What’s Marketing Got To Do With It?

Recently, when presenting EarthSayers.tv to a prospective sponsor, the person I was talking with seemed surprised that a marketing person would be the builder of EarthSayers.tv. This person comes from the environmental movement and the idea that one would “market” sustainability is counterintuitive. Well, low awareness is low awareness. And the tools available to increase awareness are communication tools and practices. The Web is driving big changes in marketing and environmentalists need to spread the word. Our President is setting the tone with a strong collaboration and cooperation message.

The same day I was talking with the environmentalist, I ran across the Social Responsibility report of the WPP, one of the world’s largest communications services groups, employing 110,000 people working in over 2,000 offices in 106 countries. It contains a letter from the CEO, Sir Martin Sorrell, about the role of marketers in today’s world. Here are some highlights from his letter:

“So if the marketing industry has been unwittingly complicit in causing the problem, it’s now confronted with an historic opportunity: to shape and encourage consumer demand for sustainable products and lifestyles; to restore the true value of durability; to reject the superfluous in products and packaging; to make much of what has passed for fashion deeply unfashionable…The Internet makes the dissemination of information and the mobilization of protest swift and virtually cost-free…we’re all too conscious that we can be credible as an advisor only if we practice what we preach.”

We are practicing what we preach.

Tupperware and the Women of Soweto South Africa

There is a section in the New York Times every Sunday called “The Boss.” Today’s column was about Rich Goings, CEO of Tupperware. He was recruited by Warren Batts to be President of Tupperware in 1992. He set about changing the image of Tupperware that was a left over from the June Cleaver era. What he did in August of 2008 is this: “I took our Board to Soweto in South Africa to meet with 300 women who sell and use our products. The directors saw the confidence the women were getting, and it opened their eyes. We’ve been in Soweto for 20 years, and the directors saw that even in desperate places in the world, good things happen and the difference we make is visible.”

I visited their site and read the article on social responsibility:

“Tupperware Brands is a leader in driving positive change in women’s lives. Our business strategies and philanthropic programs align to enlighten, educate, and empower women
and girls. Offering educational opportunities and building confident and accomplished young women are social investments that guarantee powerful returns for generations
to come, and build a legacy of caring for tomorrow’s leaders -our children.”

Amen.

We’re Not Dabbling

“Advertising agencies have dabbled in side businesses for decades, but “inventing their own brand, not dependent on clients’ largess, is the big new thing,” said George Parker, an ad agency consultant and writer of AdScam, a blog about the industry.”

When we at RED Direct undertook the project to build EarthSayers.tv, the first Website dedicated to the sustainability movement and highlighting the voices of sustainability, we weren’t thinking about a side business.

We were thinking about being part of a real transformation and making innovation our main business. Advertising and direct marketing, what we used to do, don’t work for us anymore. We think there are clients out there who agree with us and are looking for help to put sustainability strategies at the heart or core of their business. And, coming from advertising and direct marketing, it seems clear to us that sustainability strategies will drive major innovations within marketing.

CFO Dave Burritt of Caterpillar, Inc. calls out the first “broad implication” of sustainability strategies as reputation – consumers demand responsibility.

It is at the intersection of sustainability strategies, thought leadership and relationship marketing, Web 2.0 technologies where innovation blossoms and we know so. EarthSayers.tv is at the center of this intersection as a platform for thought leadership, built on Web 2.0 technology, and, in the next phase, a robust network of sustainability advocates, the relationship marketing model adapted to the digital world.

Green Design Grant Announced Apply by Jan 23rd

Rob Coleman of the Rogue Element, a design and branding firm out of Chicago just announced their first annual Green Design Grant. The team will be giving away a year’s worth of design services to a sustainable or green organization in need of design services who couldn’t otherwise afford them.

This direct link takes you to a grant page with all the details. Pass this information on.

Rogue Element does not have any limitations about where your organization is located, or even if it is in more than one location. We work with clients world-wide. However, any travel costs incurred by Rogue Element while providing services under the Grant will need to be paid by the winning organization.

This is a great opportunity for a start-up or an organization needing a make-over. Rob’s team is talented, committed, and are voices of sustainability.

The Chief Inspired Protagonist

This is the title of Jerry Hollender the President of Seventh Generation and a leader of the growing sustainability movement. We are very grateful to Jerry for his comments about EarthSayers.tv in his latest blog posting, the Inspired Protagonist.

You can subscribe to his blog, but here is his posting for today, December 3, 2008.

I sometimes wonder, after I’ve spoken at a conference, whether I learn more from listeners than listeners learn from me. Take, for example, an email I recently received from Ruth Ann Barrett, a marketing executive who’s previously worked for Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems.

Ruth Ann recorded a talk I gave at the Economist magazine’s recent conference on building sustainable businesses. I spoke of Seventh Generation’s corporate responsibility reporting and the challenge of creating metrics that are meaningful and helpful for consumers. Ruth Ann thought my remarks were interesting enough to post a snippet on YouTube. But what really interested me was learning about a new venture she’s leading, EarthSayers.tv.

EarthSayers.tv consists of a group of high-tech veterans who aim to grow sustainability awareness and education on the Internet. When you Google the term “sustainability,” you get a little less than 30 million results. Do the same for “Britney Spears,” and you get nearly 100 million. EarthSayers seeks to change that sorry state of affairs by increasing Internet traffic for those sites that really matter. Through its video and audio clips of the “unfiltered voices of sustainability” — the pioneers, innovators, and unsung heroes — EarthSayers.tv is also helping people to enter the “learning cycle” and do the right thing for society and the environment.

EarthSayers.tv has launched a prototype; I encourage you to check it out.

Six Business Benefits to Sustainability by John Friedman

John Friedman wrote an excellent article on the Six Business Benefits of Sustainability. I picked it up at JustMeans, an online community focused on creating a values-driven economy. Here they are in summary form:

License to Operate (Speed to Market)

Cost Reduction or Avoidance

Market Opportunity/Advantage
(Impact of actions, and not intentions)

Employee Engagement

Access to Investment Capital
(From 1995 to 2003 assets involved in social investing have grown 40% faster than all professionally managed investment assets in the U.S.)

Sustainability as Critical Business Issue – 69%

Survey results by CoreNet Global and Jones Lang LaSalle, November 10, 2008 as reported in The Earth Times.

Of the more than 400 Corporate Real Estate Executives (CREs) surveyed, 69 percent said sustainability is a critical business issue for their real estate departments. When CoreNet and Jones Lang LaSalle asked the same question in 2007, 47 percent said it was a critical issue. Furthermore, 40 percent this year rated energy and sustainability as a “major factor” in their companies’ location decisions, with an additional 36 percent calling it a “tie-breaker” between locations that are otherwise competitive.

Companies are increase their focus on Energy and Sustainability to reduce costs.

The Five Inhibitors to Sustainability

While adding content to EarthSayers.tv, I am always inspired and educated. Here is but one example.

EarthSayers are individuals who are taking active steps to motivate and inspire us to change. The 7th Generation Project, for example, is a U.K.-based not for profit social capacity and network project seeking to address the interwoven layer of human, earth and economic sustainability.

In their video (it is on EarthSayers, but you are clicking through to it on Youtube because until we get funding to build the site out, it is easier and quicker to send you to Youtube), they identify the five key inhibitors to change:

1. Awareness
(I had no idea it was so serious)

2.Capacity
(I don’t know how to fix it)

3. Action
(What can I do about it)

4. Leadership
Why are we NOT doing anything about this?

5. Community
I can’t do this on my own.

EarthSayers.tv is focused on all five inhibitors. Awareness and capacity through the content on EarthSayers.tv and the EarthSayer Leadership Network, as proposed, is being designed to address inhibitors 3 through 5.

We are going to have to bring more ideas like EarthSayers.tv to the fore that address these inhibitors one by one and with great innovation and activism. I hope what I write stimulates you and inspires you to start addressing some or all of these inhibitors with innovative products and services. We can do it.

“Strategic Doing”

One of the advantages of growing a Website dedicated to the sustainability movement is the like-minded people you meet. Recently I fell upon a Website, I-Open.org and read, “I-Open is focused on the habits we need to innovate in the “civic space”. My eye fell on the offer of a whitepaper, “on new models of economic development.”

I read the paper and can highly recommend it. The author, Ed Morrison, addresses building an open civic process called “strategic doing.” Particularly germane to our site, earthsayers.tv, was his reference to the “appreciative leader” who “understands a fundamental insight about human behavior: people move in the direction of their conversations.” I highly recommend you visit the I-Open site and download a copy. Today.

Once you make the habit of spending some time each day listening to an EarthSayer, someone speaking up for us and our planet, it becomes clear that the language of sustainability is strong and vibrant, but most of all it is inspiring. There is often an “I can do that” response to hearing an EarthSayer – an architect or a business leader or an artist or teacher – talk about how they are adopting sustainable principles and practices at home, at work, or in their communities.

We are beginning a conversation with the I-Open folks as together we have much to offer organizations in both the public and private sectors. The intersection of Web 2.0 technology and social and environmental consciousness offers us the opportunity to be creative and innovate.
Join with us in the conversation.

Sustainability Advocate

Ruth Ann Barrett of EarthSayers.tv, Voices of Sustainability