What Consumers Consider Important

From an article “Cause Marketing Offers Huge Payoffs, Study Finds” in Sustainable Life Media publication of October 7, 2008.

Additional research conducted by Cone Marketing identified the specific factors consumers consider important when deciding to support a company’s cause efforts. For example:

84% would prefer to select the cause their purchase would support

83% say personal relevance is key

80% believe the specific nonprofit associated with the campaign matters

79% say they would be likely to switch from one brand to another, when price and quality are about equal, if the other brand is associated with a good cause

85% say they have a more positive image of a product or company when it supports a cause they care about

Consumers are more receptive to cause messages than ever before, the report suggests.

More than half (52%) of respondents say companies should maintain their level of financial support of causes and nonprofit organizations, despite current economic woes.

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Not an Option

There is much talk in the news about how when the economy tanks, sustainability and its consumer-focused cousin, the Green movement, are moved aside.

A recent article in Sustainable Life Media reported on a study by Cone Marketing and Duke University Fuqua School of Management that found “Consumers are more receptive to cause messages than ever before. More than half (52%) of respondents say companies should maintain their level of financial support of causes and nonprofit organizations, despite current economic woes.” Sadly, the article also noted another study by Duke indicating “marketers appear to be taking the opposite tack… chief marketing officers from Fortune 1000 companies predict that more marketers will be shifting away from their cause-related messages over the next year as a result of the souring economy.

One wonders what planet these CMOs are living on if they think they can move away from sustainability practices and products.

A year ago, Andrew Zolli in a March 2007 Fast Company article addressed the conflicting beliefs of “corporations having pressing obligations to civil society and the planet as a whole that go well beyond the economic sphere” and the clinical, value-neutral capitalism championed by Mr. Friedman who warned against “burdening business with wider goals.” Mr. Friedman argued it was “pure and unadulterated socialism.” Mr. Zolli went on to write:

“The clinical, value-neutral capitalism of old is about to follow the recently departed Friedman to the grave.

There are several reasons why this is so, but the first should be obvious to any one but the most hardened anti-environmental skeptic: If we don’t do something soon, we’re screwed. A quick (and necessarily depressing) look at the numbers suggests that supplies of our most basic commodities–potable water, fossil fuels, arable land, clean air–as well as critical industrial commodities such as aluminum, steel, and even silicon, are all under stress.”

I just don’t get where anyone has the idea that the movement towards sustainability is optional.

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Sustainability is the New Watchword in Business

This is the October 26, 2008 headline of an article by Sandra Constantine off the Massachusetts Business News.  She reports that Diane Wolverton, speaking at the “Women and Green” Business Owners Conference at Mount Holyoke College, calls sustainability the “new triple bottom line.” She is the director of the State Small Business Center in Wyoming.  

 
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I can do that.

Today I submitted a proposal to Google’s “Project 10 to the 100th,” which is a call for ideas to change the world, in the hope of helping as many people as possible. They are funding up to five ideas selected by an advisory board and have committed $10M to the program. I asked for help in building out a collaboration platform (community) on EarthSayers.tv. Community is one of eight categories.

According to the Website, “A selection of Google employees will review all the ideas submitted and select 100 for public consideration. The 100 top ideas will be announced on January 27, 2009, at which point we will invite the public to select twenty semi-finalists. An advisory board will then choose up to five final ideas for funding and implementation. We plan to announce these winners in early February.”

Here are some of the answers I provided on their entry form:

What one sentence best describes your idea (150 characters)
Increase sustainability awareness through community collaboration and with Web content that inspires people to say, “I can do that.”

What problem or issue does your idea address (150 words)

Low awareness.

Presently a Google search on sustainability yields over 31M results, up form 15M in 2007, a good sign. However, the U.S. is sixth in search activity according to Google Trends, behind Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK, and Canada. This is the measure of low awareness.


Where to start?

On the video search engine, Blinkx, there are over 73,000 sustainability search results, up from 20,000 in 2007, and for the prototype we aggregate our content via a database connection to Blinkx. The sheer volume of the results and the heavy duplication of content begs for further organization and clear direction to the question, “where to start?” As one business leader once exclaimed: “Searching is one thing, finding is another.

If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how (150 words)

The sustainability learning cycle begins for millions of people with a Google search on the term sustainability.

“The most important problem in the world today is not global climate chaos or violence. It’s people’s feeling of powerlessness. It is the problem beneath all the problems.”
?Frances Moore Lappe at the World Future Council.


They deserve to hear and see the people actually involved in the sustainability movement so they can learn by example and be moved to believe, “I can do that.”

Only recently has an educational resource appeared on the first page, Wikipedia, and we see EarthSayers.tv as a video-based companion resource with greater inspirational power.

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Best-in-class Tools for Sustainable Design

“The truth is we think of it as a responsibility to equip designers and engineering professionals with the right information so they can understand the social and environmental impact of their designs before they actually build them.” Lynelle Cameron, director of sustainability at Autodesk. SF Business Times, September 28, 2008

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Global 100 Most Sustainable Firms that are U.S. companies are major candidates for sponsoring EarthSayers.tv, the voices of sustainability. We are seeking help from our network of friends and colleagues to identify the sustainability initiative, green, and/or Corporate Social Responsibility contacts within these companies. The seventeen U.S. Firms on the 100 Best list are:

Advanced Micro Devices
Agilent Technologies Inc
Alcoa Inc
American International Group Inc
Baxter International Inc
Coca Cola Company
Eastman Kodak Company
FPL Group Inc
General Electric Company
Genzyme Corp.
Hewlett-Packard Company
Intel Corp.
Nike Inc
Pinnacle West Capital Corp.
State Street Corp.
United Technologies Corp.
Walt Disney Company

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The Day after the Sustainability Workshop

As luck would have it I bent down to pick up a sock yesterday morning and could hardly straighten up. My knees buckled and I had the feeling I was dealing with something very painful. Getting to the the Sustainable Brands workshop was tough. I was a good hour late and had to stand through much of it, but I did get to meet some interesting folks and had the opportunity to introduce myself to Brian Gruber, President and CEO of Fora.tv here in San Francisco. I have been wanting to talk to him about EarthSayers.tv and possible points of collaboration: a word, by the way, referenced more than a few times at the workshop. I also introduced myself to Jurriaan Kamp, the President and Editor in Chief of Ode magazine. Both Fora.tv and Ode were co-sponsors of the workshop.
Much of the content was a repeat of the speakers at the Sustainable Brands conference in Monterey last June, but the audience was pretty much new to the sustainability movement. There was considerable discussion of folks inside organizations that are sustainability evangelists and have to prove the ROI for programs and lack the tools to do so. No one talked about pushing for the ROI of unsustainable practices, like events, but then the world out there is fairly unbalanced at the moment.
I am going to try and get EarthSayers.tv mentioned at the upcoming workshops in New York City and Austin, Texas. There is a lack of information on the subject of sustainability and EarthSayers.tv, even at the prototype stage, offers an opportunity to be much better informed and, yes, inspired.
As to the back, it’s getting better, but I am not doing much moving around. Getting in and out of a car is painful!

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Branding for Sustainability Conference, SF, September 17th


I will be attending a half-day workshop this week (9/17) on “Branding for Sustainability.” Will update the blog with how the workshop goes as I hope to meet some people interested in sponsoring EarthSayers.tv. I have written a whitepaper on Branding Sustainability that is available on this blog – see right column. My point was to suggest with brand awareness so low for the term, sustainability, attention needs to be paid to building awareness for sustainability directly, as, for example, is done with product categories like milk. More later.

There are two more 1/2 day workshops scheduled for Austin 9/22 and New York on October 20th.

“Our goal is to spotlight the ideas, practices and possibilities for building and scaling sustainable brands,” said Jurriaan Kamp, founder and editor-in-chief of Ode magazine, who will moderate the workshops. “We are creating an interactive forum for business executives to share experiences, insights and opportunities about sustainability and brand value.”

For more information including more detailed agenda go to:
http://www.brandingforsustainability.com/sf.html

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