier backstage working conditions at shows and shoots. This is unprecedented – and incredibly significant for the sector. We can only hope that Vogue’s bold stand will create a ripple affect throughout an industry that for too long has flustered over how to show style with substance.

A few months ago Boston Consulting Group and MIT Sloan Management Review published a report Sustainability Nears a Tipping Point. It’s the results of a survey completed by managers and executives from companies around the world, asking them how they’re developing and implementing sustainable business practices. There’s lots of interesting stuff here so definitely worth a read. What I found interesting was the insight into ‘Harvesters’ – no not the buffet restaurant that always featured criss-cross chips in its adverts, but the report’s term for companies that say that their sustainability activities are contributing to their profits. The survey results show clear differences between the ‘Harvesters’ and companies who are further behind in their responsible business/sustainability efforts. Harvesters are:

• Three times more likely to have a business case for sustainability
• 50% more likely to have a CEO commitment to sustainability
• Twice as likely to have a separate function for sustainability
• 50% more likely to have a person responsible for sustainability within each business unit
• More than 2.5 times more likely to have a Chief Sustainability Officer

None of these points particularly surprising apart from the middle one about having a separate function for sustainability – from our experience this is the last thing a company needs if it is aiming to fully integrate sustainability into its strategy and operations. In actual fact, the wording here is a bit misleading... Whilst there are specific roles and functions to manage responsible business activities on a day to day basis, these have strong backing from CEOs and are supported by senior management committees; not so separate after all.

The real differentiator seems to be the existence of a strong business case for sustainability; in some cases they’ve even changed their business models. As Mark Vachon from GE ecomagination puts it “the idea is not to put your pencil down and quit...it’s to go back and figure out what new level of innovation is required to get to the right answer”.

The burning question is how to get to this level of commitment and pro-activity? What comes first: the CEO who sees sustainability as an opportunity or the business case that shows that it’s a no-brainer? And what happens if there isn’t either; there’s no desire to find a way to make it work? Not easy questions to answer on a general level... However, one thing that can only be helpful is for ‘Harvesters’ to vocalise the positive outcomes of the measures they’re taking, encouraging others to follow suit.

P.s can we drop the 'Harvester' label - it's not working for me!

Time for some real Hope

Hope could be the latest fad to hit consumers’ buying habits this week, as Budgens begins selling blocks of it. And by that I mean literally wooden blocks with the word 'hope' written on them. Place a block in your shopping basket and, when you get to the till, £1 will be added to your bill and donated to Alzheimer's Society. This nifty new idea was created by advertising agency JWT, and trials are already a big talking point.

There’s an interesting link here with the rise of ethical consumption. We've seen surveys show that 83% of people willing to change consumption habits if it can help make the world a better place, and the rise of ethical shopping with consumers choosing fairtrade, sustainably sourced goods and brands supporting good causes. The blocks of Hope build on this trend – enabling everyday shopping habits to have a positive impact on other people. And of course, on top of that it’s a great way to help charities at a time of falling public donations.

But are we at risk of a distraction here? Is this really the way we want to help solve social and environmental issues – impromptu, tiny donations while on our weekly shop? Leaving aside issues about the number of charities, the size of the donation and the unpredictability of income, surely a better way for supermarkets to help charities is to enable you to buy in a way that contributes to causes, rather than throwing around your small change. After all, buying certain products, such as those with a cause marketing element or those where the brand stands for a certain code of ethics, is already a way we can consider ethics while we shop.

There are other ways to show what I, the consumer, hope for. Isn’t it better when I buy shampoo knowing that the product wasn’t tested in animals? Or that through buying this orange juice rather than that one, I know it’s been produced in a way that takes account of carbon impacts? Or that buying this tea means that the community where it was grown are going to be able to build a new school? I don’t mind whether it’s about ethical production of a product, or ethical donations as a result of purchasing – as long as it makes me think about the product and my impacts on the world, it makes sense.

I'd like to see more companies understand that people will place goods, and not just blocks of wood, in their basket if it means they can bring hope to solving a social or environmental issue.

We have seen the real success stories of Pampers with its vaccine scheme and The Body Shop with stance on animal testing, and the stats are there to show that linking products with ethics brings brand benefit as well as social/environmental impacts.

Blocks of hope is a nice new way for a supermarket to help charities. But the impact’s a lot smaller than that of purchasing ethically. I’m hoping that the real impact of this initiative is that it becomes yet another demonstration to businesses that people want to factor ethics into their shopping activities. It’s time for new, innovative and exciting ways to prove the ethics behind the brands on our shelves.

Think Big, Sustainable Dining, B-Corps and more

Our latest e-bulletin takes a look at some of the latest movers and shakers in responsible business– from Telefónica’s ambitious Think Big programme, unlocking the potential of young people in order to unlock the potential of the business itself; to the new partnership between Harden's Restaurant Guides and the Sustainable Restaurant Association, which will make it easier for diners to choose where they eat based on sustainability as well as cuisine.

We also take a look at the rise of the Benefit Corporation and B-Corps (NB. they're different) in America. Do we really need a new classification for businesses that pursue profit as well as purpose? It’s true that B-Corps like Patagonia are showing real innovation and commitment – you don’t get much bigger than 'Don’t buy our product' as a sustainability message. But Patagonia was an innovative, socially responsible business long before signing up as a B-Corp. Introducing a new legal 'status' for responsible business risks giving the impression that 'normal' businesses aren't expected or able to balance profit with social value.

If you’d like to read the full e-bulletin, get in touch – katie@goodbusiness.co.uk

Stakeholder interaction which changes a business

The Guardian launched its video on open journalism a few weeks ago. The video examines the case of the three little pigs in modern times. It transforms a well-known fairy tale into a complex news story on which everyone has something to say. The video shows how the story progresses, with the input of experts and the influence of the public, to the stage where the three little pigs are convicted of insurance fraud (the wolf has asthma it seems and, even so, a strong blow seems hardly enough to cause a house to fall down), sparking riots and a national reform debate.

The video is clever and well put-together and it conveys in just over 2 minutes the Guardian's approach to journalism: an open one. They don't want people to just read a news story. They want people to share it, to contribute to it, to join the discussion and to help find the truth behind the story.

From a brand perspective it’s genius. The Guardian is no longer seen as a brand that is just trying to report the news, but instead as a brand that is playing a positive role in helping society find the truth. There’s also a lot that can be learnt from it in terms of how increased stakeholder interaction could actually change the way businesses operate.

Whilst many businesses have realised they need to play a more proactive role to engage their audiences in their communications, e.g. through providing feedback mechanisms, having social media pages or creating interactive games, most are yet to consider what this change in the communications landscape could mean for the way they do business, like the Guardian has.

We're already beginning to see crowd-sourcing to emerge within businesses e.g. GE Ecomagination but perhaps one day we will see it play an even more prominent role. Will we see supermarkets stocking their shelves with 90% pre-ordered items, reducing costs and waste? Will we see more businesses which are run and managed by an online community of stakeholders?

Reality and Perception

Congratulations to Marc Mathieu for continuing the current debate in the marketing world about the power of brands to drive social progress. This is about getting marketing teams to realise that when sustainability is made real, relevant and interesting to consumers, it can drive brand integrity and increase sales.

Step into the ring Puma and its clever little bag. This innovation, using 65% less paper than its old red shoeboxes, is a favourite: it’s genuinely ‘good’, it visually ‘good’ and it involves the consumer, who can use the bag over and over again. That little bag is a big platform for indicating to the world that Puma has values beyond profit. That’s why it’s so important that this kind of innovation is backed up by a credible strategy, and that’s also why it’s so relevant for corporate responsibility teams.

Mathieu has long been an advocate of the social power of brands. His latest suggestion is that marketing teams need to use a new language: one that’s more about people than profit objectives and targets. Those of you who read Greg Smith’s explosive resignation letter to Goldman Sachs this week might find that idea particularly topical. In it, he explained that he could no longer work for a company that talked internally about profit before people; that failed to put the interests of the customer at its heart. This is far from the image that the financial giant projects to its clients. So if the accusations are true, Goldman appears to have made its clever little bag before getting its house in order.

All this comes down to the simple question of whether the reality of a company’s values and sustainability is weaker or stronger than the image publicly projected. Sustainable Brands points to evidence that having a strong sustainability reality can reduce costs and risks, while achieving a strong perception of sustainability can drive up brand equity. Achieving both a reality and a perception of sustainability might seem the obvious thing to do, but too often those in charge of change fail to communicate it, and those in charge of communications fail to ensure the image they want to project is a reality. The current debate around the social role of marketing is good, but unless it sparks marketing teams to talk to strategy and corporate responsibility teams internally, we’re at risk of being flooded by greenwash.

Individuals and businesses join forces to march across the net

A few weeks ago I heard about a new campaign by the charity BeatBullying and I loved it. It’s called the Big March and it’s the first ever “virtual march” and it's happening today.

I don’t understand. A virtual march – what???

Individuals sign up to create digital characters of themselves that will “march” through websites on the day of the campaign. Organisations sign up to volunteer their websites so that these “avatars” can march across them. Both of these come together to make up a digital march that lasts 12 hours. The idea is to raise awareness of a child's right not to be bullied by marching across thousands of websites.

I’m still a little confused – can you paint a picture?

So what you might see on the day is a digital character marching across the BeatBullying website, then step off and find itself on another organisation’s website, march across that one, then on to another, and so on until the march is over.

It sounds interesting but why do you love it?

It offers a very simple and new way for organisations to get involved in a cause and show their support. And the BeatBullying website facilitates this further - it has a park for characters to march round with personalised sign boards, and you can wander into digital information “tents” created by BeatBullying and the

big partner organisations. Each of the digital tents has its own interactive content, which means that I could enter the Orange tent and watch their videos on staying safe online, or take a look in the Fruitshoot tent and get involved in their games. All this means that through the interactive website, brands are able to support the cause whilst also putting themselves in a positive light to the individuals taking part.

Sounds good. How can I get involved?

It’s taking place today and all you have to do is sign up on the website or get in touch to get your organisation involved. You'll see people marching across the partner websites like this:

Out with the old, in with the long-term

Al Gore has issued his latest challenge to the world: an end to businesses' quarterly earnings reports in order to allow a greater focus on long-term sustainabile value creation.

"While we believe that capitalism is fundamentally superior to any other system for organising economic activity, it is also clear that some of the ways in which it is now practised do not incorporate sufficient regard for its impact on people, society and the planet," he explains.

This proposal isn’t groundbreaking – Unilever stopped issuing quarterly reports in 2009 when the then new CEO Paul Polman argued that they only served to promote the short-termism that dogs the financial markets. But the fact that a well-respected global voice (who also happens to be a major investor) is making this call, reflects the growing tide of expectation on the role of shareholders to foster and enable sustainable capitalism.

Al Gore’s white paper issues a number of other challenges, including proposals to mandate integrated reporting and to integrate sustainability into business education at all levels. In fact, he uses the word 'integrate' a lot. Could 2012 be the year that corporate responsibility and sustainability are welcomed in from the silos and embedded at the heart of more of the world’s top businesses? Long-term-minded investors will be on the lookout.

Employees Protest Goes Viral

This week 7 staff members of a ski operator (Skithe3v) barricaded themselves in their chalet in protest of their unfair dismissal and were refused to be paid by their former employer. The‘Les Menuires 7’ as they call themselves have stirred up unanimous Twitter and Facebook support using the social network sites to generate publicity and facilitate discussion.

Having worked for a similar operator myself dramatic action such as this comes as no surprise. I am all too familiar with the poor pay, high staff turn-over and unprofessional behaviour that, it must be conceded, comes from both employers and employees in this sector.

In a time when companies reputations can be destroyed (and built) overnight due to social media, it has become more important than ever for companies and brands to consider their practices, transparency and of course their responsibility. Whilst employees can be excellent ambassadors they can also, as we have seen in this case, help destroy a company’s reputation. Social media is fuelling consumer and employee power which should be welcomed and it’s playing an important role in why companies need to be more responsible.

I hope that the debate that the Les Menuires 7’s protest has sparked moves the whole ski operator industry to act and consider their responsibility to their employees. The grievances they cite are a standard in this sector that is in desperate need of reform and independent regulation.

In fact there is something that can be learned by every company through the Les Menuires 7 example – employees, armed with the tools of social media are very powerful. If you treat them well and keep them happy they can be your best asset and if not well then they may just pull a stunt like this.

A bitter taste for Valentine’s

Hershey’s has announced that that the Rainforest Alliance is to certify its famous Bliss chocolates – what lovely news, just in time for Valentine’s Day! But it comes days after a rather more bitter sounding commercial titled Hershey’s Chocolate: Killed by Child Labor was scheduled to screen to the crowds at the Super Bowl. This so-called “brand-jamming ad” was withdrawn at the last minute when Hershey’s announced a $10 million project to tackle child labour in West Africa.

This is crisis management, not leadership. Hershey’s has been subject to an embarrassing multi-year campaign accusing the company of turning a blind eye to child labour on its cocoa farms. The onslaught included blanketing the company’s Facebook wall in messages, posting ‘brand-jamming’ videos and photos of Hershey products online and releasing a report of accusations and demands, titled ‘The Real Corporate Social Responsibility Report for the Hershey Company’. Hershey’s is reported to have received over 100,000 letters asking the company to improve its cocoa sourcing practices, as well as a barrage of Facebook posts, tweets and emails.

The attacks on Hershey’s are just the latest example of the spotlight being shined on the apparently murkier side of big brand supply chains. Certifying Bliss chocolate is a move in the right direction – but by letting the storm clouds gather before making this big change, the company has left itself looking reactionary and defensive rather than visionary.

The ‘Real Corporate Social Responsibility Report’ accuses the company of “greenwashing” because it “points to various charitable donations” rather than stamping out “forced, trafficked or child labour” in its supply chain. Hershey’s insists that it's taking a responsible stance towards its supply chain. But to quell the storm and protect its brand, the company now needs to demonstrate that it has a more comprehensive CR strategy. The alternative is to continue the embarrassing public battle with the activists and risk leaving a bitter taste with its consumers.

Keeping up with the lingo

Inclusive innovation is heralded as the solution to the problems faced by the financial sector. According to a report by the Center for Responsible Business at the University of California-Berkley Haas School of Business, The Future of Finance, the only way for the financial sector to get back on its feet and win back trust is to ‘turn their innovation outwards’ and ‘find ways to grow their businesses and build positive relationships through society’.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that this all sounds a bit familiar! Whilst the new term is nice – it reflects the importance for companies of engaging and listening to stakeholders, and continually innovating and changing to meet or, where possible, to exceed their expectations – the concept isn’t new. Perhaps, a new label is what is needed to inspire companies to take action, a way of re-engaging the corporate world and reminding them that operating in a way that has a positive impact on society and the world can also be better for business. Somehow I’m not convinced - surely time would be better spent acting, rather than coming up with new labels!

Tesco misses the mark

Tesco is said to be dropping the carbon labelling that it displayed so prominently on many of its products. This was a groundbreaking scheme for a monster of the retail sector. Where did it all go wrong?

Marketing Week reports that Tesco’s move reflects “disappointment” that more supermarkets didn’t follow suit. But this isn’t a blame game of Tesco showing leadership and others failing to follow. Plenty of activity is going on to communicate product sustainability to consumers, whether it’s the mass of Fairtrade labels in Sainsbury’s and the Co-op, free-range-egg labelling on Hellman’s mayonnaise and McDonald’s paper bags, or the pictures of smiling, eco-friendly farmers on pots of Yeo Valley, on the meat in Waitrose and on the KitKat wrapper. Retailers and Brands are talking to consumers; they’re just talking in a different way to Tesco.

The fact of the matter is that many consumers don’t fully understand what a carbon footprint is, let alone feel informed to make a decision based on a “360g CO2” label on their orange juice. We need a clearer message about the products on Tesco’s shelves. That could mean more recognised labels such as Fairtrade, Red Tractor, Freedom Food or even the new WindMade sign. But even better would be embedding sustainability into the brand so that consumers trust that what they’re buying meets a certain standard. Hats off to M&S, there. Tesco was right to think that consumers want supermarkets to show leadership, but its attempt to engage them in that conversation missed the mark.

Wikipedia's protest

Wikipedia's protest last week was interesting. Taking down the whole of the English section of their encyclopaedia to raise awareness is a pretty bold step and so there's obviously a lot that can be said about it.

It appeared at first a great example of a company using its brand power to champion a social campaign. It worked well through making its point evident of its action - imagining a world without free information.

It was done in order to argue that American legislation to police the internet should not be passed. However whilst it seemed great at using its product to prove its point, I was disappointed by its use of power instead of its use of its expertise.

I, like others that visited the site, followed the link to learn more and yet it left me even more confused. I still did not understand exactly what the legislation was about and how it would affect companies like Wikipedia. Whilst it was good to have precise action points, what could have made its campaign even better is if it had simply laid out a very clear page explaining the proposed legislation with the pros and the cons - thus educating people to decide for themselves instead of biasing their views by providing too little information.

Wikipedia's position has always been strong for providing clear, unbiased and organised information which makes it easier for readers to gather knowledge. Yet with the protest last week, with some irony, its greatest strength became its greatest weakness as it did little to prevent its view from seeming biased. As a company that even refuses to display adverts for fear of biasing its content it seems a shame that it took this route to explain its views.

New Year, New Capitalism

When the Prime Minister keeps his speech so hidden that even Robert Peston can’t get a sneaky peek, you know he’s got something important to say.

And when the leader of the opposition is making a speech on the same subject on the same day, you know they’re talking about a hot topic.

Today, David Cameron and Ed Miliband will be talking very loudly about responsible business. They’ve seen the opinion polls, and they know that the public is ready and waiting to see political and corporate leadership in building sustainability into our economy, post-financial crisis.

‘But what will the government actually do?’, we all say. Rumour has it that Cameron plans to announce new policy to make it easier to set up co-operatives. With their typical partnership model of democratic management and shared profits between members, co-operatives find it easy to create shared value. So much so that the UN has declared 2012 to be International Year of Co-operatives, hoping to “raise public awareness of the invaluable contributions of cooperative enterprises to poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration”.

Co-operatives are certainly gaining a lot of attention – but it’s not just because they’re ‘nice’. It’s because they’re successful.

In the UK, John Lewis has announced bumper profits for the Christmas period, while The Co-operative has grown to such strength that in December it was announced as the preferred bidder to take over the 632 branches that Lloyds is being forced to sell. Overseas, in the economic powerhouses of Brazil, Russia, India and China, there are now four times as many co-operative members as direct shareholders. Globally, the top 300 co-operative businesses turnover $1.1 trillion a year – that’s equivalent to a top 10 economy of the world.

The growth and successes of co-operatives are, of course, influenced by a myriad of factors from sound financial management to marketing, from the appeal of the products to the appeal of the brand.

But what’s interesting (and what the PM and the UN seem attracted by) is that successful cooperatives embed responsible activities throughout the business, building trust in the brand.

I know that the mango I bought from the Co-op has been traded fairly, that it was grown in an environmentally sound way, and that the staff in the store will be helpful and positive. I know, because I trust them. I know, even if I didn’t read The Co-op’s new ‘radical’ ethical operating plan.

The fact that co-operatives are increasingly successful poses an interesting challenge – or rather an opportunity – for other business. It suggests that taking into account the values and the best interests of all those touched by the business is more than fluffy niceties. It’s something that consumers choose, something that builds value for those with a stake in the company, something that the government supports, something that employees value; it’s something that can drive success. And if the growing strength, credibility and popularity of co-operatives is anything to judge by, a more positive business approach might well prove itself to be a key ingredient for the winners of 2012.