Author Archive
Sustainable branding: Promise is only half the story
“Promises are like babies,” an unknown author once said. “Easy to make, hard to deliver.”
Sounds like a good reason to never make a promise. Or better yet, good reason to think long and hard before making one.
Countless branding books and consultants describe a brand as a promise. That’s an inside-out view. If I’m on the outside looking at your business, I don’t care whether you make a promise. I care whether you keep it. 
My guess is millions of Toyota owners feel similarly today about that company’s promise of quality.
Promises have no value until or unless they’re consistently fulfilled. That gets lost among many who make their living in branding, communications and design. I used to be among them. Branding meant communicating a promise and persuading others to pay attention. If I did that well, I was doing my job.
My certainty about all of this gave way as I delved deeper into sustainability and carved out a sustainable branding practice. Everywhere it seemed, marketers were jumping onto the green marketing bandwagon. Meanwhile, consumer complaints of “greenwashing” kept growing as marketers used one hand to paint their companies or products green and the other to cover their eyes to the brown.
Words and deeds
Sustainable branding is not simply marketing communications by another name. It’s aligning what you stand for as a business with what people experience from you. Greenwashing does the opposite: It misaligns words and deeds.
Companies have been saying one thing and doing another forever. What’s changed is the technology and desire to call them out. Social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook and user-generated sites such as Yelp will expose hypocritical businesses in a heartbeat. And nowhere is the B.S. radar on higher alert than when a company speaks of social or environmental responsibility. People may overlook the advertisement that overstates a product’s benefits. But many can’t wait to bust the company that promises — and fails — to do good.
Carefully researched, considered and cultivated, a brand moves a business toward competitive distinction and customer relevance. Unfortunately, most businesses leave brand management to marketing communications. They equate branding with names, logos, taglines, messages, advertising campaigns and a consistent “look & feel.”
Where the buck stops
What our businesses say and how we look matters when separating ourselves as a brand. But not nearly as much as what we do as a business.
Want your brand to stand out from the crowd? Then let your actions do more of the talking. Nothing communicates as convincingly as a company whose employees, culture and operations consistently deliver a distinct, relevant product, service or experience.
This doesn’t happen by accident. It requires a CEO and senior managers who ensure their company walks it talk. Unless your marketing department runs the company, the branding buck must stop with the people who have ultimate authority to motivate, train or cajole everyone to deliver on the company’s core promise.
Stepping onto the path of sustainability makes this more imperative than ever.
When you pledge to build a more sustainable company, it’s like handing a magnifying glass to your customers, employees and other stakeholders and inviting them to inspect your every move. Witness the emergence of greenwashing watchdogs.
Living the brand
The prospect of greater scrutiny frightens some executives. Others say bring it on. They know integrity and accountability have always been hallmarks of great companies. And they don’t fear the added weight of social and environmental responsibility that a commitment to sustainable business practices demand. They’re simply trying to do the right thing.
But even their firms may need help living their brands. That’s why I’ve formed a team of experts in organizational development, sustainability, research, design and storytelling.
I look forward to sharing more about our collaboration soon. But you can be sure we’re clear on one thing: Making a promise is the easy part of branding. It’s the delivery we need to worry about.
Tags: brand promise, greenwashing, living the brand, sustainable branding, sustainable business
Posted in Branding, Business & Economics, Communications, Marketing, Sustainability | No Comments »
The yin yang of sustainability
Throughout sustainability circles one word is a constant: change. Sustainability is ultimately about instigating, managing and navigating change.
Or so it seems.
Look more closely, however, and the picture appears incomplete. Aren’t we forgetting the yang to the yin of change? It’s worth asking, because many of those we hope to influence value stability far more than change.
This yin yang of sustainability came to mind after watching a provocative video presentation by psychologist Jonathan Haidt about the moral roots of liberals and conservatives. His comments were made within the context of
politics. I found them equally relevant to my work as a consultant in sustainable branding, where the role of values is crucial.
Liberals and conservatives
Haidt’s research finds that liberals in societies throughout the world share a common attribute of “openness to experience.” They value novelty, diversity, cross-cultural experiences. They’re comfortable with change. I would say some even insist on it.
Conservatives, on the other hand, value attributes such as safety and dependability. They seek order and stability.
“The great conservative insight,” Haidt told his mostly liberal audience, “is that order is really hard to achieve. It’s really precious, and it’s really easy to lose.”
Haidt was referring to civilized societies. He could just as easily have been speaking of business. The bursting economic bubbles and normal ups and downs of daily business make periods of stability precious indeed. As a businessperson, I love stability — and I’m a liberal.
I don’t know anyone who enjoys making decisions in the midst of chaos or disorder. That may be why businesses tend to be conservative organizations. They seek stability so they can reduce the risk of making poor, hurried decisions and increase the likelihood of success.
Resisting change vs. desiring stability
We’ve long been told humans resist change because we fear the unknown. Dealing with and overcoming resistance to change is how we often frame our most pressing business challenges. We all know the frustrations of executives trying to move their employees in new directions or “change agent” employees trying to persuade their reluctant bosses.
One person’s resistance to change, however, is another person’s desire for stability. There’s a difference. Seeking stability doesn’t automatically mean resisting change. Consider, Haidt says, the gods Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer, two of the three gods in the Hindu trinity (along with Brahma the creator). The worship of stability (Vishnu) and change (Shiva) are foundational in one of the world’s great religions.
In other words, change and stability, far from being enemies, need each other to create a world that’s whole. Or a business in balance.
The liberal narrative
I’d like to think sustainability is an apolitical issue. Still, Haidt’s liberal-conservative characterization helps explain why liberals dominate sustainability gatherings. We love talking about changing the world. It excites us. Gives us purpose. We’re driven to undo all the damage humans and institutions have done to each other and the environment. And we believe our arguments for change are unassailable: How can anyone ignore global warming, decimated ecological systems, the rich-poor divide? Things have to change.
That’s our narrative. And we’ve had some success in spreading its message. More and more businesses are awakening to their social and environmental responsibilities. If Walmart, of all companies, can enjoy acclaim among environmentalists for its sustainability leadership, positive change must indeed be occurring.
Still, the case for sustainability remains a murky work in progress. The disappointing Copenhagen talks proved how divided our world leaders remain on the actions and timetables needed to prevent the worst of climate change (there’s that word again). And despite some high-profile exceptions, business leaders have been slow to see the light of sustainability.
A balanced approach
We’ll reach and influence more people by attending to both sides of the sustainability equation: change and stability. When making the case for sustainability, especially in the realm of business, try speaking less to the need for change and more to the benefits of stability and order.
Demonstrate to executives how the adoption of sustainable business practices lessens the likelihood of disruptive change by creating more resilient organizations. Prove to employees that sustainable practices create a more secure work place. And show customers how your products and services respect their innate desire for reliability and dependability — while doing no harm.
Yes, achieving sustainability requires change. And it produces stability. We’d do well to remember both.
Special thanks to friend Thomas Joseph Doherty for pointing me to Haidt’s video.
Tags: change vs. stability, Jonathan Haidt, Sustainability, sustainable branding, yin yang
Posted in Business & Economics, Climate Change, Marketing, Sustainability | 1 Comment »
Is sustainability as ‘a cause’ deterring business?
An acquaintance from my years in high tech emailed me the other day. I let him know I had left the tech marketing firm I co-founded to move my work into sustainability. I cringed when I read his reply: “That’s a great cause and I wish you well.”
My response surprised me. What’s wrong with being associated with a great cause and someone wishing me well? Nothing, of course. It’s just that sustainability is not a cause for me, at least not any longer. And wishing me well made it sound like, well, I’d need all the help I can get.
Sustainability, for me, has evolved into a mindset, a practice, a method of operating a company, a basis for business purpose and competitive distinction. Defeating poverty is a great cause. Pursuing sustainability is simply smart business.
The work of idealists and activists
I’m guessing many in business still think of sustainability, to the degree they think of it at all, as the work of idealists and ideologues. You know, those people whose ardent support for their cause make them appear a tad unreliable as business executives or consultants.
Sustainability in business is growing in awareness and practice. But the breadth and depth of adoption is not nearly as great as it needs to be. I worry the association of sustainability with environmental or social activism deters many in business from embracing it.
Causes are the perceived stock-in-trade of nonprofits, governments, NGOs and religious institutions. Businesses trade in products and services. Unless business leaders can draw a direct line from sustainability to greater success in selling their goods and services (and, fortunately, growing numbers can and have), they will leave sustainability to the green crusaders.
Causes tend to be long-term, sometimes never-ending, in nature: civil rights, smoking prevention, food safety, pollution control, wetland conservation, climate change. Modern business, perhaps to its detriment, dwells in the short term. For lots of reasons, only about half of businesses are still around five years after their founding.
Obsessing over health of business, not planet
As someone who started an employee-based business and operated it for more than 13 years, I don’t believe most owners or executives lose sleep over the health of the planet. They do, however, obsess over the health of their companies.
And it’s in that obsession where they must discover sustainability as the source for business wellbeing. Not a cause for which they have precious little time or resources to entertain. But rather a method of organizing and operating that improves their chances of keeping the doors open, bills paid, employees, customers and shareholders satisfied, and competitors at bay.
Prominent sustainability consultants Bob Willard and Peter Senge speak of the five stages and drivers of sustainability in business. Starting at a place of non-compliance with environmental standards and regulations, a company moves into the second stage of compliance in response to regulatory demand and public pressure. Stage 3 is moving beyond compliance to seeing the possibilities for ongoing cost reductions and reputation or brand enhancement. The next stage is making sustainability an integrated strategy for creating business opportunity and managing risk. The fifth stage is a mission-driven business that places sustainability at the core of its values.
Except perhaps at Stage 5, the motivation isn’t saving the planet. Businesses are driven by the desire to be in compliance, make or save money and become more competitive. They need to know they can achieve these and other goals by becoming more sustainable. That’s cause enough for them.
Tags: business, cause, Peter Senge, Sustainability
Posted in Business & Economics, Sustainability, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
The sustainable virtues of slow brand
This may be the first and only time you see the words “cathedral thinking” and “slow brand” used in the same sentence. Allow me to explain.
Last week I heard New York Times journalist Andrew Revkin refer to cathedral thinking as he spoke of his reporting on the daunting ecological challenges that confront us all. The effort needed to prevent the worst from happening will take enormous long-term commitment. The kind that compelled generations of humans past to build great religious monuments over decades, even centuries, knowing they would never experience the full fruits of their labor.
Gaudi Cathedral
I think of the Gaudi Cathedral in Barcelona, whose construction began in 1882 and continues today — 127 years later and 83 years after the death of its famed architect Antoni Gaudi.
I suppose only someone like me would ponder branding as Revkin spoke. I jotted down on my notepad the words slow brand. I had never seen or heard those two words used together, although a subsequent web search shows at least one blog by the name.
There are emerging slow food and slow money movements, but no slow brand movement. That’s understandable. Who in business wants “slow” to describe anything about them?
Painstakingly constructing a cathedral is no metaphor for how most companies and their brands are built. In the hyper-competitive world of business, speed is of the essence. We don’t know where we’re going, but we’re going there fast. We want a brand — stat!
Fast brand, slow brand
Companies that embrace the principles of sustainability will quite naturally take their foot off the accelerator. Sustainability requires a fundamental restructuring in how we conduct business. By holding itself accountable for the environmental and social impacts of its actions, a sustainable business doesn’t take shortcuts to success.
How we build our company brand matters. Weak ones are little more than facades. At best their value is aesthetic. Good ones are strong foundations. They allow businesses to stand the test of time because they’re solid, substantial, dependable, built with a sense of purpose and a whole lot of sweat equity. For me this describes slow brand — not a type of brand, but an approach to building a brand that gains strength over time.
How does slow brand compare with fast brand? Let me take a crack at drawing some distinctions:
- Fast brand is led by marketing. Slow brand is led by mission. Fast brand is isolated to marketing. The rest of the company pays it little or no attention. Slow brand supports the mission of a company, its reason for being. Just as a mission’s accomplishment requires an entire company, so does the building of a brand.
- Fast brand is how we look. Slow brand is who we are. Fast brand is obsessed with appearance: cool, innovative, powerful, smart. Slow brand is committed to substance. Integrity matters above all.
- Fast brand is a promise communicated. Slow brand is a promise fulfilled. Fast brand reduces itself to messages delivered by creative marketers. Slow brand knows a company’s actions speak louder than its words.
- Fast brand is purchased. Slow brand is earned. Fast brand loves media plans: broadcast, social, print. It works inside-out. Slow brand loves satisfied customers, employees and other stakeholders. It works outside-in.
Putting the CEO in charge
The longer I work at the intersection of branding and sustainability, the more convinced I am that brand ownership cannot be left to a marketing team. Ultimate brand responsibility must rest with the CEO. This is especially important for a business that’s making sustainability a brand cornerstone — a so-called sustainable brand. Stating a commitment to sustainability heightens the expectations of a company’s practices. And only the CEO is positioned to ensure every employee fulfills the promise of sustainability inherent in the mission and brand.
If your business is striving for sustainability, you know the transition won’t happen overnight. It will take concentrated effort over a long period of time. You may not be building a cathedral, but it may help to think you are.
Tags: Andrew Revkin, cathedral thinking, fast brand, Slow brand, slow money, Sustainability, sustainable brand
Posted in Business & Economics, Climate Change, Communications, Marketing, Sustainability, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
A question we’re not trained to ask
What is enough?
Good question. And one businesspeople rarely consider. I asked Massachusetts-based consultant Jen Cohen why.
Because you are trained to ask ‘How do I get more?’ You are not trained to ask the question (of enough). Success in business has historically meant constant accumulation. So why would you ask ‘What is enough?’ It is a heretical question, in the frame of Wall Street or the current business model. We need a model where there is room for that question.
Cohen and her business partner Gina LaRoche co-founded Seven Stones Leadership to help businesses and individuals explore the question of enough. They base their practice on the principles of “sufficiency,” an emerging area of consulting that proves to be a natural complement to sustainability.
Jen Cohen
I’ve had the good fortune of working with Cohen and LaRoche, both as a branding consultant and a client. I’ve learned that sufficiency, like sustainability, defies easy definition. LaRoche comes at sufficiency from multiple perspectives: “It’s a practice. It’s an inquiry. It’s a way of life. A challenge, a business model.”
Author Lynne Twist inspired an ongoing conversation on sufficiency with her 2003 book, The Soul of Money. Writing from 20 years experience as a successful fundraiser for nonprofits, she lays bare the myths of scarcity that most of us tell ourselves: there’s not enough, more is better, that’s just the way it is.
Cohen sees these myths play out daily in her work.
There’s not one person who comes into my office and tells the story about how sufficient they are. Not one person. The story that every single person who comes into my office tells is how they are swinging on the pendulum between inadequacy, not having enough, and excess.
Gina LaRoche
LaRoche says businesspeople avoid the question of enough as they do many tough questions. It comes down to what LaRoche calls “the diffusion of responsibility” prevalent among organizations. We tell ourselves, LaRoche says, “That’s not my problem. There’s someone else in charge. Someone else who can make that decision.” All the way up to the CEO who defers to the board.
The scarcity in sustainability
The language of the sustainability movement is often couched in terms of scarcity and excess: not enough clean air and water, not enough forested land, too much carbon pollution, not enough political will.
It isn’t a myth to say we live on a planet with finite resources. But that’s not the whole story, according to Twist. “Abundance is a fact of nature,” she writes. “It is a fundamental law of nature, that there is enough and it is finite.”
Seeing the world as abundant and finite, we revere the earth’s limited resources and pledge to manage them in a way that does the most good for the most people. From a mindset of scarcity, businesses and individuals believe there’s not enough for everyone. And may the fittest survive.
In a self-fulfilling act, the scarcity mentality drives us to make and consume more to be among the survivors, ensuring there indeed won’t be enough for all.
Marketers routinely capitalize on the pervasive sense of scarcity: Act now, supplies won’t last! Harvard marketing professor John Quelch is one proponent: “Creating the illusion of scarcity can be a smart marketing strategy.”
Valuing depth in business
Many companies are struggling with the loss of revenue, customers and employees as the recession wears on. If scarcity is our default setting, most businesses are in default mode right now.
One way to flip the switch is to imagine what operating a business from a sense of abundance, of having enough, of being enough would be like. Cohen says it would be fundamentally different. You would no longer privilege breadth or expansion, or be ruled by the axiom “if you’re not growing, you’re dying.”
I would say in a sufficiency model where the infinity rests is in depth: depth of richness, depth of interdependence, depth of creativity, depth of serving people. You can stay in the infinite possibility of your work making a difference in the world, or your work reaching people or your work mattering or your business mattering.
The practice of sufficiency works hand-in-glove with sustainability. Those of us striving to operate our businesses sustainably will not succeed if our constant guide is the experience of fear, scarcity, not enough. Even if I’m wrong, what’s the point of joyless sustainability?
So what is enough? Twist answers, “Each of us determines that for ourselves, but very rarely do we let ourselves have that experience.”
What better time than now?
Tags: Gina LaRoche, Jen Cohen, Lynne Twist, scarcity, Seven Stones, sufficiency, Sustainability, The Soul of Money, what is enough
Posted in Business & Economics, Communications, Consumerism, Marketing, Sustainability | No Comments »
How to emerge green and ahead after recession
Making the business argument for going green can be tough even in the best of times. Trying to make it during the Great Recession? Forget about it.
Or so goes the conventional line of thinking.
Consultant Andrew Winston, author of the popular book “Green to Gold,” wants you to believe otherwise. He makes his case in his new book, “Green Recovery: Get Lean, Get Smart, and Emerge from the Downturn on Top.”
Winston writes:
This book presents an optimistic view of what green can do for your company in hard times.
Optimistic, yes. And realistic. Winston knows the recession has knocked businesses and their customers back on their heels. There are few companies today with the financial wherewithal or stomach for large-scale sustainability initiatives.
So what’s a company to do? Winston has plenty of suggestions. His small book reads like a how-to guide for businesses, with easy-to-digest lists of pragmatic reasons and low-cost methods for becoming more sustainable.
Focusing scarce resources
He offers four broad recommendations and organizes his book around them:
- Get lean: You can generate savings fast by reducing energy costs and consumption in your buildings and facilities, data centers, distribution operations, employee travel and by reducing and recycling waste.
- Get smart: Collect data on your environmental footprint, internally and across your value chain, and make it available to the people who can best use it to create change.
- Get creative: Creativity is free. And green innovation is what will set you apart as your competitors stand still. Ask “big, heretical questions.”
- Get (your people) engaged: Winston says, “In these times of low morale, and perhaps because of the stress of harder economic conditions, many people want more meaning at work. A green focus will both engage and inspire your people to keep going through tough times.”
Reducing your environmental footprint now can create advantage over your lesser-prepared competitors. Before long, however, you and your competitors will have no choice. Powerful forces remain at work even as the current 
economy struggles and squeezes profits. Chief among them are climate change and constraints on natural resources and nonrenewable energy.
In his conclusion, Winston writes:
As hard as it may be to imagine, green pressures will force even larger, more sustained changes in business than current economic pressures. We’re talking about a fundamental shift in how the world works.
Application to smaller businesses
Most of Winston’s examples are from larger companies. I asked Winston in an email whether his recommendations work equally well for smaller businesses.
In short, yes, all of these strategies and tactics apply very well for smaller companies. In fact, smaller enterprises may feel more strain on cash flows and need to get lean even faster. The one caveat is whether any capital is available for investment in environmental improvements.
Winston recommends setting aside a portion of planned capital expenditures for environmental priorities, such as energy reduction. He also says smaller businesses may have the advantage when asking the heretical question. “Arguably smaller companies will be less tied to the status quo and more able to foment disruptive change,” he told me.
And what about Social Recovery?
I also asked Winston why he only briefly mentions the social dimension of sustainability.
Part of the answer is based in my expertise and focus. Another is that the ideas for getting lean as a way to fund a Green Recovery need to be focused on quick paybacks, and those types of initiatives tend to be more environmental: saving money on facilities, on IT, etc. It’s harder to pursue the social agenda as a cost-saving path…That said, many companies are building strong brands by hitting themes of transparency, responsibility and corporate citizenship.
Winston comes off as a pragmatist with deep concerns about the environment and the readiness of business to deal with what’s ahead. And for good reason. A new study of 1,500 corporate executives finds only 30 percent of companies have developed a clear business case for sustainability. Another recent study of major U.S. businesses concludes:
The current state of corporate environmental policy and management is surprising, perhaps even shocking.
Seizing the opportunity
Looking past the woeful business response to our environmental challenges lies a classic business opportunity. Iconic environmental businessman Paul Hawken, speaking in Portland, Ore. this month, asserted: “There’s no such thing as bad news about the environment, only information.” And in that information lies the makings of commercial success for those paying attention.
Winston sounds a similar theme.
Some companies that had a weak commitment to sustainability may be pulling back now. What a great opportunity to lead.
Tags: Andrew Winston, Great Recession, Green Recovery, Paul Hawken, Sustainability
Posted in Books, Business & Economics, Climate Change, Sustainability | No Comments »