ecohegemony

Is Cause Marketing a noble distraction from CSR?

The last in my 3-part series for Environmental Leader on the noble distractions of csr came out yesterday.  I imagine this one might raise some hackles.  I imagine this because Cause Marketing is the strategy darling of the Capitalism with a Human Face crowd.  Simply, it is one of the best and most current marketing tools out there.  It is loved because it is effective and noble.  But it may not be the best CSR strategy.

And maybe it doesn't claim to be.  Maybe it's not supposed to be.  Maybe Cause Marketing is icing on the cake of CSR.  I'd be ok with that if it were true, but most of what I see as Cause Marketing are bolt on marketing programs (hence the name).  The winners of this years HALO awards will not likely fall into that category. And participants at this year's Cause Marketing Forum will disagree with me for sure.  And they will hold up examples of how wrong I am.  But I think it would be easier to find examples of Cause Marketing that are CSR veneers.  These veneers actually distract companies from activating Authentic CSR programs with (not for) their companies.

Read the fill articles here.

 

 

3rd Party Certification - Another Noble Distraction of CSR

My second of three parts on strategies to develop authentic CSR came out on Environmental Leader yesterday.  Here's a link to the first on looking at Transparency.

Here's the lead-in:

This three part series is designed to inspire dialogue around the values of Authentic CSR. “Authentic” is not used as a precondition for “ethically better.” Rather, it is used as an internal strategic gauge/guide – i.e. what does successful CSR look like when driven by your company rather than some perceived public leaning or external standard.  I argue that there are noble distractions (such as 3^rd party certifications) of CSR, and that the distractions carry unnecessary costs and exposures that are detrimental to both corporate financial and sustainability goals.

There are upwards of 700  3^rd party certifications or ‘trustmarks’ designed to validate marketing, operational or materiality claims.  Consumers are asked to navigate this din of ecolabels.  In theory, trustmarks exist to make sustainable consumption more accessible, but they are so ubiquitous that they create a kind of white noise that end up cannibalizing their own intent.  This white noise is as prevalent for business as it is consumers.  For corporations, 3^rd party certifications offer external bars that may ultimately be distracting from businesses.

One way in to this discussion is to understand that the cultural condition that creates the necessity for these marks is actually the absence of two other conditions.

1.     Absolute trust

2.     A functioning panopticon

“Absolute trust” has not exactly been the hallmark of capitalism. From Robber Barron industrialists to ENRON, the narrative of capitalism is littered with abuse and obfuscation. How else to explain government intervention in CEO salaries, FTC Greenguides, the EPA, plummeting consumer trust and rising consumer expectations? And while ethical business is part of the new social entrepreneurialism, it may in fact be too high an expectation – a false footing – for the “rest of business.” 3^rd party certifications were created as a stand-in for corporate-consumer trust.

Classically, the panopticon is a type of prison building structure designed to allow an observer to watch all prisoners without the prisoner knowing if they are being watched or not.  In the panopticon, everyone assumes they are being watched so everyone behaves. More modernly, panopticon is a metaphor for technology – a deployed set of observational structures (updates, tweets, check-ins, links and predictive behaviors)…  Perhaps we are closer to a functioning panopticon than we think…

But for now, business has the tool of the ecolabel to work with as both measure and measurement of its commitments to CSR principles.  So how do these well-intended external standards become noble distractions to the business of business and sustainability?

Certifications like USDA Organic, FSC, Cruelty Free, FairTrade, Good Housekeeping, etc., exist for businesses to legitimize their claims. In this scenario, they become representations of a trust you do not enjoy.  But they are also marketing shortcuts – a quick identifier for the consumer that you have achieved some (any) standard.  But they are standards set outside of your organization. At best, they serve to benchmark your company against your competitors (have vs. have not).  At worst, they are distractions from core measurements set from within the company that could help the company achieve better-aligned sustainability goals.

Read the full article here.

One more to go for this series:  Cause Marketing

 

Cult branding lens research: know any cult brands?

I'm working on a lens study (looking at one through through another) about how some brands are cultish. 

Like religious cults these are brands whose "user's" beliefs or practices are considered strange by the mainstream.  In the traditional pejorative sense, these brands are bad for the followers.  This isn't just about passionate consumers - this is a lens looking at the extreme of passionate consumers.  Part of this is about intervention.  How do you convince the follower of a cult brand to leave the cult?  (A brand intervention company is an interesting concept). 

From a sustainability standpoint - these are brands that are bad for the planet, but we justify them anyway.

I'm looking for some examples of cult brands.  The most obvious are Apple, Starbucks, McDonald's, Coco-Cola.

One condition these brands need to have it seems is an alternative - an anti-cult (that may actually not be any different.  The Anti seems to increase the fervor and pitch of worship (like God and the Devil, Branch Dividians and the Government).

What else?  What other cult brands do you see out there?  email jrooks at thesoapgroup dot com with suggestions.

Lots of articles have been written about Cult Brands - but from a positive point of view.  There are serval "How to" guides.  This is not that.  It's about the pejorative.

 

 

 

Part One: The noble distractions of csr: transparency.

My new article on the Noble Distractions of CSR came out today over at Environmental Leader.  It's the first in a three part series looking at transparency, third-party certifications and cause marketing.

Here's the lead-in:

In the environmental space, the practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is on an evolutionary arc, predominantly propelled by external forces: pulled by the lure of competitive benefits evidenced by leading practitioners (Stonyfield, Seventh Generation, Patagonia, etc., etc.); and pushed by watchdog, consumer, shareholder, and public expectations. More often than not the desire for CSR is not generated internally (that is, Authentically) – it is a reaction to a modern condition or event.

For the vast majority of businesses, CSR has become a noble distraction away from the business of business. The concept of CSR embodies the lofty promise to help increase profitability, improve brand loyalty, strengthen market position, and engage social / environmental concerns. In practice, however, it often appears as a patchwork of disassociated environmental programs or (heaven forbid!) marketing initiatives with righteous intentions beyond the corporate walls.

But these noble distractions have a price.

         [read more if you want to]

Learn more about these issues over at ZMR

 

 

Fast zombies, slow zombies, special effects...and sustainability.

Modern zombie movies makers think it is all about the effects...about hyper-kinetic zombies.  Fact is, zombies move faster today than they used to.  That's a reaction to cyber-speed life and computer viruses.  I get it.  Movies reflect culture. Even the remake of 2008 Day of the Dead had a nice Zombie Vegetarian reflecting modern culture.

And we forget that before Nick Cannon was the affable host of America's Got Talent, he was a zombie killing muther fucker in 2008.

Same goes for sustainability.  As zombies get faster and more kinetic, so goes our expectation for change.

I think entrepreneurs are the same.  They are after speed instead of substance.  I might be wrong.

Soon, we will return to our love for slow zombies, original, real, authentic zombies. 

My guess is that we will celebrate authentic sustainability at about the same time.

I hope it's soon.  Zombie movies keep getting worse and we're running out of time.

Read my Zombie Consumerism essay frome 2009 here

 

 

 

The SOAP Biennial Green Language Survey - Preview

At SOAP we're hard at work on the 2011 Green Language Survey.  Our first report from 2009 bisected operative words from 100 Green Print Ads into Scientific and Emotional.  And the economic woes bled through into these ads with the most frequent word/construct being "less". 

This year, we are noticing some interesting trends.  The most noticeable is the striking lack of green ads in general.  Promoting green through print ads seems to be on the way out (even taking into account the overall decrease in the strategy across the board).  We provide some insight to this, as well as the popularity of word/constructs that seem to be shaping our green marketing language.

We will be sifting through the data over the next 4 weeks.  The report is due out in March.  To keep on top of it, subscribe to this blog here.

Also, we are experimenting with a more interactive format for the report itself.  In short, it will be a hybrid delivery: part report narrative, part digestible info-graphic, and part personal translation.  It should be a pretty cool product when it's all done.  And educational too.

Below are some stats from the 2009 Survey.  And here is a link to the report itself.

 

 

 

LENS: the sustainable cultural studies reader

I'm working on a new book and I'm very excited about it.  It combines my love of cultural studies and sustainability into (what I hope will be) a beautiful form.

Synopsis:  Using cultural artifacts (mostly pop), this book is a collection of essays examining sustainability in American culture.  The subject of each essay serves as a lens for us to examine a particularly popular and cantankerous aspect of our society – "going green."

These lens studies are an authentic, if not slightly nerdy, methodology to explore trends. Understanding culture while inside of culture is difficult.  Living inside the reference point, there are many false markers of why and how culture is behaving.

Using the creations of the culture – pop culture – we can look at the manufactured moments as a way to understand the culture itself.  We enter into the deconstruction using a false construct that reveals the truth.

Chapters/Lenses (planned so far):

1. Zombie Movies (previously published)
2. Surfing
3. Punk Rock
4. “DIY”
5. Social Media
6. Cyberspace
7. Cults
8. The "American Dream"
9. Buddy Films
10. Zen Buddhism
11. WalMart
12. Reality TV
13. Waterworld - the Movie

Before each chapter, I have personal perspectives and comments on the cultural artifact in review.

Subscribe to this blog and I promise to keep updates and some sneak peek chapters in the mix.

Radical Transparency - The Revolution we've been waiting for. Viva la transparencia:

If a watchdog group, a government, publication or a citizen upraising forces you to be transparent, you have already lost.  Any trust your advertising and actions earned is depleted.

QSRweb.com a publication for the Quick Serve Restaurant industry (sounds better than "Fast Food, eh?) had this headline to say about the TacoBell Beef Fiasco:  "TacoBell fights back with Transparency".  They miss the point - it's not fighting back, it's rolling over and taking it.  If you are forced to be transparent, it's too late.  If you get caught polluting, you pay a fine.  But that doesn't make the violation go away, it's just the price you pay.  For brands, the price is market share and reputation.

From the article on QSRweb:

"According to YouGov BrandIndex, which interviews 5,000 people daily from across the country, Taco Bell’s Index scores fell from 25.2 to 11.7 since the suit was filed Jan. 19. It is now below the sector’s average score of 12.2.:

Here's the other way to "do transparency" - from a manufacturer of outdoor gear describing their backpack:

“…the Chacabucco Pack embodies no environmental innovation. The nylon is virgin, its polyurethane coating is solvent-rather than water-based, and like all of our products and rainwear, it has DWR (durable water repellent) surface water-repellent that involves the use of PFOA [author’s note: perfluorooctanoic acid]. The pack is not recyclable”

This is copy from Patagonia's Footprint Chronicles web site. Hardly the kind of pro-environmental message we would expect from the environmental champion.  It is transparent.

These moments of radical transparency are coming.  They will change the game again.  I don't like to think TacoBell was being deceptive about their beef - they just didn't know people cared.  We all have operational blind spots.  Now is the time to start looking for them and fixing and disclosing them.

This is the revolution we have been waiting for.  That Green stuff was just a bump on the road to the uprising.

 

The guitar TABS to sustainability: On TED graphics, empathy, collaboration and speaking.

When John Marshall Roberts asked me to do the graphics for his presentation at TEDchch I could not resist.  Combine John's message of "The Global Urgency of Everyday Empathy" with his dynamic stage presence and I was thrilled to be invited to contribute to the dialogue.

We started with the script of the talk.  John then selected the key moments to punctuate with graphics.  From there I selected images that I thought would clarify and communicate the right transitions and moments.

John and I are both musicians (well..I play Bass, so...John's a musician), but working together was not unlike figuring our the Tabs for a song.  The song was written, I was left to re-construct the notes visually.  This is how I see visual marketing.

John and I threaten to get a band together and start playing the conference circuit.  We need a band name.  BTW, I am limiting my speaking this year.  Last year had me on the road for 16 weeks talking about sustainability, communications and culture.  It's too much and there are too many  conferences.  For sure this year I will be at Good And Green(r) - The Green Marketing Conference, Green Stages (Milan, Italy) and LOHAS (Atlanta and Boulder). Others are still pending, but I am being more selective.

John and I are also flirting with a project to bring *Empathy, Authenticity and Strategy* into the board room.  Stay tuned on that.

Oh - What do you call the guy who hangs out with the band?  The Bass player.

Enjoy the video. 

John's "Green" Interview on Blunt Youth Radio (WMPG Portland) Support local radio!

We need more community radio.  They are the pirates.  Locally, we are lucky to have WMPG.  One pirate is Isaac High who works on Blunt Youth Radio.  Blunt Youth is run by High school kids from the Portland area.  Isaac called me out the blue to talk about Green.  We sat outside downtown on a coldish fall day and talked for about an hour.  The edited piece is below.   Nice work Isaac.

 

The meaning of green

(try opening in a new tab if it doesn't play on click)

 

Support Local Radio!