Rafael Bemporad & Mitch Baranowski, BBMG

The post-lunch breakout, held in the big room. I sit in the front row and pirate some power from the plug-in for the Powerpoint monitor. Hopefully I won’t blow it up. This presentation was one of the most requested by my blog readers, so I will do my best to capture its essence.

They started with a great exercise where table-mates shared their Eco Guilty Pleasures; those not-so-sustainable brands we love and can’t live without. Mine was my Mac. Next to me, Scot Case from TerraChoice Environmental Marketing admitted to speeding – despite all safety and environmental impacts. Mitch began his energetic speech with a slide illustrating the huge trend toward clutter.

Numbers of Corporate Responsibility Reports – 2300+
New product launches – Thousands
Explosion of eco trust labels – more than 350!

In short, we risk ‘Green’ becoming the new ‘New and Improved’

Meeting the Conscious Consumer
This agency sent out their cultural anthropologists to 3 areas across the country. They cooked and ate together, surfed the web, lived together. They then brought back hours of footage and photographs. From this they distilled five solid (if not ground-breaking) values the conscious consumers share.
Health and Safety: Conscious consumers want natural, organic, healthy.
Honesty: Tell us the practices, policies and ingredients
Convenience: You have to meet them on price and convenience
Relationships: Who made it, where is it from, where is it going when it’s done. Can I support my local living economy?
Doing Good: Purchase with a purpose.

Their top issues:
90% Safe drinking water
86% Clean Air
84% Diseases (Cancer etc)

When they were asked to pick a term that describes them:
39% said ‘Socially Responsible’
37% related to ‘Conscious Consumers’
34% said ‘Environmentally friendly’
Only 14% said ‘Green’

Nexgt we were shown some clips of real conscious consumers on video, which really helped to bring the statistics home. The most telling was a lady they called ‘The box-turner’. She doesn’t believe the front of the package, and so checks all the information on the back. “Look, it’s only an inch of ingredients,” she says turning over one cookie box, “… how bad can that be?”
This is actually a metaphor for where the Conscious Consumer is today. Wary of claims. Wanting to know more.

Like many studies, BBMG breaks their categories out into a spectrum of ‘green’ behaviour:
Enlighteneds 10%
Aspirationals20%
Practicals 30%
Indifferents 40%

This means 60% of shoppers will come to your brand if you meet them where they are and add sustainability. But one point was made clear: Convenience is a non-negotiable factor. Conscous Consumers want things to be even MORE convenient than the average American consumer. It is a self-centered consciousness.

So what are some brand behaviours that can engage with this growing audience?

1) Offer a Triple Value Proposition
Create brands with a set of benefits:
Practical Benefits (convenient)
Social (or ecological) Benefits (recycled) and
Tribal (community) Benefits

2) Tell an Authentic Brand Story
A good example of this is the Whole Foods positioning: Whole People, Whole Foods, Whole Planet. This extends to their processes as well: Their Whole Trade Guarantee takes fair trade and owns it.

Most importantly, say Mitch and Rafael, we are in a powerful historical moment. We are moving from the ‘What’ (product, ingredients etc) to the ‘How’ – how we do things, how we manufacture, how we do business. Increasingly, consumers are conscious of this. Marketers had better be, too.
Download the white paper on this presentation at:www.bbmg.com Click on News & Insights, then on the Conscious Consumer Paper.

One in a series of articles on Lorne’s Sustainable Journey to the Sustainable Brands 08 Conference in Monterey CA. Click here for the full list of sessions, or here for the ‘Fear & Loathing’ road trip journals.

Jeffrey Hollander, President 7th Generation

For me, this presentation was one of this show’s most powerful, yet I will have a challenge communicating it to you, Dear Readers, second-hand. If you’re not familiar with the Seventh Generation line of cleaning and household products, it is a paragon of environmental business. Three years ago their growth was 25%. Two years ago: 45%. Last year, 60%. Yet listening to him speak, you would think President Jeffrey Hollander was anything but a rampant capitalist. At his company, everybody gets a free massage every week. Dogs trot around the offices. And employees enjoy 100% paid life insurance. According to Hollander, although many corporate CEO’s make over 500x the earnings of their average employee, he has voluntarily capped his at 20x and is not close to that yet.

But the essence of his message is that Incremental changes are not going to get us where we need to go. Companies must change their business models to be a force for good in society. While Seventh Generation is lauded for making good products, Hollander says all he can do is lie awake at night and think of how to make better ones. “We have a huge problem.” He says. “We have to regenerate the world. We need products that are GOOD, not just ‘less bad’. And in his view, governments must shoulder some of that responsibility. “We’re in a society that has made bad rules that incentivize customers to make the wrong decisions. We need to change those rules.” This, he says, will take 50+ year business plans that must be related to a new business ownership style. “If we don’t redistribute more wealth from the top layers we’ll have no more consumers left to sell to.”

But perhaps the most interesting question for me, and one we can all ask ourselves is:
“What does the world most need that you are uniquely qualified to provide?”
Hmmmm. Thank you, Mr. Hollander. I’ll have to get back to you on that one.

One in a series of articles on Lorne’s Sustainable Journey to the Sustainable Brands 08 Conference in Monterey CA. Click here for the full list of sessions, or here for the ‘Fear & Loathing’ road trip journals. 

Inside a marketing campaign that raised web traffic 58% and e-mail sign up 85%
Bobbie Parisi, VP of Marketing

The whole Keen Footwear line started withn one simple design question: Can a sandal protect toes? From there, they have exploded on to the scene, with a brand that is hip, enlightened, inclusive and inspiring. Bobbie began by taking us through the values that make KEEN ‘An Enduring Brand’.

Their first key brand value: Hybrid Innovation.
Their original product, the Newport, was not a model of sustainability. But they soon began to expand their line to include an all-vegan canvas sneaker, a 100% recycled sandal and their line of Harvest Bags made from repurposed excess shoe materials and even rice bags from their factory cafeteria.

The Second KEEN Brand Value: Redefining the outdoors as ‘Any place without a ceiling’.
This enabled them to make the outdoor crowd an INCLUSIVE community, inviting everyone. Not just the one lonely explorer at the top of the mountain. On the athletic side, they take their inspiration from trainers, friends, and peers as much as athletes.

Third: The power of a brand to inspire others.
After the Tsunami disaster, Keen took all their annual advertising dollars, ($1M) ran one ad and said ‘This is the last ad you will see for a year.’ They then gave 500K to the victims, and used the other 500K to start their giving initiative – the Hybrid Care Program.

These qualities are all neatly summed up in their brand position:

Hybrid Life
Create play care. It’s a way of life. Live the Hybrid Life.

The organization then went kayaking in the San Juans in a quest to figure out how to increase awareness with younger consumers. The result:

STAND Up, Out & for Sustainability
To bring this program to life, Parisi went beyond the print ad paradigm, creating an on-line community to inspire and reward consumers for thinking green. The team created a 25-minute documentary, STAND, that featured inspirational characters and their personal initiatives to make the world a greener place. They offered $25,000 grant for sustainable ideas. And they did run a print campaign, although in a different selection of publications than the standard outdoor magazines. This selection included lifestyle title such as Dwell, Ready Made, Good, and Yoga.

Last, but not least, they started a campus tour, run by students getting paid nothing more than the chance to be interns the next year. But they did give them power, relinquishing control of the marketing, messaging and creative ideas for events to the students themselves.
The results have been nothing short of outstanding. I encourage you to explore the KEEN web site for more.

I’ll be testing their shoes for Unicycling performance in an upcoming post.

One in a series of articles on Lorne’s Sustainable Journey to the Sustainable Brands 08 Conference in Monterey CA. Click here for the full list of sessions, or here for the ‘Fear & Loathing’ road trip journals.

Annie Longsworth, Managing Director, Cohn & Wolfe
Russ Meyer, Landor Associates
Jay Leveton, Penn, Schoen & Berland

This presentation was largely statistical, so here are the numbers. Research geeks, enjoy:

The study was done in the US and U.K. with 3000 adults
2007: 3600+ new green products
45,000+ green/sustainable articles

Economic concerns are growing again – In the US 77% are most concerned about the Economy, vs 17% who are more concerned about the Environment.

Global warming has dropped to third place behind carbon emissions and energy.
Most pressing oil issue is around the price at 47%, with the effect on environment only the most important for 14% of respondents.
As economy worsens, 36% of people turn to government as being responsible and to drive solutions.

Top 10 US Green Brands:
Whole Foods
Burts Bees
Trader Joes
Toms of Maine
Toyota, 7^th Generation (tie)
GE/Honda (tie)
Aveda
Method

Amtrak came in at #1 in the travel category (taking over from Southwest Airlines)
Consumers have come to understand carbon footprint.

People want to spend more on green shopping choices:
2007 – 44% down to 38% for 2008
35% want to spend the same

Traditional Values continue to drive purchase intent:
Honest trustworthy
Quality
Safe, Natural
Works to cut pollution/ waste
Cares about community
Last on the list – ‘has a green vision for the future’

95% think companies use too much packaging
45% want more recycled materials in packaging
38% want less packaging altogether

Familiarity with key terms
Recyclable 98%
Organic 93%
Natural 93%
Eco Friendly 89%
83% of people don’t know what “Greenwashing” means

Internet is the #1 source for green product information, across all incomes and demographics.

Apologies if I have mangled any of the stats. Dammit, Jim, I’m a Unicyclist, not a researcher!

One in a series of articles on Lorne’s Sustainable Journey to the Sustainable Brands 08 Conference in Monterey CA. Click here for the full list of sessions, or here for the ‘Fear & Loathing’ road trip journals.

Bill Morrissey VP Environmental Sustainability, Clorox Corporation

The first surprise for me here is how many brands Clorox owns: STP, Armor All, BRITA, Glad bags, Hidden Valley Dressings, (on their brand heirarchy chart, Hidden Valley was sandwiched in between Kingsford Charcoal and Scoop Away Cat litter. Yum.), and one example of a recent brand absorption that disappointed my eco-entrepreneurial heart: Burts Bees.

Like Dow, Clorox is leveraging Sustainability for growth. Their 2007 Clorox Eco Demand study showed the following breakdowns of groups:
Eco Committed 15%
Deep greens – 15 – 30%
Consumers open to environmental information and products: Another 25 – 35%

One of the most interesting distinctions to me was the distinction between ‘My’ environment vs. ‘The’ environment. To be successful, a brand should have benefits on both sides.

‘My Environment’ they broke down into three further categories: ‘In me, On me, and Around me’ Mr. Morrissey then brought forward a brand example for each category.

In me: BRITA
The killer stat: 60 million water bottles are thrown away EVERY DAY in the US – only 14% are recycled. This led to the brand positioning ‘Drink Responsibly’, showing a BRITA filter refilling a plastic water bottle (pre BPA, presumably). Check out the web site at Filterforgood.com

On me – Burts Bees
This company started in 1984 in Maine, when Roxanne Quimby and Burt Shavitz teamed up selling candles made from the beeswax created as a by-product of Burt’s honey business. They were receltly bought by Clorox for 5x sales – (a huge premium in the corporate takeover world)

To their credit, Mr. Morrissey said Clorox’s first priority was “Not to screw the brand up.” Their new ads focus directly on ingredients, which are 99% natural.

How do you get all the youthful without all the yuck? (Beeswax vs. Petrolatum)
And, for kids’ products: How do you get all the snuggly without the scary? (Buttermilk vs. Parabins)

Interestingly, Clorox bought Burts Bees for the financial opportunity. But as Morrissey observes, “We ended up with an environmental exemplar that Clorox can learn from.”

An addendum: Burt, now a multi millionaire, remained in Maine, living in a cabin, tending his bees. He’s my hero.

Around me – GreenWorks
Wanting to be “on the right side of the sustainability business in their core business of cleaners”, Clorox launched their first new brand in 20 years, with GreenWorks. According to Morrissey it’s the first natural cleaner with national distribution and brand building, that is biodegradable, ‘minimally’ toxic, has no animal testing, shows full ingredient transparency, boasts recyclable packaging and is 99% Natural,

The key is that the products need to perform as well as or better than the LEADERS in their respective categories. Product launch was actually delayed twice until GreenWorks met this criteria. The brand positioning speaks to this advantage directly: Powerful Cleaning Done Naturally

As they have entered the marketplace, year one projections have been revised up to 4x higher due to the products’ success.

One attendee asked Morrissey why Clorox didn’t just re-formulate their existing cleaning suite rather than creating an altogether new brand. He responded that it was a strategic call. “This was a big idea, if we do it right. It deserves it’s own brand, and as such we don’t have to live within the confines of our existing categories.”

It will be interesting to see which products become the tail and which become the dog.

One in a series of articles on Lorne’s Sustainable Journey to the Sustainable Brands 08 Conference in Monterey CA. Click here for the full list of sessions, or here for the ‘Fear & Loathing’ road trip journals.

Julie Fasone Holder, Senior VP, Chief Marketing, Sales and Reputation Officer
The Dow Chemical Company

Fasone Holder was here, primarily to introduce the Human Elements Campaign recently launched by DOW. This is an ad creative guy’s wet dream. A concept so clear and compelling, so extendable and logical, yet emotional that it’s a wonder nobody thought of it before. Check out the Human Element TV commercial

It’s pure emotion. It doesn’t even show the product. (Agency creative department, be jealous). So where did this gem come from? A vision that is very classically corporate:

“To be the largest, most profitable and most respected chemical company in the world.”

So where is the sustainability in there? By way of an answer, Fasone Holder pointed to the element of Respect. One of the subsequent slides that talked about sustainability had this line:

Setting the standard: (Sustainability is) An enabler for supporting long-term value creation and economic performance… Enabler? Value Creation? Sorry, dear readers, I faded after that.

One obvious question to ask, is how does Dow deal with their toxic past? Their answer to this is the element of Legacy. A transparent approach to the past that presumably lets people understand Dow is moving beyond their past while acknowledging its impacts. I visited their web site to see how this was dealt with in reality. A few layers down, a section called ‘Issues & Challenges’ has some promise. Right away they offer links to hot-button issues such as Bhopal and Dioxins. I followed the dioxin link, and found this:
“Dow has undertaken considerable efforts to reduce dioxin emissions and actively promotes improvements and solutions across industry.  Dow believes any action toward resolving dioxin-related issues should be based on science.  We seek science-based solutions that protect human health and the environment, while also contributing to the well-being of the local community.  Dow supports corrective action that is specific to a particular site and decisions based on the realistic probability for exposure.”

‘Science-based’ ‘Realistic probability’  To me these terms set up an academic discussion designed more to mitigate risk and allow a corporation to do the absolute minimum as they define it. But perhaps I’m just the suspicious hippie type.

The results of the Human Element campaign are dramatic in terms of consumer perception. In all cases where consumers had seen the campaign, their positive perception of Dow had increased markedly, and their PR department has been swamped with requests for the TV commercial (largely from chemistry teachers who no doubt see a ray of positive light shone upon their field)

Call me cynical, but my take was that this initiative doesn’t go far enough to address the core issues Dow facees at the fundamental level. Then again, is there an ad campaign that could?

Click here to check out The Real Human Element – Dow Chemical’s Nightmare, one filmmaker’s response to the campaign.

One in a series of articles on Lorne’s Sustainable Journey to the Sustainable Brands 08 Conference in Monterey CA. Click here for the full list of sessions, or here for the ‘Fear & Loathing’ road trip journals.

The energy of the conference is appreciably higher today, as this is technically the first day of the conference. (Yesterday was ‘pre-conference’ events). In the big room, Jacqui Ottman (one of Unicycle Creative’s earliest associates and inspirations) started as the keynote speaker and MC. Her straightforward tenets and no-nonsense delivery come from 20+ years in a market space most of us are just dipping our toes into.

She worked through the last green wave in 1992 and one of her main concerns is that we will greenwash and green-fatigue our customers to the point where the green revolution could come to a grinding halt. And this time, it could take more than 15 years to re-start it. That’s 15 years the planet does not have.

So here are some of her basic rules. Read and learn:

1. Focus on primary benefits, not just green messaging.
Skip the babies, kill the daisies and pulverize the planets. Consumers are tired of trite green imagery.

2. Transparency. Give people the info.
Timberland labels are a great example. Their ‘EcoMetrics’ labels allow people to clearly link carbon with consumption.

3. Start from the inside out
Build your sustainability initiatives on who you already are. Homework: research HSBC No Small Change campaign, or GE Ecomagination.

Think like a beer marketer on new years eve.
On promoting sustainability for the future, Jacqui says we have to promote responsible consumption.Tell your customers how to use products effectively, create products that last longer and have higher value and  ultimately, buy less stuff. Companies must create new business models, invent new products, materials and technologies.

But perhaps more importantly, we pioneers have an opportunity and an obligation to include product stewardship in the process.

Next, some speakers and companies that profess to do just that.

One in a series of articles on Lorne’s Sustainable Journey to the Sustainable Brands 08 Conference in Monterey CA. Click here for the full list of sessions, or here for the ‘Fear & Loathing’ road trip journals.

On my way back from the Sustainable Brands 08 opening night shmooze I decided to seek a warming evening beverage to nurse me through my homework for the night. A drive-through Starbucks loomed on the horizon, so I rode up to the speaker.

The zit-faced voice coming through the black grill was promising at first. “Welcome to Starbucks… I’ll be right with you.”

Moments later, it returned with a message of doom. “Sorry, sir, I can’t serve you on a bike.” I looked around. The night was quiet. No cars were looming. “Why?” I countered. “I don’t know.” the voice said, “My manager told me. Insurance or something”.

I looked up at the security camera and waved. “No problem. I’ll see you inside.”

“We’re not open.” the voice squeaked. 

I played my last card, struggling to appeal to his American values. “But you’re denying a guy his Starbucks fix… that’s… unconstiutional!”

He was unfazed. I was uncaffeinated. 

One in a series of articles on Lorne’s Sustainable Journey to the Sustainable Brands 08 Conference in Monterey CA. Click here for the full list of sessions, or here for the ‘Fear & Loathing’ road trip journals.

The stampede for the Taste of California shmooze fest at the Hyatt’s TUSCA Restaurant was perhaps more restrained than other conferences, but otherwise was pretty indistinguishable.

On the patio looking out to the golf course, propane heaters blazed, keeping the 65-degree weather mercifully at bay for the Sustainable Brands 08 attendees. A small thing, perhaps… but isn’t this whole conference about the small things? A disappointment to be sure.

Inside the restaurant a jazz band shuffled comfortably and the restaurant put on a great spread of California-style foods. Absent was any signage or information identifying organic, local or otherwise sustainable aspects of the buffet. I took a risk and wolfed a bunch of it down nonetheless.

Fetzer Wines and Finlandia vodka sponsored the bar, and Boterra organic white wine was also available. So I was able to drown my disappointment somewhat.

One in a series of articles on Lorne’s Sustainable Journey to the Sustainable Brands 08 Conference in Monterey CA. Click here for the full list of sessions, or here for the ‘Fear & Loathing’ road trip journals.

We entered the huge, well-appointed ballroom for the plenary speeches. A glowing centre stage fit for a TV talk show, with five overstuffed chairs was flanked by video screens. The lighting was dramatic, the sound and pacing polished. The crowd eager to get to the 7pm cocktails. But there was both inspiration and optimism in the introduction and speeches:

Sustainable Life was started as a B2B portal in 2004 by KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz, Founder & President. She introduced the conference with the observation that even though an economic downturn may take down the ‘hot-ness’ factor of the growing green trend, there are too many drivers to sustainability for the issue to go away. This conference itself is an example. 550 people are coming from 37 states and 9 countries outside US, including Japan, Costa Rica, Ireland and Thailand. This number has basically doubled since SB 07 in New Orleans.

Pam Van Orden from Enlightened Brand (www.enlightenedbrand.com) then stepped up to give props to California as the conference host state and introduce the panel of speakers:

Elizabeth Trask Environmental Defence Fund Elizabeth presented some highlights from a document entitled Innovations Review: Making green the new business as usual. This report features best practices in sustainable technology and process. The California Million Solar Roofs Initiative is a state program announced by the Green Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger. To reach this goal, they also use tools like the Solar Power Purchase Agreement – where solar companies fund, installs, operate and maintain panels on the roves of business.

In the Human Resources sector, there is a new trend toward corporations staring their own transit systems. Yahoo Green Guzzler, for instance, is their own private bus service, complete with WiFi, which is an attractive employee benefit and probably a great Friday afternoon party bus.

In the packaging sector, Stonyfield Farms saved $1 Million a year just by replacing the plastic lid on the top of the yogurt container with a sturdy foil seal.

Starbucks became the first food retailer to use post consumer waste in food packaging. (cups) They worked with FDA to get clearance, and now that formula is an open standard for other food retailers to use.

Leonard Robinson California EPA Leonard introduced, among other things, the California Take It Back Partnership. This focuses on electronics and compact fluorescent light bulb return. Oscar the Grouch is the SpokesMuppet for the California EPA’s “Not in my Trash Can-paign”  Leonard also and had one of the best ideas of the conference so far: Companies shouldn’t get a patent for their innovations unless they can show, in a ‘Cradle-to-Cradle’ way, the  lifecycle of the product and what’s done with it at the end.

Spontaneous crowd applause.

Bob O’Connor from Wilson Sonsini Goodritch & Rosati outlined some of the investment in green tech going on these days. Capital is pouring into clean energy – 148.4 Billion global investment in 07, up 60% from 06. California leads the way, with 1.8 Billion in investment (Compared to Western Canada at 131 Million)

Tim O’Shea from CleanFish. (Fish you can trust) uses the high culinary standards of Northern California to help redefine and demand responsible aquaculture. Their focus on ‘Artisan Fisheries’ gets consumers to demand it, and make the marketplace respond. In short, you’re either voting with your fork for better food practices… or you’re voting with your fork for practices that degrade systems.

Paige Poulos from the Mendocino Wine Grape & Wine Coalition left us with a beautiful and inspirational look at that Northern California county, billed as  ‘America’s greenest wine region.’ 

Paige puts it in simple terms: “Mendecino Wineries are pure. Clean. Open. You can go behind the barns – through the fields. Then ask yourself – could anybody go anywhere in your company and you wouldn’t be afraid that they would open the wrong door…?”

A worthy challenge with which led the eager crowd onwards to the shmooze fest at the TUSCA restaurant.

One in a series of articles on Lorne’s Sustainable Journey to the Sustainable Brands 08 Conference in Monterey CA. Click here for the full list of sessions, or here for the ‘Fear & Loathing’ road trip journals.