A new academic year has just started. ‘C’est la rentrée’ as we say in France. Summer holidays are over. I now intend to be back in full steam!

I missed all our online conversations, whether here on this blog or on Twitter. So many things have happened during these past few months (the BP spill just to mention one) and have triggered some great debates and thinking. Let’s keep it going.

There are a few draft posts in the pipeline – coming soon! Stay tuned

This first link will introduce you to a new and interesting form of consumer activism: the carrotmob. As The Economist says, “watch this space”.

This second link looks at the use of emotion-based communications strategies to encourage effective behavioral change.

This third link looks at the power of sustainability storytelling, notably as a solution to the difficulties encountered in climate change communications since the failure of COP15 and the climate gate.

This fourth link further reinforces the case for sustainability & employee engagement with good stats and perspectives.

This is actually all for this week. Have a great one!

Plastic bags can indeed be easily mistaken for food by marine animals, such as turtles that consume jellyfish or squid. A plastic bag floating in the water and a jellyfish are very difficult to tell apart. This makes plastic bags a particularly hazardous form of litter to wildlife. Some scientists even estimate that in certain species, plastic amounts to up to 10% of the animal’s body weight!

This is not the first time such visual has been used in ads. It is actually very hard to distinguish who came up with the original design first…!

Scuba Dogs association:
“Turn this into an endanged species. Keep the beaches clean” – 2003
Source : joelapompe
Agency : McCann Erickson Guaynabo (Puerto Rico)

Surfrider Foundation – 2005
“Help us keep the ocean clean”
Source : joelapompe
Agency : Young & Rubicam (France)

]]> http://www.sustainabilityconversations.com/2010/04/04/ad-of-the-day-17-plastic-shopping-bag-jellyfish-ads/feed/ 1 http://www.sustainabilityconversations.com/2010/03/09/china-insights-product-related-health-and-safety-as-top-csr-focus-in-china/ http://www.sustainabilityconversations.com/2010/03/09/china-insights-product-related-health-and-safety-as-top-csr-focus-in-china/#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:10:54 +0000 admin http://www.sustainabilityconversations.com/?p=1083 Early February 2010, Tsinghua University and Ruder Finn Asia released some insightful data on CSR within the China market sphere by looking at Chinese consumers’ expectations and perceptions of CSR performance as well as the influence of CSR on consumer behavior.

3000 respondents were polled and two industries were covered for the first annual edition of this ‘CSR Index’, Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and the automobile industry. These were not only obviously examined because of the traffic and volume each sector currently encompasses, but mostly because these two sectors came under very close scrutiny in China over the past few years: recent product safety and quality scandals (i.e. the melamine in milk scandal in 2008) sparked public outrage and profoundly affected China’s FMCG industry, while China’s auto industry became the leading automobile market in the world.

Here is a snapshot of the most interesting findings from the CSR Index:

• Product quality is the primary concern of Chinese consumers, followed by environmental protection (2^nd), management integrity (3^rd), philanthropy (4^th), and also intellectual property issues, fair competition, and least of all, employee rights and interests.

Given the recent food safety scandals in China, consumers are demanding healthy and safe products, first and foremost. While the presence of environmental protection in second position denotes greater environmental awareness, it also shows that Chinese consumers value products’ green credentials as guarantee of good quality and safety, the same way that management integrity appears obviously as a sub-set of quality, safety, and environmental concern. Overall, the weaker position of philanthropy or other non-product related issues such as employee rights, demonstrates the importance of the ‘me’ factor (consumers will mostly care about what can directly affect themselves and their own families), and that donations are clearly not enough, companies are expected to offer products that can be trusted.

• As Chinese consumers are calling for a trustable market environment, there is growing connection between the perceived CSR performance of companies and the purchase decisions of consumers, while the Index also confirms that the more educated a target market segment is, the more concern there is for CSR.

• Chinese corporations are widely seen as faring less well than foreign enterprises, which is according to Prof. Zhao Shuguang, head of the Tsinghua Media Survey Lab, due to foreign companies perceived advantages over domestic companies in terms of management, technology, capital and resource allocation. This again demonstrates that CSR in China should be incorporated into core  business practices in order to win consumers’ trust, rather than used as simple add-ons or donations/marketing campaigns.

Overall, some interesting findings, which show again that addressing local stakeholder concerns is of paramount importance when fine-tuning the local implementation of global CSR policies and strategies.

* I have been very quiet over the past month or so, due to a very busy workload, recent changes to my professional life, and in between, some nice holidays back home. I am now slowly getting back to blogging, and micro-blogging. I have missed it! Stay tuned.

This first link looks at the infinite possibilities of online sustainability reporting.

This second link offers a great deal of tips for all the job seekers and young graduates dreaming of a CSR job.

This is actually all for this week. Have a great one!

The results of the study showed that, across every sector (i.e. 10 of the largest consumer-facing sectors in North America), a brand’s actual sustainability record does not correlate with consumers’ perceptions and awareness. This means that, down the road, all of a company’s investments in sustainability may not pay off in terms consumer behavior or even brand equity/corporate reputation, which is directly undermining the ROI of sustainability itself.

This disconnect, or perceptions gap, often results from the brand’s failure to “talk to walk” in a credible and meaningful way. Therefore, Change developed what it calls the 5C’s of sustainability branding – a series of principles to follow when creating sustainability branding strategies:

• Consumer Facing: Looking at what the consumer is looking at.
• Competitive: To compete, brands must innovate.
• Core: Tying sustainability to a brand’s core business
• Conversational: Leveraging two-way conversations, rather than one-way announcements
• Credible: Sequence and objective credibility are key to sustainable brand success.

I would also add a sixth “C”: CONSISTENCY.

Consistency means a brand, a company undertakes sustainability initiatives that match the reality of its business and the image it conveys. This is critical for building trust, and durably affecting consumer’s perceptions and awareness. And ultimately consumer behavior. How?

• First, sustainability has to be more than just an one-off campaign. Sustainability must be incorporated into the brand’s DNA. It must reflect the core values of the brand and contribute to delivering the brand promise over the long-term. This means that a brand cannot change its sustainability focus or ‘cause’ too often, or engage in too many non-related areas. Every brand effort has to be mutually supportive in order to achieve the broader sustainability brand promise.

• Second, consistency is important in the sense that messages must resonate with the brand’s existing voice in the market place. More importantly, sustainability branding must be communicated at every possible customer touchpoint in a consistent way. The 2009 edition of the Edelman Trust Barometer indeed reported that people need to hear a message 3-5 times, from different channels or voices, in order to believe in it.

• Finally, as brand and corporate reputation are increasingly converging, with consumers not only looking at a product’s sustainability impact but also the overall environmental and social performance of the operating companies behind the brands (see the GoodGuide for instance), sustainability branding needs to be aligned with corporate communications.  Such communications efforts have to be mutually reinforcing, not only with consumers, but also with a broader range of stakeholders such as employees, the media, etc.

And you, what do you think? Do you see any seventh ‘C’?

This first link looks at how to drive and/or reframe sustainability communications in the COP15 aftermath, while the second link looks at the COP15 failure from a more holistic point of view.  Two very good recaps.

This third link lists the tops tactics for proving green’s worth. Straightforward tactics, but it also good to have a list handy when drafting sustainability messages!

This fourth link will take you to a brilliant analysis of Google’s ’s announcement that it will “review” its business operations in China.

Here we go. Have a great week!

This is the question Nathan Schock of the Greenway Communiqué tried to answer in an article published in the first PRSA Tactics issue of 2010: Communicate your environmental achievements in the New Year, by reaching out to the most prominent sustainability commentators, journalists and bloggers in the US.

All these interesting inputs and answers revolve around five key principles that I attempt to summarize below:

• Be transparent. This is THE golden in sustainability communications. Greenwashing has resulted in increased skepticism and green fatigue. So, be honest. “Tell us the progress, but tell us the trade-offs, too. The cliché about this being a journey, not a destination, is true here,” says Martin LaMonica, senior writer at CNET News and CBS Interactive, blogger at Green Tech. This will help make your story human…and much more credible.

• Think about the audience. “It’s a truism, but you have to craft your pitch to the journalist and his or her publication,” explains Todd Woody, contributing editor at Fortune and blogger at Green Wombat. Understand what matters to your audience, what are the top of mind issues, what the audience wants to know and read about. This often means focusing less on green features and more on benefits such as cost savings from energy efficiency, etc. depending on what means the most to your target audience, be it customer or investor. Marc Gunter, contributing editor at Fortune and blogger at Marc Gunther adds, “I’m looking for stories and blog posts that will not only attract readers but leave them feeling that they learned something new, different or provocative, maybe even something they would pass along to a colleague or friend.”

• Prove what you say with data but still keep it clear. Facts and figures are indispensible key proof points. But don’t overwhelme the audience with it. As William Brent, senior vice president at Weber Shandwick, blogger at The Search for Cleantech advises, stay specific (don’t speak in often meaningless ‘green’ generalities) while making sure you speak in simple terms (frame your story in terms that people understand).

• Provide a bigger picture as well. It is critical to put your client’s story into context, i.e. the bigger sustainability issues around it, how this fits into your client’s overall business strategy and sustainability goals, etc. “Too many PR folks spew facts without context, leaving their audience with more questions than answers and setting themselves up for charges of greenwash, or worse,” says Joel Makower, blogger at Two Steps Forward.

• Don’t “pitch” bloggers—participate! As traditional media models are struggling with fewer reporters covering sustainability and green stories (and not only) and readers are getting most of their news via online channels, it is critical to determine how social media can best meet your needs. However, be reminded about the specificities of blogger outreach! Build relationships with individuals and communicate with one-on-one, personal messages. As Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, founder and editor of Sustainablog insists, “Don’t play the numbers game with green bloggers — blasting out press releases just doesn’t work very well in this space. Find a few you’d really like to connect with, and then do just that: try to build a relationship. Offer opportunities to talk with clients and have your client prepare for a genuine conversation, rather than a presentation of a scripted message.” This is also true for traditional media relations. Be a helpful resource to reporters or bloggers.

• If you do participate, be ready to go a step further. Jeffrey Hollender of Seventh Generation says it all: ‘The leaders will be companies willing to talk about the things their competitors are afraid to talk about.” This is probably the only way to truly cut through the clutter, isn’t it?

Image Credit: Getty Images

This first link explores human responses to environmental issues and the issues behind the state of news coverage of climate change. A MUST read. The second link looks at the state of public opinion on environment: confusion is the word. Perhaps the public opinion is just fatigued and does not see what in it for them?

This third link will take you to a very interesting conversation around CSR reporting, the GRI guidelines and the transparency / accountability issues with application levels and assurance.

This fourth link discusses the Copenhagen outcome and most especially the role governments and citizens have to play in the battle.

Here we go. Have a great weekend!

As CSR/sustainability players are catching on, one truth is to be reminded: social media is an attitude, not a technology, as showed on the slide below extracted from SustainAbility’s interesting research on stakeholder engagement through web 2.0 (click here to download the slide deck).

One of the many mistakes organizations can often make with social media is the mistake of getting on social media and learning the technology and the tools/platforms offered (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc.), but not learning the best practices of what is called social media behavior.

Social media is about conversations and relationship building. Revolving around trust, social media requires openness, transparency, accountability, and two-way engagement with an ability to listen first….. and this is even more important in our field as all of these elements are fundamental principles of CSR/sustainability strategies themselves!!

Before getting on the social media bandwagon, it is therefore important to “be and live social”. As David Armano noted in HBR’s Conversation blog:

“Social media’s not a product you foist on others, or some rigid business process that, if implemented, yields results. You shouldn’t treat social media like a temporary advertising campaign. Social media is more organic than that. It’s a way of thinking and approaching business that requires passion and commitment and, above all, willingness to participate in social spaces honestly and freely and by the rules of the social network itself. When someone ridicules your organization in the social space, unfiltered in real time, how do you react? If you are trying to control rather than participate in the discussion, then you’re not living social. When your own employees talk about your organization on a social network what do you do?”

What do you think? How do you help your organization or your client be and live social?

(Full disclosure: David Armano now works at Edelman, the PR firm that also employs me.)