On Monday, Apple launched a new ad outlining its environmental responsibility. In doing so, Tim Cook firmly placed his imprimatur of the future of Apple, going so far as to provide the voiceover for the ad himself just as Steve Jobs had done for an early version of ‘Here’s to the Crazy Ones’.

Tim Cook demonstrated his passion for addressing climate change at Apple’s shareholder meeting in February stating “If you want me to do things only for [return on investment] reasons you should get out of this stock.”  Cook also publicly committed Apple to using 100% renewable energy in all of its facilities as soon as possible. To that end, Apple enlisted the services of former head of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, in 2013 to oversee its sustainability efforts and, after an initial reversal, committed the company to using green materials in its computers under the EPEAT Standard. Now Greenpeace spokesman and ‘Clicking Green’ Report co-author, David Pomerantz, states, “Apple has done the most of any data center operator to make its part of the internet green,” and as of yesterday, Apple revamped the environmental page on its website to celebrate the energy savings of its iMacs and its carbon-free new campus clearly stating, “We believe climate change is real.”

Such bold statements by Apple do invite scrutiny, however, as they do for any brand. Questions remain about what happens behind its very private supply chain ecosystem, the sustainability practices of its Chinese manufacturer, Foxconn, and Apple’s philanthropic record. Meanwhile the ad itself is emblematic of this journey. More corporate in tone and imagery, it is less accessible than many of its popular product ads.

Moving forward, Apple has the opportunity to incorporate three strategies critical to social storytelling:

1. Brands must be the celebrant, not celebrity, of their customer community: Social technology is teaching us to be more human in our relatedness with stakeholders and that should be reflected in brand storytelling, especially when addressing issues as important to everyone’s future as climate change, renewable energy, and sustainability. This involves a simple but important shift from focusing on what Apple is doing itself, to celebrating how that work is making a positive difference in the lives of others.

2. Customers want to coauthor the brand story: There is no shortage of passion for Apple’s revolutionary products but as the company seeks to position its brand around shared values, there will be a greater expectation from all stakeholders to play a greater role in shaping the brand’s sustainability commitment and story. This is great news for Apple as there is such an enormous reservoir of passion for the brand to tap into once it commits to balancing control with inclusion to achieve the common goal.

3. People rise to the conversation you create around them: Apple’s undeniable expertise, resources, and innovation capacity equip it to be a leader in the sustainability space. That privilege, however, is also a responsibility. As Apple further integrates environmental responsibility throughout its supply chain, product line, and retail marketing, the onus will fall on the company to shape the alternative energy and sustainability conversation beyond its own walls. Only when Apple actively extends the cultural conversation will it be positioned for true industry leadership.

Lisa Jackson writes on the Apple website that, “We have a long way to go but we are proud of our progress.” In the ad itself, Tim Cook repositions their core commitment to “better” as an ideal that hinges on values and actions that benefit people and the planet, rather than a product feature alone. If these are any indication of a new imperative at Apple, it is indeed cause to celebrate. Apple’s success has always been driven by its ability to hold itself to a higher standard, and if this is applied equally to sustainability, we can expect true leadership, innovation and impact in the years to come.

Sustainability is an ever-evolving conversation that is becoming increasingly sophisticated in the demands it places on brands. For instance, several decades ago it was considered a competitive advantage to be called a green company, yet after more and more brands co-opted this message it lost its meaning.

Today, with so many large corporations making significant commitments, it is simply not enough to “be sustainable” and limiting sustainability to encompass only environmental issues is a symptom of leadership that has not recognized the larger role customers now expect business to play. Leadership must now embrace an expanded definition of sustainability that includes social, economic, moral, ethical, and environmental sustainability, and reframe business leadership in terms of global stewardship for positive social change.

The theme of this year’s Sustainable Brands conference, ‘Reimagine, Redesign, Regenerate’ is spot on- an expanded meaning of sustainability is rapidly becoming the price of entry for doing business and must inform all internal and external aspects of your company. In order to position your company well ahead of competitors and at the heart of what the marketplace will reward, brands must take on the following four challenges:

Unite the CMO and CSO:  Too many brands waste their marketing budgets through fractured messaging that bifurcates their communities and dilutes brand awareness and affinity. The result is confused customers who are not equipped to share the brand’s story using their own social media channels. As long as marketing and sustainability efforts remain siloed on the basis of outdated organizational, budget and marketing practices, these brands continue to run the risk of failing to meet marketplace, business, and customer demands that are the key to their survival. Instead, you must define your brand in a way that integrates your sustainability commitment, frame that story in terms of the benefit to your customers, and tell that story simply and consistently. For a great example, see Unilever’s Project Sunlight, demonstrating the integrity of their storytelling through both the parent company and its product brands.

Lead the Conversation: In a marketplace of parity technology and “Me Too” marketing, the safest place for a brand is to take a strong point of view on sustainability and drive the conversation rather than reacting to consumer push-back. Any alternative leaves your brand lost in the noise and facing a customer community that questions the authenticity of your stated commitments and values. With this in mind, marketing and sustainability leads must align to articulate a distinct sustainability point of view, start conversations others wouldn’t, hold the brand to a higher standard, and operate with transparency by volunteering areas of improvement. For examples see the #CVSQuits initiative, Chipotle’s videos and apps around its mission for ‘Food Integrity’, Target’s new Sustainable Product Standard, and Patagonia’s iconic ‘Don’t Buy This Jacket’ campaign.

Activate Employees: Many executives assume that employees would rather not be burdened with sustainability practices at work or at home. Not only does this mean that the core values of the brand are not truly reflected in the culture and daily practices of the company (further diluting brand integrity), but it also robs employees of the very meaning they seek to incorporate in their lives. According to the Society for Human Resources Management, in companies with strong sustainability programs, morale was 55% better, public image was 43% stronger, and employee loyalty was 38% higher. It’s no surprise that the most innovative brands have already figured out that internal storytelling and employee activation are just as important as traditional external consumer-focused efforts, and PwC’s new Keys to Corporate Responsibility Employee Engagement report gives some great insight into creating a culture of engagement.

Demonstrate Real Impact: As the sustainability imperative evolves and expands, so will its success metrics and this presents yet another opportunity for companies to demonstrate leadership, accountability, and innovation. Whether it’s contributing to a new set of industry standards (like The Sustainable Apparel Coalition with leadership from Nike, Walmart, Patagonia, and Target), taking steps to quantify and improve yearly environmental impact (see Puma’s Environmental Profit & Loss Account), or redefining how a company can show bottom-line benefits to shareholders (Unilever’s 2012 Progress Report), now is the time to step up and not only ensure your company’s own success but also provide lessons for the corporate world at large.

It is clear that brands cannot survive in societies that fail, and the most iconic brands of the future will be those that drive the most meaningful and holistic social change. That’s why we expect this year’s annual Sustainable Brands conference, June 2-5 in San Diego, to be the best and most sophisticated yet. With 160 speakers from companies like Starbucks, Unilever, and Intel, sharing insights across the four areas mentioned above and many more, we can all now tap into a solid foundation of both strategies and tools to achieve greater success for our companies and the planet.

 Written by Dana Byerlee, VP of Marketing at We First.

It’s common knowledge today that brands now operate in a consumer activist marketplace where their ability to dialogue with brands and each other is shaping brand behavior. Brands are responding because it is far better to avoid or mitigate negative publicity than try to weather out the storm as most recently discovered by the CEOs of Abercrombie & Fitch, Lululemon and Mozilla, among others. So what should brands do to avoid PR disasters that could be the undoing of their brand leadership?

Align Products With Values: In the days of traditional media that were almost exclusively broadcast in nature, brands took the educated risk of selling a wide variety of products that served their bottom line even if not their values. Now that social crises like healthcare, obesity, and chronic disease are becoming so acute, brand are seeking to avoid logical criticism when a product does not align with their core values or are potentially harmful to the customer.

A recent example of this is when CVS Caremark declared they were no longer going to sell tobacco products as this did not align with their future as a healthcare brand. “Ending the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products at CVS/pharmacy is the right thing for us to do for our customers and our company to help people on their path to better health,” said Larry J. Merlo, President and CEO, CVS Caremark. “Put simply, the sale of tobacco products is inconsistent with our purpose.” Merlo drew a straight line between the product ban and their company purpose stating:

“As the delivery of health care evolves with an emphasis on better health outcomes, reducing chronic disease, and controlling costs, CVS Caremark is playing an expanded role in providing care through our pharmacists and nurse practitioners. The significant action we’re taking today by removing tobacco products from our retail shelves further distinguishes us in how we are serving our patients, clients and health care providers and better positions us for continued growth in the evolving health care marketplace.”

Clean Up Your Ingredients: When your customers have such endless access to information on the web, there is little chance that you can hide the negative effect of certain product ingredients. No matter how much your fans love your product they will not tolerate the use of harmful ingredients. In fact, the more attached they feel to your brand the more emboldened they feel to demand greater responsibility from the company.

A recent example includes the elimination of the yoga mat ingredient that was used to bleach subway buns. After consistent consumer and customer pushback the brand decided to eliminate the ingredient from their products. The ingredient, azodicarbonamide, is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in food as a bleaching agent and dough conditioner. Tony Pace, Subway’s chief marketing officer, stated “You see the social media traffic, and people are happy that we’re taking it out, but they want to know when we’re taking it out. If there are people who have that hesitation, that hesitation is going to be removed.” The trend has prompted other food makers to adjust their recipes, even as they stand by the safety of their products. For example, PepsiCo removed a BVO chemical from Gatorade and now Coca-Cola is doing the same with Powerade after a 15-year-old girl’s online petition received over 200,000 signatures.

Increase Transparency: With such a well-informed, media-savvy and activist customer audience, it’s critical for brands to not only get out ahead of issues but to stay ahead. For years the harvesting of palm oil has received harsh criticism for its environmental impact. This issue reached a flash point in 2010 for Nestle when a campaign by Greenpeace forced the company to become more eco-friendly. That’s why Kellogg’s, maker of such iconic snack and breakfast foods, recently announced a new commitment to only purchasing palm oil that can be traced back to suppliers certified to protect forests, lands, and human rights by the end of 2015. Kellogg’s Chief Sustainability Officer Diane Holdorf stated, “As a socially responsible company, traceable, transparent sourcing of palm oil is important to us, and we are collaborating with our suppliers to make sure the palm oil we use is not associated with deforestation, climate change, or the violation of human rights.”

The reality for brands today is that there is nowhere to hide. With every success, consumers become more encouraged to demand greater social responsibility from brands in exchange for their purchases and loyalty. The companies listed above have taken prudent and smart steps to respond to the new reality in which they operate and the short-term costs they absorb are a worthwhile investment in the long-term success of their companies. In a marketplace increasingly defined by fast changing social technologies, fresh competition, and compounding social crises, these moves are more than good intentions, they are good business.

Join us Oct 7-8 at the 2014 We First Brand Leadership Summit for two days of hands-on training on how to define, frame and share a brand story that empowers your company to lead business, drive sales, and shape culture.

Many large corporations find themselves in a difficult bind. They are fully aware that their customers want them to be more socially responsible. Specifically, the Cone Communications / Echo Global CSR Study found that only 6% of global consumers believe corporations have no responsibility towards social or environmental issues. At the same time there is persistent distrust of marketers that share the story of their good work. In fact, Edelman Trust Barometer Report found that consumer trust in owned media (paid for by a brand) was as low as 44% in 2014.

Consumer cynicism towards well-intended marketing is not without cause, given the multiple incidences of greenwashing, causewashing, and local washing during a period in which consumers have become more media savvy and fluent in social media marketing.

The onus then falls on the brand to authentically invest in social impact work that reflects its core values and tell those stories honestly. A great example of this balance is the work of Target.

The scale of Target’s contribution towards education is significant. In 2013 its employees contributed over 1 million volunteer hours, in 2012 United Way Worldwide and Save the Children granted more than $2.2 million on behalf of Target to NGOs in 16 countries, and they recently announced plans to give $1 billion for education by the end of the 2015 fiscal year.

When it comes to telling the story of this contribution here are three things that Target does well:

1. Let your employees share their voice: Rather than speak with a disembodied corporate voice, Target allows their employees to speak on behalf of the brand and personally express what their contribution means to them.

2. Invest for the long term: If a corporation is truly committed to meaningful social impact it designs a solution that could live on beyond the company. Target has a long history of investment in education at and has been consistently modest in its marketing of this contribution, demonstrating its authentic commitment to providing a lasting solution to education challenges.

3. Humanize your brand: Every time employees connect with customers through a social impact program they deepen the goodwill, loyalty, and trust towards that brand. What’s more, they inspire potentially cynical or distrusting customers to see the real investment a company is making in community well being.

The impact of such community work is felt as much by employees as by those whose lives’ it affects, and the benefits to the corporation are many including:

1. Unlocking the human being in employees: Every employee likes to feel good about where he works and wants to feel that her contribution is meaningful. By allowing employees to contribute through volunteering, donation matching, or mentoring, employees get the chance to bring their best selves to their company and find fulfillment through the combined efforts of other employees.

2. Reminding employees why they work there: Every opportunity to contribute in service of the core values of a brand is a reminder for why an employee works there and a chance to deepen the bonds. These factors impact employee retention, satisfaction, and productivity, all of which offer bottom line benefits to the company.

3. Connecting the company with its community: By witnessing the impact of their programs on people’s lives, employees come to understand the importance of the values, quality and reputation of the company in its category and marketplace. This in turn inspires them to defend the brand to promote the company and become a passionate advocate for the brand.

If we return to Edelman’s Trust Barometer Report we discover these results are more important than ever because consumers now trust employees more than a CEO, academic, or media spokesperson in terms of building trust.

In this light, Target’s commitment to education is not only significant and impactful on the lives of students, but also reveals the benefits of listening to what your community needs and giving employees the chance to fulfill it. As both the company and community benefit, trust is built and loyalty established that will pay dividends over the long-term for the company and the lives of countless children.

Join us Oct 7-8 at the 2014 We First Brand Leadership Summit for two days of hands-on training on how to define, frame and share a brand story that empowers your company to lead business, shape culture, and inspire communities.

As the Global Marketing Director for Sustainability Strategy and Communication at The Coca-Cola Company, Javier Rodriguez Merino’s role is to share how Coca-Cola helps communities around the world and all the new ways it’s driving sustainable innovation. He’s also one of our stellar 2014 speakers at our 3rd annual Brand Leadership Summit, Oct 7-8 in Beverly Hills. Last year, Javier sat down with us at We First ’13 and gave some insights into how an organization can integrate sustainability into the core of the company and its brands.

People don’t want to hear companies talk about themselves:
Coca-Cola does more than 3,000 sustainability projects around the world. One of those projects is ‘Every Bottle Has A Story’ which launched in 2010 to engage with people leading sustainability measures in their communities. The project gave anyone from anywhere a chance to share a story about how new sustainability initiatives are making a difference in their local neighborhoods. This is a great example of how consumers want to hear from and be inspired by other customers and this is a concept Coca-Cola has really taken to heart.

Don’t go it alone:
Another way Coca-Cola devotes its time to communities is through the program Me, We and The World. This is a personal community and environmental well-being program with focuses like healthy living, women’s economic empowerment, and water stewardship, among others. While Coca-Cola created this system to help serve various global issues, as Javier explains, it wouldn’t be possible without the help of so many others in society, from other businesses, to non-profits, to passionate citizens from all walks of life.

Sustainability storytelling has its own challenges:
Like many companies, Coca-Cola is constantly experimenting with how to best share and scale their social impact by effectively using social media and new technologies. Doing so for sustainability initiatives has unique challenges including:

1. Defining priorities by what not only will have a business impact but also a societal impact.

2. Setting clear goals and aligning those goals towards a common vision.

3. Consistently integrating sustainability into the business and proving how sustainability builds brand equity.

By constantly piloting new ideas in different markets, capturing best practices, and scaling successes, Coca-Cola is learning and assessing the new ways in which their sustainability and community impact efforts can make the biggest difference.

If you are interested in learning how to tell your purposeful brand story from top experts like Coca-Cola, Facebook, Unilever, and the UN Foundation, join us at the 2014 Brand Leadership Summit. Buy your ticket by June 15 to save $1000. Register at www.WeFirst14.com.

When Elon Musk announced last week that he would open source Tesla’s valuable intellectual property he commanded great attention across the auto industry and the private sector. Not only did he do something profoundly counterintuitive in terms of the traditional self-serving interests of a company discharging its fiduciary duty to shareholders, but he also demonstrated a new type of leadership that will not only propel the success of Tesla but also build a brighter future for the planet.

In doing so, Musk demonstrated three signature traits of what it means to be a truly inspiring leader in the 21^st century.

1. The future of profit is purpose: Too many CEO’s never ignite the public’s imagination because they fail deliver the lofty promises they made at the outset of their tenure. Yet Musk continues to deliver on the promise he made in his first blog post about Tesla where he stated that his intentions were to reinvent the auto industry and overcome its dependence on fossil fuel in the service of a sustainable planet.

Musk did this because an auto industry that produces a hundred million fossil fuel vehicles annually is simply not sustainable. So by making his intellectual property open source, he is changing his business model to respond to the reality of the world we actually live in which is facing multiple ecological crises. He also recognized that this choice is good for business because if electric cars are to achieve their manufacturing economies of scale and become price competitive against fossil fuel cars, they need to scale rapidly. So on both fronts, the future of profit is purpose for Tesla.

This masterstroke is already paying dividends as the press has reported that Nissan and BMW are keen on talks to cooperate on building a network to expand Tesla’s existing 97 charging stations that currently dot a path across the continental U.S.

2. The evolution of revolution is contribution: Elon Musk is profoundly aware that the values of socially conscious Baby Boomers, Millennials, and Gen Z buyers are very different to those of past generations. So by putting the full might of the company behind a vision of a more sustainable planet, he is tapping into some of the most powerful business drivers that will determine which companies lead the future.

This does not come without a cost, however, as we have seen various states either legislate or organize unions to block the adoption of Tesla vehicles and their companion charging stations. 

Yet Musk is willing to weather these storms in the service of his mission and because he realizes that by contributing to the well-being of the majority, Tesla is ultimately serving its own self-interest most effectively.

3. The best hope for business is the business of hope: Musk knows that he is marketing to an intimately connected and media-savvy consumer base who are very aware of how many social crises the planet is facing from resource scarcity, to loss of bio-diversity, to over population. As such, Musk has positioned his personal and professional commitment to Tesla in alignment with his customer base who want to live in a brighter future, who believe that it is possible, and who will work together with the company to realize that goal. In doing so, he has won the goodwill and admiration of existing and potential customers throughout the country for his commitment to the greater good. This sentiment is not only reflected in the industry press, but also in Tesla’s stock price, which rallied to an all-time high on the announcement of the news.

The world in which we live today is profoundly different to the one that gave birth to the auto industry. Like many others, Musk recognizes that we now live on a planet of finite resources challenged by countless environmental and social crises, and that the window of time in which we must change our behavior as a species is rapidly closing. As risky as it may seem to open up the IP of your company to competitors, it is far riskier to perpetuate a dependency on a fuel source that is ultimately unsustainable and doing harm to our planet.

The gap between practices of the past and new behaviors of the future is a difficult gap to bridge and will require more examples of powerful leadership as we see in Musk. If you want to tap into these new business drivers and build your business on the strength of a personal and professional commitment to a brighter future, then interrogate your business model, product line-up, and marketing strategy through the lens of these three master strokes and related questions:

1. The future of profit is purpose

- Have your defined a higher purpose for your brand?

- Do you products reflect values you share with your customers?

- Are you giving customers ways to work with you to fulfill a common goal? 

2. The evolution of revolution is contribution

- Have you built contribution into the way customers consume your products?

- Is your company making a contribution in alignment with its purpose?

- Are you building a competitive advantage by using contribution to differentiate your brand?

3. The best hope for business is the business of hope.

- Have you told your customers how you will make the world a better place?

- Is the tone of your brand marketing optimistic and inspiring?

- Do you share your positive progress with customers?

The sooner companies from all industries rise to this challenge, the sooner their efforts can compound to reverse the tide of damage currently being done to the planet and our futures. Fortunately, the fastest way for a company to ensure its own well-being over the long-term is to reframe its business strategies around the same principles listed above, and in doing so, a CEO or CMO can not only build a brighter future, but also position the company for long-term leadership as well.

Join us Oct 7-8 at the 2014 We First Brand Leadership Summit  for two days of hands-on training on how to define, frame and share a brand story that empowers your company to lead business, shape culture, and better our world.

These days many companies are making efforts to put mindful and sustainable business practices into action. Yet despite daily stories of consumer activism, many still ask the important question: Does caring convert into action when it comes down to a buying decision? New data from Google and Nielsen find that the answer is yes, and for a growing number of consumers around the world.

The path to purpose is the path to purchase: A growing motivation for consumers to go online is to enrich themselves and find information to help them fulfill their passions. As such, Google reports that these consumers choose brands that engage them on their passions and interests 42% more often than those that simply urge them to buy the product being advertised. That’s why they also consider it critical for a brand to demonstrate its principles at all times when a customer is looking at different options. Finally, these purpose-driven customers are more valuable, being 70% more likely to have purchased something online in the past month and 1.6x more likely to rate a product or service online at least once a week (versus consumers driven simply by entertainment or connection).

People will pay more for purpose: According to the 2013 Cone Communications Social Impact Study, U.S. consumer likelihood to choose brands associated with a cause, given comparable price and quality, has jumped from two-thirds of the population in 1993 to nearly the entire population in 2013. Moreover, 55% of global respondents in Nielsen’s corporate social responsibility survey were willing to pay extra for products and services from companies committed to positive social and environmental impact—an increase from 45% in 2011.

Authenticity and inspiration are the new currency: Capitalizing on these cultural behaviors is becoming increasingly difficult as more and more brands come to market with a message of purpose. It’s not enough to simply put a ribbon on a package or talk about “sustainability” in broad sweeping terms but instead, takes a commitment to clarity, authenticity, and expert storytelling to connect with consumers. Consumers are media savvy and faced with seemingly limitless content and media options, so clarity around what companies are doing to effect change and exactly how consumers can play a role is critical.

Reaching these powerful new consumers is hard work, but it’s also a major opportunity for brands that truly understand what Google terms as “Gen C.” Generation C is not defined in the traditional sense of age parameters, but because they thrive on Connection, Community, Creation and Curation. About 65% of Gen C are under 35, but regardless of how old they are, for these tastemakers, knowledge and inspiration are their currency and they openly welcome the right brands into their circles. In fact, three in four Gen C consumers share the brand they love.

The degree to which purpose influences purchases is eye-opening and is quickly becoming table stakes for long-term market leadership. But for those brands that have defined their higher purpose, view citizens and customers as partners in change, and leverage technology to tell an inspirational and shareable brand stories, the sky’s the limit.

If you’d like two days of hands-on training on how to define, frame, and share a purposeful brand story and build out your own 2015 Social Branding Blueprint™ based on the latest marketing research and case studies, join us Oct 7-8 at the 2014 We First Brand Leadership Summit.

Written by Dana Byerlee, VP of Marketing at We First.

Originally published in CSRwire

In today’s radically transparent social business marketplace, the reputation of a company extends way beyond its marketing to include its supply chain, manufacturing processes, employee treatment and customer engagement.

Likewise, full circle sustainability requires that companies overhaul how they source their ingredients, manufacture and distribute their products, and manage the waste they generate. Both of these realities place higher demands on time-poor executives and entrepreneurs, yet too many fail to recoup the costs of such efforts because they don’t share their sustainability story effectively.

In fact, almost all companies are guilty of three key mistakes that mean these investments of time, money and energy never build their brand or bottom line.

1. Define a Unique Sustainability Point of View

Ever since social media has empowered consumers to engage with brands, more and more companies have responded to demands for greater social responsibility. As a result, consumers are bombarded with claims centered on sustainability, “green” and purposeful initiatives by brands. With sustainability rapidly becoming table stakes, however, too many brands are mistaking sustainability itself as their brand purpose.

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Much has been written about the impact of social media on marketing and the demand for greater transparency and accountability from brands. The business landscape is now littered with examples of its impact from the ousting of high profile CEO’s at companies like Abercrombie and Fitch, American Apparel and the LA Clippers, to brands mitigating the risk of consumer activism by changing their products including CVS, Chick-fil-A, and Subway.

The level of accountability now demanded of brands is only getting higher. Brands are now under siege from watchdogs that will not only hold you accountable for your company’s behavior, but also scrutinize the partnerships you keep in terms of your stated company values.

A very powerful example is playing out right now as Green Peace reacts to the partnership deal struck between Lego and Shell Oil. Green Peace states the oil company is using Lego’s high profile and positive image to try and improve the perception of its arctic drilling in the form of 16 million Shell-branded Lego toys being sold or given away at gas stations in 26 countries.

Green Peace has asserted that this licensing deal effectively uses children’s playrooms for Shell’s public image management as it tries to “buy friends who can make its controversial arctic drilling plans acceptable and misleadingly associate it with positive values.” Greenpeace went so far as create a compelling film that takes the very brand recognition that Lego established through its charming commercials and hit movie and turns it against the brand.

This is a costly PR crisis for Lego and not surprisingly, they were quick to react sharing tweets stating, “We are determined to leave a positive impact on our society and children. We’re sad when the Lego brand is used as a tool in any dispute.” While this is an understandable attempt to separate itself from the environmental impact of Shell’s arctic drilling, it is hard for Lego to avoid guilt by association which can be extraordinarily costly to the brand’s reputation in the short and long term.

This dynamic between Shell, Lego, and Greenpeace demonstrates the fact that brands are now being forced to address three key issues:

1. What do they stand for?

2. How do they tell that story?

3. How do they show meaningful and measurable impact?

If the leadership, marketing, and employee base within a company does not have an answer to these three questions, the brand runs the risk of being miscast as part of the problem rather than part of the solution in the minds of consumers. Too often, however, leadership, marketing or PR firms point the finger of blame at other parties when it comes to who is responsible for damage to the brand’s reputation.

Yet as the adage states, “when you point your finger at someone else there are four fingers pointing at yourself.” If your company fails to recognize the reality of the world in which they live, to authentically put their shoulder behind the core values of their brand, and to demonstrate their authentic commitment to social change through all their efforts including partnerships, they only have themselves to blame for an inevitable PR crisis.

Join us Oct 7-8 at the 2014 We First Brand Leadership Summit for two days of hands-on training on how to define, frame and share a brand story that empowers your company to lead business, shape culture, mitigate risk, and position itself at the heart of what the transparency-driven marketplace will reward.

Coca-Cola is currently rolling out an innovative and environmentally responsible initiative called Coca-Cola 2nd Lives, starting in Vietnam and then expanding across Asia. At the heart of this effort is the intent to give their disposable bottles a second life that is meaningful, adds value to the lives of customers, and also avoids those bottles becoming yet another addition to landfills.

As you see from the video, the idea is to sell kits that allow people to use the bottle in a variety of ways once they have finished drinking the product. Not only is this an incredible opportunity for creativity in terms of all the different ways someone could use a Coke bottle once it’s empty, but it also breathes new life into the core proposition of the brand, Open Happiness. Whether it’s using the bottles to create make-shift squirt guns, crayons, or toys, each repurposing of the bottles is yet another way to increase happiness in peoples’ lives.

This is not just a smart strategy by creative marketers- it’s a very big idea. More and more throughout the world, waste is being seen not so much as a function of consumption that needs to be dumped in landfills, but rather as assets that can be diverted back into the supply chain to add value to peoples’ lives and avoid greater damage to our planet. If all manufacturers took this approach in which they looked at the supply chain and life cycle of their product from the very inception of design and planned for ways to either minimize waste or repurpose that waste in meaningful ways, we could quickly stem the growing tide of waste that is compromising the well-being of the environment and by extension, our lives.

In order to take a similar approach for your brand, there are three key steps to follow:

Design with the end in mind: That means design the product with alternative uses in mind so that they are factored into the manufacture, distribution, and user experience of the product.

Align repurposing with purpose: In order to ensure true bottom-line value for such an effort, apply your creativity to find ways that repurpose your products and align with the core mission of your brand. That way, you will not only be minimizing waste and protecting the planet, but also building your brand equity at the same time.

Add value to the experience of life: Each day, more brands are waking up to the reality that they can’t just provide products and services but need to create experiences that position their company as meaningful to customers’ lives. By allowing customers to experience a Coke bottle in a variety of ways shows that there are many different expressions of happiness and displays how Coca-Cola brought fresh dimension to their core proposition of ‘Opening Happiness’ in others’ lives.

Do you know of any other good examples of brands repurposing their products in alignment with their purpose? If so, we would love to hear them.

A study by Mckinsey and the CECP, Shaping the Future: Solving Social Problems through Business Strategy,  lays out four alternatives for our future:

1. Corporations respond to expectations for greater social responsibility and government allows corporations to voluntarily meet these expectations.

2. Corporations try to adopt socially responsible practices but customers don’t trust them, so government and NGO’s stop partnering with them creating bifurcated capitalism.

3. Companies refuse to work for global change, forcing government regulations and adding to expenses and fuelling customer distrust.

4. Society and corporations cannot match expectations, creating a downward spiral of social responsibility plus economic, environmental and social decline.

In the video above, We First Founder and CCO, Simon Mainwaring, discusses how these four versions of the future presume that we want a better world and that we want the private sector to play a role- but positive outcomes will not come unless business makes authentic commitments and embraces collaboration with both consumers and other industry partners.

Brands cannot survive in societies that fail

Caring about the future of society and the planet is key to the future of business. After all, if there is no middle class to buy your products you won’t have a business. If the infrastructure of society collapses, you won’t even be able to conduct business for long. Based on this realization, what does this mean for marketers?

1. Remember that old adage, If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem? Well, if your company is not responding to the crises of the world we actually live in, your brand will be viewed as a destructive force.

2. As the data continues to show, consumers expect brands to be more responsible and are extremely aware of the power they have with brands because of consumer activism.

We can build a better world and build our business

We live in a mutually dependent global marketplace and the best brands are rising up to lead cultural conversations and even partner with other brands. In return, these smart companies reap the benefits of purposeful marketing and engagement including:

1. Clarity of business strategy

2. Employee retention, satisfaction, and productivity

3. Consumer goodwill, loyalty, and profits

4. Brand awareness, PR, and community engagement

For example, according to the Stengel 50, a study done with over 50,000 brands over ten years, establishes a cause and effect relationship between a brand’s ability to serve a higher purpose and its financial performance. Notably, investment in these 50 companies over the past decade would have been 400% more profitable than an investment in the S&P 500.

Smart brands embrace purpose

Some examples of brands that have listened include Yoplait, with its Save Lids to Save Lives initiative to raise donations for breast cancer; Starbucks’ Shared Planet proposition, a commitment to only give consumers ethically and responsible grown coffee; and Pampers’ partnership with UNICEF for 1 pack = 1 vaccine to help eliminate maternal and newborn tetanus, a preventable disease that has taken many lives of newborns and many others.

Sustainability now is no longer dismissed as merely good intentions, but is now properly recognized as key business driver that has mass impact. And with fast moving social technology on our side, the cultural conversation around holistic sustainability and what citizens expect from business will only intensify. 

For two days of hands-on training on how to define, frame, and share a purposeful brand story and build out your own 2015 Social Branding Blueprint™ based on the latest marketing research and case studies, join us Oct 7-8 at the 2014 We First Brand Leadership Summit.

As society expects companies to be more responsible and demands demonstrable impact from both the private and non-profit sector alike, the smartest organizations are stepping up to lead cultural conversations and partner with other brands and leaders.

If you are interested in learning how organizations can identify and become leaders in cultural conversations and build movements, please join We First and the UN Foundation on August 11th for a free Google+ Hangout: Leveraging Cultural Conversations to Build Your Brand, Community, and Impact.

You’ll hear from:

-Simon Mainwaring, Founder and CCO of We First, who will lay out how a new breed of purpose-driven social brands are transcending their industries and shaping culture

-Aaron Sherinian, VP of Communications and PR for the UN Foundation, who will discuss how climate change transcended the realm of politics to become a cultural topic, what he and his team have learned from the uber-success of #GivingTuesday, and the UNF’s plan to crowd-source the new Millennium Goals.

We’ll have a live Q&A, so submit your questions directly on the Hangout event page and start tagging all your questions on social media with #WeFirst14

This will be a great way to connect with other leaders and change agents from all over the globe, so please share with others who are passionate about building business while make a difference in the world.

Aaron Sherinian will also be one of the fantastic speakers at our 2014 Brand Leadership Summit, Oct 7-8 in L.A. This event is limited to 200 leaders but there is still time to reserve your spot at www.WeFirst14.com

In our latest G+ hangout, Leveraging Cultural Conversations to Build Your Brand, Community, and Impact, we spoke with Aaron Sherinian, VP of Communication and PR for the UN Foundation (and one of our fantastic speakers at our upcoming Brand Leadership Summit) about how organizations can become leaders in cultural conversations and build movements.

While it’s very easy to get lost in the executional strategies of social technology tools, marketers are now being challenged at a higher level: to engage consumers and citizens in ways so they feel that your brand is meaningful and relevant to their lives. To achieve this, you must go beyond marketing and play an authentic role in those cultural conversations that are on the forefront of the public’s consciousness.

Global communities are redefining culture:

As technology breaks down physical barriers, everyday citizens can now play roles of both local and global activists. We can truly see how interconnected we are, in real time, which helps people understand issues in the context of a bigger picture.

For example, it used to be difficult to speak on the issue of climate change, as it was a broad stroke, somewhat amorphous topic for many. As well, it was difficult to tap into an audience beyond the small groups already in the know. But now, through the power of social storytelling and digital community architecture, climate change has become a cultural topic that is deeply personal and shareable. People are now able to articulate why and how climate change affects their lives, moving beyond the initial conversation of weather to bigger philosophical questions such as, in which sort of companies will we invest, what kind of food are we going to eat, and what sort of places and environments do we want to be available in our world in the future.

Now, not only is it easy for brands to get involved in issues like climate change, poverty, and health, but it’s actually deleterious for a brand to not have a strong point of view on our society’s most pressing problems.

Global communities mean global crowdsourcing and partnerships:

Something that the UN Foundation knows through its many experiences is that no one sector can tackle global problems by itself. Last year, the UN used digital media and mobile technology to engage with hundreds of thousands of people around the world in shaping the next generation of anti-poverty goals, building on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which have helped to reduce by half the proportion of people living in extreme poverty in the course of the past decade.

Today, we can’t afford not to lock arms with each other and with organizations that are value-aligned. If you’re a company, you should be partnering with a nonprofit today as it keeps you authentically in the know. As well, nonprofits must partner with brands that have the ability to leverage large resources and constituencies in order to affect change on a greater scale. If you are not partnering with a brand or vice versa, you will probably do some good work alone, but you won’t be maximizing results. By talking about your cause courageously in the public square, it allows people to poke at the efficiency and efficacy of your plan, which will only improve your strategy and bring other like-minded parties to the table.

3 tenets for commanding attention on a global scale:

Leaders, non-profits, and brands that go beyond creating awareness and step up to offer solutions, now have the opportunity to transcend their categories and industries and position themselves as cultural leaders. Here’s how:

1. Ask questions: For instance, the UNF constantly asks, how do you give back? If you are not asking what matters to people, you will never truly understand the issue or how to affect change.

2. Celebrate and share: Too often, organizations and brands try to own the change, wanting all the credit for a movement. Instead, celebrate your community, celebrate your core values, and share the responsibility to bring change to life. By building bridges and uniting others, your brand will not only demonstrate authentic commitment, but your impact will be that much bigger.

3. Tools, not rules: The key to the power of #GivingTuesday was the decision to provide the community with the tools, resources, and assets they need to personalize the campaign and make it their own. Inspire the creativity in your community members, and they will come up with incredibly unique ways to share your campaign, far beyond what one marketing or PR team could have come up with on their own.

Today, each of us has a role to play in the future of our world, whether you’re a solopreneur working from your kitchen table, or a social enterprise in a high growth company, or a major corporation with long standing practices in marketing, or an NGO or nonprofit. We need a holistic solution pointed in a new direction and just as our problems are complex and interwoven, our solutions need to be inclusive and interwoven, leveraging the talent and resources of many smart people around the world.

If you are interested in learning how to tell your purposeful brand story and embrace the role of cultural leadership, join us at the 2014 Brand Leadership Summit. Promo code HANGOUT saves $500, but hurry- ticket prices increase Sept. 1^st.

Nestlé India recently released a rap video featuring none other than animated super babies extolling the virtues of breastfeeding. This charming video has already captured almost 2 million views on YouTube and each of the individual characters takes on a personality and life of their own. For example “Lil Wiz” talks about brain and vision development, “Germ Stoppa” talks about his immunity gain from his mother’s milk, and “Baby Luv” talks about the strong bonding between a mother and her child developed through breastfeeding. At the same time, the animated videos are a powerful lesson in effective social branding.

Here are three reasons why this campaign has proven so effective:

Celebrate your customers’ well-being: Too often it is tempting for brands to tell a purposeful message and yet still talk about it in a self-directed way. Yet, here Nestlé has managed to stay squarely focused on the benefits to their customers and the well-being of their children.

Content should be innately shareable: Much like the viral Evian sensation with roller skating babies, these animated videos deliver educational content in a form that people want to share. Not only are the babies charming themselves, dancing around in their diapers, and rapping in rapid-fire style, but the films are strategically designed with a number of different characters for parents and children alike to identify with and inspire them to share the film with their friends.

Amplify through influencers: The two-minute launch video titled, “Superbaby” was scheduled to coincide with Nestlé ‘Start Healthy Stay Healthy breastfeeding week,’ which garners enormous community support and media exposure throughout India. The video provides a link to the brands signature community site, ‘Start Healthy Stay Healthy,’ which then provides additional information as to the benefits of breastfeeding and also provides a feedback loop as to the positive impact that is being created. For example, on the website you will see that to date there are 10,500 doctors on board with the program, supporting over 45,000 babies. This feedback loop is critical to inspiring influencers in the health industry and mothers alike to share the videos, because they know it is making a tangible difference to the lives of young children.

One of the final aspects that make this campaign so successful is that the content can take on a life of its own, beyond the videos themselves. Each of the characters can be used to provide further education to mothers through the community platform, the rap tracks themselves can be used to promote breastfeeding education, and the larger Nestlé platform can serve as a stage for the next iteration of the Superbaby campaign. Such efforts may seem simple and self evident, yet viral success is always driven by sound strategy, the right intentions and the powerful dynamics that flow from them.

Do you know of any other great campaigns that have exhibited similar strategies and generated viral success? If so, we would love to know about them.

Announcing the final speaker line-up at the 2014 We First Brand Leadership Summit – join us to build your social marketing plan for 2015 together.

Getting your social marketing right is no easy task with technology and consumer behavior changing so quickly. That’s why we put together a very special, annual 2-day training event where experts from the smartest and most successful brands in the world come together to build a Social Branding Blueprint with you.

We’re very excited to announce the final list of speakers for the 2014 Brand Leadership Summit:

Unilever – Marc Mathieu, SVP Marketing

The Coca-Cola Company – Derk Hendrickson, GM EKOCENTERS

IBM – Chris Crummey, Worldwide Exec. Dir. of Sales

Facebook – Andy McKeon, Global Customer Marketing Lead

Participant Media – Karina Kogan, EVP of Digital

Nutiva – John Roulac, CEO

Patagonia – Rick Ridgeway, VP of Environmental Initiatives

UN Foundation – Aaron Sherinian, VP of PR & Communication

We First – Simon Mainwaring – Founder/Chief Creative Officer

Every attendee works through a Social Branding Blueprint based on 6 Modules of training and input from this stellar line-up of speakers so they walk out with real, actionable value in their hands.

The event is limited to 180 elite marketers who will discover how the smartest brands in the world are using social storytelling to drive their business and to position themselves for long-term industry and cultural leadership.

The word culture is key as the focus of this year’s event is how brands transcend their product, service, or category to literally shape culture. Such a strategy is critical to ensuring your brand leads a conversation that is relevant and meaningful to your employees’ and customers’ lives.

There is no other event that allows you to create your social marketing roadmap for 2015 informed by such a world-class line-up of branding experts.

If you would like to join us, register at WeFirst14.com as spaces are very limited. Plus every registration comes with a ticket for your favorite non-profit, so we can help them scale their important work and impact.

There is no name more synonymous with social business than IBM and we are extremely fortunate that Chris Crummey will be sharing his expertise at the We First Brand Leadership Summit on Oct 7-8^th in Los Angeles.

Chris leads a global team of thought leaders focused on the areas of social business and digital experience. He works with a wide variety of IBM’s most important clients communicating their best practices to a global customer base. His business unit generates 450 million dollars in revenue to IBM annually and represents one of the fastest growing and profitable segments of IBM software business. He also oversees an extended team consisting of more than 450 sales specialists who interface with existing and perspective IBM customers to grow their company’s revenue in the middleware market while maintaining a high-level of customer satisfaction.

It’s this expertise that Chris will bring to the two-day training event where every attendee builds a 2015 Social Branding Blueprint in the room specific to his or her business to ensure they get real value. Specifically, Chris will focus on addressing the following questions:

– How do you communicate your brands story in a way that unlocks the human being inside your employees?

– How do you inspire them to share their knowledge and collaborate with each other to add value to the company and its brand.

– How do you inspire your employees to become brand advocates that want to use their own social channels to amplify its story and build the business.

Chris is joined by global marketing leaders from Unilever, Coca-Cola, Facebook, Participant Media, Nutiva, and the UN Foundation, as well as our final addition to the line-up – Rick Ridgeway from Patagonia. All will be presenting insights and strategies to help you build your plan.

If you would like to join us at the We First Summit, register now as there are only three weeks left before the event. Enter the code IMPACT to receive a special $500 saving and remember, every registration comes with an extra ticket to invite your favorite non-profit or foundation guest for free.

Originally published in CMO.com

As the drivers of brand reputation expand beyond marketing to include supply chain, employee wellness and engagement, and the impact on both local communities and the planet at large, companies are on the hook to reframe their brand stories in terms of global stewardship for positive social change.

With 55 percent saying they’ve boycotted a brand in the past 12 months, and those companies on the Meaningful Brands Index outperforming the stock markets by 120 percent, Edelman’s key learning from its annual Trust Barometer Report sums up this opportunity well: “Business must lead the debate for change.”

Capitalizing on these cultural behaviors is becoming increasingly difficult as more and more brands come to market with a message of purpose. It’s not enough to simply put a ribbon on a package or talk about sustainability in broad-sweeping terms. Rather, brands must commit to authenticity and expert storytelling to connect with consumers.

In order to be positioned well ahead of competitors and at the heart of what the consumer-driven marketplace will reward, brands must take on the following four challenges:

Read More>>

The web, social media, and smart phones have created a media landscape that is more fractured than ever. At the same time, they have facilitated a dialogue between companies and consumers that has led to new demands for authenticity, transparency, and accountability. As a result, smarter marketers and big brands are making three key strategic shifts:

1. Purpose is driving profit: Whether it’s a B2B company like IBM talking about how a better world is being ‘Made by IBM,’ or a small fast-casual restaurant chain like Chipotle stealing market share by promoting ‘Food with Integrity,’ it is clear that Boomers, Millennials, and Gen Z prefer brands doing good.

2. Futures need rewriting: Sometimes a strategic shift requires blunt action. CVS Caremark just banned the sales of tobacco products, renamed itself CVS Health, and launched a nationwide ‘Quit smoking’ campaign. Meanwhile, Axe deodorant owned by Unilever (who also makes Dove with its ‘Real Beauty’ campaign), shifted its marketing away from objectifying women to ‘Make love. Not war.’ Both demonstrated the need for a brand to reposition the company, products and marketing to respond to new business drivers.

3. Customers build brands: The rapid rise of GoPro and its very successful IPO turned on the fact that the brand was built by its customers sharing their videos, rather than by a slick ad campaign. The same can be said of the very successful ALS fundraising campaign that gave each participant a very demonstrative way to show their commitment and nominate other participants.

These are but three of the key strategic shifts that start-ups and high-growth companies must make to their marketing inspire employees, partners, and customers to build their business with them.

If you are interested in making the critical shifts that are needed for your brand’s success, we invite you to join us at this year’s We First Brand Leadership Summit on Oct 7-8 at the SLS Hotel, Beverly Hills. It’s a 2-day training event focused on how you tell the purposeful story of your brand in ways that build your business. Every attendee completes a Social Branding Blueprint at their event as their social marketing roadmap for 2015, so you walk out with real value in your hands. You create this plan with the help of a world-class line-up of experts including:

Unilever – Marc Mathieu, SVP Marketing

The Coca-Cola Company – Derk Hendrickson, GM EKOCENTERS

IBM – Chris Crummey, Worldwide Exec. Dir. of Sales

Facebook – Andy McKeon, Global Customer Marketing Lead

Participant Media – Karina Kogan, EVP of Digital

Nutiva – John Roulac, CEO/Founder

Patagonia – Rick Ridgeway, VP of Environmental Initiatives

UN Foundation – Aaron Sherinian, VP of PR & Communication

We First – Simon Mainwaring – Founder/Chief Creative Officer

If you’d like to work with this team to create your plan for 2015, register at WeFirst14.com and enter the special discount code: IMPACT (in all caps) at registration to save $500 plus you get a free ticket for your favorite non-profit. Every brand must shift their marketing to capitalize on new business drivers and we look forward to positioning your company for success in 2015.

There is perhaps no more an inspiring leader of the environmental movement than Rick Ridgeway of Patagonia. In his capacity as the VP of Environmental Affairs, he has been charged with implementing the company’s core mission that reads—‘build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.’

During his time at Patagonia, he has implemented vanguard environmental and sustainability initiatives including Freedom to Roam, Common Threads, and the Footprint Chronicles that have quite literally reinvented the way brands market themselves and hold themselves accountable to their own sustainability standards. Here’s a little about each of those initiatives and the strategy behind such storytelling:

1. Freedom To Roam: Started by Patagonia clothing company, Freedom to Roam is an initiative of WWF that works to raise awareness about – and commitment to – protecting wildlife corridors. We focus our efforts in two regions:

– Northern Great Plains: Here pronghorn antelopes, 220 butterfly species, bison and golden eagles move through a landscape undergoing extraordinary natural gas exploration and development.

– Eastern Himalayas: This region shelters increasingly fragmented swaths of intact forest that allow tigers, elephants and rhinos to find food and mates, and avoid human conflicts.

By celebrating and nurturing nature’s ecosystem, the brand identified itself as a servant leader committed to the well being of animals, humanity, and the planet earning Patagonia consumer goodwill, loyalty, and trust.

2. Common Threads: This project was designed to reduce the impact of the things Patagonia makes and customers buy. Through their partnership with bluesign® Technologies they are reducing energy and water use and toxic substances in their manufacturing processes. They also use environmentally conscious fibers in many of their products, including organic cotton and recycled polyester, and try to minimize our packaging and transportation waste. Most importantly they make quality products that last a long time and, with proper care, won’t need to be replaced for many years. In so doing, Patagonia demonstrated its authentic commitment to the well being of the customer even at the expense of selling more clothes.

3. Footprint Chronicles: The Footprint Chronicles® examines Patagonia’s life and habits as a company. The goal is to use transparency about our supply chain to help them reduce our adverse social and environmental impacts – and on an industrial scale. They’ve been in business long enough to know that when they can reduce or eliminate a harm, other businesses will be eager to follow suit. By taking this leadership role they bolstered their reputation and positioned the company as a brand for others to follow.

Committed to scaling their impact, Rick also co-founded the Sustainable Apparel Coalition that holds all its members accountable to the same sustainability Higg Index and that has brought together competitors within and across industries, uniting them under a common commitment to create a sustainable future for the planet and ourselves.

Rick will be speaking about these strategies and more at the We First Brand Leadership Summit revealing the new role that business must play in order to drive success and remake our future. He will talk about the role that sustainability must play inside every company with respect to its supply chain, employee engagement, partnerships, consumers, and all stakeholders. Most importantly, Rick will speak directly to both the crisis and opportunity that business faces, and how we must work together as business leaders to meet the environmental crises we face with equal force and to build our businesses.

We are so appreciative to have Rick’s leadership, insights, and guidance at the We First Summit. If you would like to work with Rick and other global marketing leaders to build your social marketing plan for 2015, register now. The summit is only one week away and there are less than 10 spots left as the event is limited to 150 elite marketers. And remember every registration comes with a free ticket to invite your favorite non-profit so you can not only build your business but also help scale positive impact as well.

Simon Mainwaring, CEO of We First discusses the recent VW Emissions scandal on BBC Radio. Listen to Simon Mainwaring by watching the video below. More information on the VW Emissions scandal can be found here.

The post Simon Mainwaring on BBC Radio Discussing VW Emissions Scandal appeared first on SIMON MAINWARING.