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.

Is sustainable marketing enough?

Despite what those of us involved in sustainable marketing may think, it could be argued that this is only one discipline, and if the rest of the organisation is not similarly committed, the effect we are having will necessarily be limited.

I am one of those who takes the view that marketing is fundamentally what business is about and that used in its true sense influences every dimension of the business.  Going back to the old Four ‘P’s, (I know now we are up to 11 P’s or even more!) and just add one more important one, ‘people’, it gives us an approach where we can track every stage of the product or service life cycle.  It’s a useful approach: we can set our own metrics to audit, measure and improve our performance – and to compare ourself to our competitors. Perhaps the only areas this approach may leave out include the establishment – building and fixed asset performance, and wider HR performance (unless we take liberties with the ‘people’ ‘P’).

When commencing advising clients on sustainable marketing this is often the first step, auditing performance throughout the product life-cycle and the marketing process. There then follow more detailed and sophisticated directions to really deliver results, but one of the beauties of this approach is that it provides a basis for engaging the whole organisation, allowing senior management to take leadership of, and responsibility for the company’s sustainability of business.

Digital… green fingers?

As somebody heavily involved in digital marketing, of course I believe it makes a great contribution in the reduction of marketing communications collateral. It is certainly a way to conserve resources. On the plus side, using electronic rather than printed communications for example, cuts down on the use of paper, ink, chemicals and waste, and the fuel and carbon used and generated in delivering the raw materials, delivering and distributing the end product and disposing of the waste.

But sustainability is not simply concerned with the ecology (though that is a very important part of the mix). Is there a danger in focusing on this one dimension that we neglect economic sustainability, or the effect on communities and their cultures involved in the print industry and papermaking, for example? Do we need to create relative weightings for each of the four ‘E’s (ecology, economy, ethnology and ethics)?

How do we create a sustainable balance

Sustainable marketing has made its mark

There was a time when it felt quite lonely waving the flag for sustainable marketing: today it is getting far more populous. It is pleasing to see so many sites and blogs, companies and consultants making their voices heard.

I still find some confusion with those who think sutainability just means ‘green’ and overlook the economic, cultural and ethical dimensions but there are now some great blogs out there…  here is one of my current favourites: http://www.semiosiscommunications.com/blog/ … take a look

The fourth ‘E’

I have discussed before that the essence of sustainable marketing is adding to the four P’s, the three E’s: Ecology: ensuring that the marketing is ecologically and environmentally sustainable. Economy: the project must not be damaging economically to the communities it impacts upon. Ethnology: having regard and support for the cultures of all those involved in the marketing activity from producer to customer.

I realised, however that I have missed another big ‘E’… Ethics. It could be argued that this is the envelope (another ‘e’?) that contains all the others.  But I would suggest that for a company’s marketing to be ethical sustainable goes beyond the other dimensions and reflects upon the organisations attitude to it’s corporate responsibilities and ultimately its brand values.

Corporate responsibility – can business regain the moral highground

For a long time business has been seen as the villan in the modern world… and recent activities in the financial sector have done little to help. But amid the cynicism and lack of political leadership we see, there are organisations taking their corporate responsibility seriously and have the opportunity make a real difference.

But the opportunity must not be squandered; it requires real vision and leadership. The public are rightly suspicious and cynical, but most businesses actually impact communities lives in real ways.. the ‘Four P’s’ are all about engagement… living in the real world. I have long held the view that marketing is at the heart of business (but then I would say that). But if that is so, sustainable marketing at the heart of business is a tremendously powerful tool.

Take note though of what Business in the Community’s chairman, Stephen Howard said:

 ”How businesses live and communicate their values and vision cannot be done by publishing statements or group rehearsal of values – it requires action and engagement.  ‘Do as I do’ – not as I say.  The imperative for business leaders must be to  instil and be the custodian of values, create a culture of responsible behaviours to support these values and ensure performance incentives throughout the business reward long term performance, not just quarterly results.”

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