• How are “branded houses” keeping their messaging consistent while allowing each brand its own voice?

• Lessons for retail; employee engagement; social media; behavior management

• How do we get consumers to grasp the connection between technology and sustainability?

• Getting messaging through the “noise” of all

other customer messaging

• How do you initiative or facilitate dialogue about

sustainability with customers?

One of our members is facing a unique predicament: the company’s sustainability-branded category has become “too strong”, potentially fostering the consumer perception that the company’s other products underperform on sustainability indicators. Consequently, the company is considering killing the brand/category and distributing sustainability messaging across all products. Has anyone else dealt with such a decision? Let’s discuss in the forum.

• NOTE: this is a current consideration for the company, so please keep the discussion anonymous per the Chatham House Rule.

• Some companies have begun measuring sustainability against their Net Promoter Score (NPS) with meaningful correlation (statistically significant?). Has anyone else been able to identify a statistically significant positive correlation?

Sustainability has become

an emotional and political

issue for some. How do we

change the frame and take

the emotion and politics out

of sustainability story-

telling?

• Customer “personas” can be an important tactic for identifying different types of customers and the need for communicating to each in different ways, i.e. the messaging for one persona might have no effect on other personas.

• Similarly, ensure resources/effort/spend for each persona is reflective of the business value of each persona, i.e. don’t spend a lot of time/money communicating to personas who either don’t care or don’t represent significant revenue potential.

• Customers don’t want to feel like they are simply helping the company’s profit margin. They want to feel that they are benefiting themselves, their loved ones, their community, etc. with their sustainability actions. They want to feel like a “hero”.

• Uncover what makes your customers feel like a hero, it may be different for different segments. Grandparents feel like heroes for benefiting their grandkids; Millenials might feel like heroes for actions that support the bottom of the pyramid, polar bears, or conflict nations.

• Reach your customers “where they are”…» Put communications at the point of physical contact,

e.g. QR codes on the bathroom mirrors, at eye-level

in the shower, on cups, trashcans.

• …and/or…“where they are bored”. Don’t miss an

opportunity with a “captive” audience, e.g. when

they are waiting in line to check-in or check-out.

Games and gamification:

• Create gamification with a customer “treasure hunt”, encouraging them to seek out sustainability communications, share with their network (social media), and receive rewards in return (affinity rewards, bill discounts)

• One member created an actual mobile game app to promote recent sustainability achievements and the game became their second most successful.

Clif Bar introduced activity

challenges, when a customer

completed a challenge they were

to share a picture on social media

Many customers don’t want to have to do anything extra to behave responsibly. Reward them for actions they are already taking--or might do with minimal non-intrusive effort--and of which they may not realize the benefit.

• For example, many people do not know that hanging the “Do not disturb” sign on the hotel door means that housekeeping will skip your room instead of default restocking cups and towels, etc.

In this context it is important to keep in mind the opt-in/opt-out question.

Which behavior do you want to be the default? Should guests have to

“opt-out” of getting new towels and cups every day by hanging the sign, or

should guests have to “opt-in”, hang a sign to request housekeeping

services? What kinds of default behaviors do your own customers exhibit;

are they the behaviors you want?

• Similar communications lessons can also be

applied to internal comms

Tailor messaging to internal segments, different

employee segments respond to different messaging

Use incentives that matter to employees

• What does it really mean to “improve a life”?

How do you quantify that?

• If brands pooled the intended results of their

sustainability efforts in a collective consumer-facing

comms campaign, they might get significantly more

attention and traction than any brand's individual

comms effort is getting currently.

Thus, it may be a great idea for the SB member group to

think about creating a master list of all the ways in which

this group of brands is improving lifestyles together.

• There was disappointment over some members

being forced to discontinue successful

sustainability efforts, and there was a sentiment

that SB members need to engage their

respective company’s executive leadership

better to avoid regressing and undoing earned

progress.

• The SB Corporate Member group will next

convene:

SB’15 San Diego

Tuesday, June 2nd, Lunch, 12:30-2pm

Sunset Terrace

• Collaboration Workshop Hosted by HP, facilitated by CollaborateUp

July 30

Palo Alto, CA

• New Metrics Member Meeting Hosted by Iron Mountain

October 6th

Boston, MA

• December Member/Advisory Meeting Date TBD

Location TBD – We are currently looking for a host for this meeting, if you are interested please contact Matt Eversman, matt@sustainablebrands.com

Carbon impacts from this and all 2015 SB events have been

offset by Offsetters, SB’s Official Carbon Offset Partner.

offsetters.ca