Will sustainability be the first victim of cuts?

Anybody who works in marketing knows that one of the first victims of austerity or ‘profit protection’ is marketing… followed by anything else that does not show directly on th bottom line. If marketers have to fight hard for their case, and even their very existence, how much more difficult will it be to argue the case for sustainable marketing?

However, as a practice, sustainability can be very low-cost – it is rather like a fly-wheel: once it has been started spinning by putting in place strategies and policies and the actions necessary to carry them out, it will continue to spin with just the odd kick to kep the momentum going. The false economy is to stop the fly-wheel or let it run down, because it will take a lot of energy to get it started again.

I am still fearful that some companies will see it as an extra simply because ‘marketing’ is a cost to be cut, therefore ‘sustainable marketing’ must be an even bigger cost to be cut. It’s time for some serious education that sustainable marketing by its very nature can be a real economy.

Water, water anywhere.

I published a post a while ago about a manufacturer of paint who was supplying additive free paints, but also supplying them in dry powder form so you mix them with water on-site.  This really captured my imagination because it ticked so many boxes – little water used in the manufacture, not spending resources transporting lots of bulky, heavy water in the paint, using less fuel and less pollution – the list goes on.

That started me thinking how much other stuff do we consume that is for the large part water, and if we could use dry ingredients and mix them ourselves would that not be infinitely more sensible? Continuing on the DIY theme, I was in my local B&Q and spotted many ‘ready mixed’ products that were just exploiting our pursuit of convenience – ready-mixed filler (what’s wrong with powder filler), even ready mixed plaster.

Many drinks are over 90% water: I cycle a lot and use isotonic and hi-carb drinks most of which are available in powder form, yet shelves are full of ready mixed sports drinks – mainly water.

There would seem to be a big product development opportunity here. Not only could we make a contribution in not shipping vast quantities of water around, but transport costs could be cut dramatically.

Water will become an increasingly valuable commodity: already water companies are planning for the future and looking to sophisticated demand management schemes.

Let’s start thinking dry technologies… I’ll drink to that!

Paint in any colour you want – so long as it is green.

I’m not one to strongly promote commercial products on my blog, but occasionally you come across something that really presses all the right buttons. I was recently running a a workshop where one of the delegates talked about their great, award-winning product – naturepaint (www.naturepaint.com).

Basically this is paint that does all that you would expect of a traditional, off-the-shelf paint – but with all the harmful components removed, and supplied in powder form. All you have to do is to add ordinary tap water. That seemed like a good move to start with, but when you look at little deeper at what this means, it gets even better.

1. No nasty chemicals or solvents.
2. As you are not shipping any water, it used less fuel to ship – less carbon.
3. Safe to ship – it’s the only paint you can send by post in the UK!
4. No need for expensive metal or plastic cans and the environmental costs they incur.

I could go on, but I suggest taking a look at their website and let them tell their own story. Oh, and the company takes sustainability beyond its products, into its whole ethos.

Keep up the good work guys – keep thinking out of the box – or rather out of the can.

Fine words and intentions

I have been doing my usual trawl through sustainable marketing sites and blogs, keeping up with hot-button issues, and I have to admit to being more than a little depressed.  We all know how high sustainability should be on the marketer’s agenda:  there are many good words and laudable intentions, but how many are backed up by actions?

I took a look at the Marketing Magazine website, and clicked on the sustainability tab: obviously set up with the best of intentions, but it looked as though it had not been touched for a couple of months. Three articles only going back to October and November. I’m not singling out this one publication, just concerned that this is indicative of the general malaise – we all know that sustainability will be increasingly important… we want to help… we make a start… then lose impetus.

It’s a bit like the New Year’s fitness resolution and the gym membership card lost in a drawer somewhere and the exercise bike that has become an expensive clothes horse; all good intentions. Like sustainability I fear our marketing spirit is willing but our flesh may be just too weak.

Can global brands be green brands and vice versa?

I have already posted comments on this report on my branding blog, but make no apologies for posting again here as it is a most valuable insight into global, green brands.

The Green Brands 2009 reports shows some interesting, some encouraging and a few worrying thoughts. Though this is a US Brands survey, it was conducted over seven countries. They UK generally fell in line with the US though some of the responses was more aligned with European data (France  and Germany). Worryingly, we have the smallestproportion of consumers expecting to spend more on green products or services.

But for the good news: “This year’s findings in both developed and developing countries reinforce consumers’ desires to be green by using products that are green,” says Russ Meyer, chief strategy officer of Landor Associates. “However, we’re also beginning to see a strong positive correlation between greenness and more traditional brand attributes like honesty and trustworthiness.”

It is fascinating and enlightening to look at the top 10 green brands for each of the seven countries. The most fascinating data is that there is no evidence of globally common green brands and only one or two brands even appear in more than one country’s top list. This poses an interesting question – does it mean that the high ground is there to be won by globally consolidated brands, or is a global green brand an oxymoron? Perhaps globalisation and green values are unhappy bed-fellows… phrases like ‘camel’ and ‘eye of a needle’ spring to mind.

Keeping it close

I’m a great fan of the internet as a tool for sustainable marketing, but its low resource use and the ability to ‘communicate rather than commute’ sometimes results in tunnel vision to other  potential downsides. Let’s just think about procurement – today we can source products on a global basis and compare prices ensuring we get the best possible deals. That ease, however, can often mask other impacts our purchasing habits can generate – economic, environmental and cultural.

I was delivering a workshop a few weeks ago and was very impressed by one of the delegates whose company marketed a quite high-tech product to reduce the amount of chlorine used in swimming pools. As if that was not enough, it was his procurement that impressed me. Everything in his manufacture and marketing was sourced from withing 3 miles of his premises. This included his marketing collateral and packaging.

Sometimes our global vision means we don’t see what is available on our own doorsteps. Perhaps our first choice for supply should be to think local. We can reduce transport miles, support and stimulate local economies and sustain local cultures. Sure, sometimes we may pay a little more but it is usually possible to negotiate prices, especially face to face. But there are other benefits as my delegate pointed out; “If there is a problem, I just go around and see them – saves a lot of hassle dealing with wrong or faulty deliveries and returns”.

Are licensing and franchising the new exporting

A good deal of my work has traditionally been involved in international and export marketing, so for one committed to sustainability you can probably understand how that can be a difficult circle to square. Potentially, exporting can be massively detrimental to each of the four ‘E’s – ecology, economy, ethnology and ethics.

Two routes to market that I encourage exporters to explore in terms of both business growth and sustainability are licensing and franchising. Used sensitively these routes can eliminate much of the potential ecological damage done by transportation, local economies can be supported, we can be ethnologically relevant and sensitive and ethical policies and approaches to business can be propagated.

Another major plus is that we can get rapid brand growth by these routes – quicker and at far less cost than other routes to market.

Actions speak louder than words.. but you can still talk

I spotted a Dilbert cartoon in the press the other day, where Dilbert was asking his boss if switching from Styrofoam to paper coffee cups was really better for the environment. His boss said he didn’t know but the important thing was that they looked like the kind of company who would care about those things.

Funny, cynical and often true: but I’m not against companies’ efforts at sustainability being promoted. We are talking about sustainable marketing after all. I do believe that sustainability makes good business sense – and if it confers a point of differentiation so much the better. Shout about it and others will try to follow… self-interest is a powerful driver.

The important point is to take sound sustainable actions first – then by all means communicate it.

Two approaches to sustainable marketing

Once a decision has been made to get commit an organisation to sustainable marketing there are two main approaches that can can be adopted: I will characterise these as the ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down approaches’.

The bottom-up approach is usually consumer focused or driven and characterised by market research. Customer attitudes and values are researched and the data used to inform and direct the sustainable marketing strategy.

The top-down approach is usually characterised by vision and values of a strong champion or group within the organisation: it is directed by leadership. Rather than being market research driven it is usually led by an internal audit which leads then to a strategic plan and subsequent action.

As a marketer you might expect me to favour the bottom-up, research led, customer focused approach, but I find some flaws that make me uneasy with that direction. Firstly, asking customers to about such a normative proposition as sustainability is likely to result in very misleading data – like asking someone to vote for Mon and apple pie, as the old cliche goes. I remember being involved in the very early days of marketing smoke alarms. All the research suggested they were a wonderful idea and everybody would buy one – sadly it was decades before they reached anything like acceptable penetration. Secondly, I think there is something slightly cynical about a purely market driven approach to sustainability. I still believe that sustainable marketing makes good business sense, but there is also a case for pioneering leadership which means an acceptance of a degree of risk to secure the high-ground.

We are back to that word,’leadership’ again. When we are in a time where standard approaches have not delivered, it is time for visionary, iconoclastic direction. There are plenty of strong business leaders with the right views and values – it is perhaps time to harness those energies. When the issues are urgent it may be that we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of too much concensus management.

“Reasonable men adapt to the world. Unreasonable men adapt the world to themselves. That’s why all progress depends on unreasonable men.”
George Bernard Shaw

Considering the cultural impacts

In marketing terms it is only natural to look at cultural requirements in terms of making our products or services acceptable in foreign markets, but do we give sufficient thought to the cultural impacts our marketing brings into those communities? Just consider the impact that the introduction of mobile phones and the internet has had across the globe.

Societies differ widely in their cultures – perhaps mre widely than many of us appreciate, and along lines that have significant impact. If you are sceptical, take a look at the work of Geert Hofstede (www.geerthofstede.com). He postulates five dimensions of cultural difference:

• Power distance
• Individualism
• Masculinity/Femininity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Long-term/short-term orientation

He has compiled extensive research with some surprising results, but it is important to understand how some of these can be seen as key drivers within that society and how goods and services marketed within those cultures can physically impact those dimensions. Marketing has the ability to empower or disempower peoples.  Sensitivity of those issues is vital to anybody taking a socially responsible view of their marketing when doing business in a different culture, but also when sourcing products or stimulating employment overseas.