Jennifer Rice

The power of brands to change the world, part 2

Posted the second in a series of three posts on world-changing brands on my business blog. This one looks at power and permission (which is linked to brand extendibility). Take a look and leave a comment! 

Coherence: The Prerequisite for Resilience

Resilience has become quite the buzzword these days. The term originated back in the 1970s in the field of ecology, and since then others have been refining and expanding to personal, organizational, societal systems. Resilience is essentially the ability of a system to bounce back from unforeseen shocks, and that ability depends on:

• the measure of change the system can undergo and still remain the same, 
• how capable it is of self-organization, and
• how well can it learn and adapt

Gary Hamel wrote about resilience back in 2003 in a business context, defining it as “the ability to dynamically reinvent business models and strategies as circumstances change.” And of course Andrew Zolli popularized this rather complex concept in his recent book Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back (which I recommend if you haven’t read it.)

Now while resilience is certainly a good goal for any system, we will never achieve resilience if we continue our fragmented, siloed, independent way of life. We need to start acting like a system if we’re ever going to reap the benefits.

The problem: Compartments, not connections

Our society is slowly coming to the realization that everything is connected and interdependent. Crises are occurring more frequently – from bank crashes to droughts and hurricanes – prompting individuals, corporations and governments to consider how actions ripple outwards to create unintentional effects.

Yet most of us spend our waking moments in fragmented, siloed, disconnected lives and organizations. Interconnection is still relegated to theory, not part of daily routine. Our education system and MBA programs drill students on facts, subjects and specialties, not relationships and systems. Chain booksellers and big data slice the book market into ever-smaller niche categories that don’t reflect the complex nature of our actual lives. Healthcare specialists treat isolated aspects of systemic diseases without addressing the full complexity of the human body. Like a fish unaware of the water in which it swims, we take this pervasive worldview for granted even while we bemoan its side effects.

Yet a look at Asian culture reveals a fundamentally different way of seeing the world. Eastern philosophy and society are more holistic, with a focus on relationships, context and interconnection. Language reinforces these differences: Chinese characters are pictograms, the meaning of which must be interpreted through context, whereas in the West our language is built on modular letters and words. We are philosophical descendants of the ancient Greeks who celebrated individuality, autonomy, and personal control. Our ancestors invented logic, categorization and modularity, and our modern civilization is built on these premises (for more on this topic, see my previous post, Wired for Failure.)

So we’re at a real disadvantage in today’s highly complex society. The big issues of our day – poverty, climate change, spiraling healthcare costs, declining global competitiveness – require a new way of thinking, one that doesn’t come naturally to us.

Bridging the gap through intentional coherence

Miriam-Webster defines coherence as (a) systematic or logical connection or consistency, and (b) integration of diverse elements, relationships, or values. The benefits of coherence manifest across a wide range of topics:

• In the realm of science, coherence is what gives a laser its power. While regular light is fragmented and diffuse, lasers emit almost perfectly coherent light; all the photons emitted by a laser have the same frequency and are in phase. 
• In the corporate world, a coherent brand and business (like Apple, Patagonia or Method) creates strong competitive advantage. Booz & Co analysis showed that more coherent capabilities are correlated with higher profitability.
• Brain scans show a high level of brain-wave coherence in experienced meditators, which is associated with more integrated and effective thinking and behavior.
• Water, properly channeled over time, is powerful enough to carve out the Grand Canyon. A waterjet produces a coherent pressurized water stream – 30 times the pressure of a car wash – that can slice through steel.

We can learn much from the natural world about coherence. Bodies, brains, ecosystems, and swarms all instinctively operate in a deeply interconnected and unified way. Yet in the social realm, coherence doesn’t just happen; intentionality is required. Human beings uniquely have volitional consciousness: we choose what we want and how we go about getting it. Our ability to align our actions to our values, collaborate with others, or consider our impact to the environment is not automatic.

Like light and water in their everyday states, we humans can operate in a fragmented, diffuse, and ultimately powerless way. Lack of coherence can create a stuck, stagnant situation or, at worst, a self-reinforcing negative spiral that spawns personal and organization dysfunction and a host of social ills including poverty, hunger, poor health, ecological destruction, and more.

Yet like light and water properly channeled, creating intentional alignment can produce the power to transform even the most difficult problems. By operating in a collaborative, cohesive manner towards shared outcomes, we get “all the wood behind one arrow” to create a positive self-reinforcing spiral. We discover and manifest our collective strength and power. Applying coherence is finding the middle way between independence and interdependence – moving from silos towards systems without disregarding the fact of our deeply embedded cultural tendency of self-interest and self-determination. Consider it a way to bridge the gap between today's disfunction and tomorrow's resilience. 

I’ll cover the 8 guidelines for creating coherence in the next post. Stay tuned. 

The Power of Brands to Change the World, part 1

I just posted the first of a series of three articles on The Power of Brands to Change the World on my business blog. This post highlights our 5 Sustainable Brand stages and framework, and plots a back-of-the-napkin audit of Apple and Nike. 

Please go visit and let me know your thoughts! 

Wired for Failure? Why Western Culture is Unsustainable

Our society is slowly coming to the realization that everything is connected and interdependent. Crises are occurring more frequently – from bank crashes to droughts and hurricanes – prompting individuals, corporations and governments to consider how actions ripple outwards to create unintentional effects.

Most of us, however, spend our waking moments immersed in fragmented, siloed, disconnected lives and organizations. Interconnection is still relegated to theory, not part of daily routine. Our education system and MBA programs drill students on facts, subjects and linear cause/effect, not relationships and systems. Chain booksellers and big data slice the book market into ever-smaller niche categories that don’t reflect the complex nature of our actual lives. Healthcare specialists treat isolated aspects of systemic diseases without addressing the full complexity of the human body. Like a fish unaware of the water in which it swims, we take this pervasive worldview as “just how things are” even as we gripe about its side effects.

Ours is not the only worldview

Yet a look at Asian culture reveals a fundamentally dissimilar way of seeing the world. Eastern philosophy and society are more holistic, with a focus on relationships, context and interconnection. Language reinforces these differences: Chinese characters are pictograms, the meaning of which must be interpreted through context, whereas in the West our language is built on modular letters, words and grammar. Even the practice of feng shui for choosing building sites (including Hong Kong skyscrapers) reflects the idea that the factors affecting outcomes are extraordinarily complex and interactive.

History can shed some light on these differences. Ancient Chinese culture was strongly influenced by Confucianism, which focused on relationships and co-humanity, and by the need to navigate society’s complex social structures. Conversely, Westerners are philosophical descendants of the ancient Greeks who celebrated individuality, autonomy, and personal control. Their inventions of logic, categorization and linear “cause & effect” thinking comprise the now-invisible foundation of so-called developed civilizations.

"The Greeks tended to focus on the object and to explain its behavior with reference only to its properties and the categories to which it belonged. In contrast, the Chinese recognized that action always occurs in a field of forces… The ancient Greeks saw stability in their worlds, while the ancient Chinese saw change; indeed, in line with the yin and yang of the Tao, always being in the process of reverting to the opposite of the current state." (source)

Today, these differences manifest along two key dimensions:

• Social orientation: Independence (uniqueness) versus interdependence (harmony)
• Cognitive style: Analytic (object-focused, categorization, causality) versus holistic (field-focused, relationships). 

Studies have shown that the two dimensions are highly correlated; ie. cultures that think independently like the US also think analytically, and cultures that think interdependently like east Asia also think holistically. Theorists propose that "this relation occurs because interdependence prompts wide attention to context whereas independence focuses attention on objects.”

These cultural differences have profound implications for solving the complex challenges of our day. An article in Psychology Today observed that

"analytic thinkers are more likely than holistic thinkers to commit the fundamental attribution error—overestimating the impact of persons and underestimating the impact of situations when explaining events. They’re also more likely to predict that a trend (in the stock market, for example) will persist and not reverse direction."

So unlike holistic-thinking cultures who understand that “events are the products of external forces and situations” and who think in terms of systems and change, most Westerners may be wired to think and act in a way that undermines our long-term sustainability: me versus we, silos versus systems. 

It's complicated.

Perhaps this cultural programming is why complexity and systems thinking hasn’t gained much traction in the corporate world after a couple decades of buzz in the business press. A recent post on HBR.com titled “Why Managers Haven’t Embraced Complexity” highlighted several of our culturally inherited traits:

"Complexity wasn't a convenient reality given managers' desire for control. The promise of applying complexity science to business has undoubtedly been held up by managers' reluctance to see the world as it is. Where complexity exists, managers have always created models and mechanisms that wish it away. It is much easier to make decisions with fewer variables and a straightforward understanding of cause-and-effect... Placing a rigid priority on maximizing shareholder returns makes things clear for decision-makers and relieves them of considering difficult tradeoffs."

In a similar vein, a Fast Company article noted that “systems thinking, despite its wartime successes never really captured the imagination of business leaders…. the number and sequence of things that must be done has become so arcane that to master it seems all but impossible to the managers in question.”

Me, not we

Our cultural programming not only affects business but also our society’s response to altruistic calls to act and serve for the betterment of others and the planet. New research published in Psychological Science revealed that “public campaigns that call upon people to think and act interdependently may undermine motivation among Americans.” Across three different experiments, the researchers found that European Americans who were primed to think about interdependent behavior showed less motivation and persistence in research tasks than European Americans primed to think about independence.

"Decades of research in the social sciences have shown that fostering people’s sense of independence is the most effective driver of behavior among Americans. “Appeals to interdependence might sound nice or like the right thing to do, but they will not get the job done for many Americans,” says Hamedani. A better strategy for motivating action among European Americans may be to encourage individual effort for the good of the team or collective, urging each individual to 'be the change YOU want to see in the world.'" 

Can we shift? 

Interestingly, across the previous three studies, Asian American students’ behavior did not vary when interdependence vs. independence was emphasized. The researchers hypothesized that bi-cultural Americans, having been exposed to both modes of thought, were able to see the benefits of both approaches.

Fortunately for us, we’re finding that modes of cognition are not permanently locked in place by either culture or genetics (an implication with which many of you Western systems-thinking readers would agree.) Not only do working-class American adults show “more holistic patterns of cognition” than the average middle-class Americans, we also see differences in cultures like Eastern Europeans, Orthodox Jewish boys, southern versus northern Italians, and even farming villages versus non-farming villages in Turkey. (source) 

A report in Psychology Today observed that “each of us has the ability to think either analytically or holistically, a talent that often goes unrecognized,” and goes on to reassure us:

"Can Westerners think like East Asians? Absolutely. And East Asians can think like Westerners. In fact, most of us have the capacity to think analytically or holistically, depending on our state of mind. When East Asians are encouraged to think about their uniqueness, they often “wheel in” their analytical mental module, so to speak. When Westerners are primed to think about their relatedness to others, they often switch to a more holistic way of thinking. The default (or habit) for most Westerners, especially men, is to think analytically—and the default for most East Asians is to think holistically."

Good news indeed. However, our extremely independent, fragmented culture has been built over hundreds and thousands of years; our education system starts the silo-indoctrination process very young, and every other aspect of our society reinforces this view. So attempts to shift our modes of thinking are a bit like turning the Titanic, and we need baby steps to begin weaning ourselves off the “me-me-me” and overly simplistic programming.

An analogy from the Buddhist idea of self can give us direction: We can see a hand as one unit, or a collection of five independent fingers. Each finger is distinct and serves its own role, yet it doesn’t operate independently of the whole. Likewise, our Western culture has focused for too long on individual fingers; we simply need to expand our awareness to realize how we’re connected. And yet we must remember in this process to not solely focus on “the hand” at the expense of the fingers; individualism is a fact of life in our society, and failure to honor that fact will set us up for failure.

So this is a call for both/and thinking. We can celebrate our uniqueness and analytical strengths while also expanding our horizons to include our shared humanity and the environment in which we live; we can align individuals and enable movement towards shared goals as long as the right structures are in place. The next post will introduce one way to do that: what I call creating "intentional coherence" across personal, organizational and cross-sector levels. 

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Dear reader, I'd love your thoughts. Have our siloed culture and independent cognitive styles gotten us so stuck in "me" that we'll be unable to see "we" before it's too late? What will America's role be (realistically) in solving the systemic problems that we face given our aversion to complexity? 

10 strategies for building a credible sustainable brand

I recently conducted a webinar on 10 Strategies for Building a Credible Sustainable Brand in conjunction with Sustainable Life Media. While I'll never again agree to develop an hour's worth of new content with 1 week's notice (!), I appreciated the opportunity to pull together a fairly comprehensive set of strategies that help brands build credibility from the ground up and minimize the risk of greenwashing. The 10 strategies include:

1. Be proactive

2. Be transparent

3. Know your limits

4. Be relevant

5. Borrow credibility

6. Leverage brand strengths

7. Create a brand strategy

8. Be consistent

9. Educate

10. Engage

This list gives some good fodder for future blog posts, so stay tuned.

Role of Retail in Sustainability

Just posted Role of Retail in Sustainability on my business blog. I'm surprised at how few retailers are stepping up to the plate and helping consumers make educated choices on sustainable products. Best Buy is a laggard, Home Depot is a leader. If you know what Wal-Mart is doing in customer education, would love for you to contribute a comment.  

Creating competitive advantage through sustainability

I just published a post on my business blog outlining the five steps to creating competitive advantage through sustainability. Go take a peek and let me know what you think. 

July newsletter: Sustainability business case

In addition to the email newsletter we send out every month (you can sign up on this page by entering your email address) we’ve recently designed an easier-to-read PDF.

This issue kicks off a series on connecting sustainability with top-line revenue, a topic of interest to many sustainability pros who want to move beyond cost-savings initiatives and build reputation and revenue (and also to marketers looking for additional ways to grow topline revenue). I’ll also be posting the articles here on my blog, and I’d love comments and questions so that I can address key concerns and questions throughout the series.

Click here for the FruitfulBusiness July newsletter. 

Taco Bell green spoof

A great spoof by The Onion about Taco Bell's environmental efforts. "Taco Bell's new green menu takes no ingredients from nature." It's pretty funny. 

Strategic CSR in Hospitality

Just wrote a new post on Building the Ethical Reputation: Strategic CSR in Hospitality on my business blog... it includes an Opportunity Audit comparing initiatives for Fairmont Hotels, Marriott and IHG and mapping how well they support the brand strategy. Come visit and contribute your thoughts. 

Top 10 reasons to align business strategy with social impact

As I've been talking with people about Fruitful's mission to advance "conscious capitalism," it's become clear that social impact is often perceived as a nice-to-have rather than a critical component to business strategy. Here are 10 reasons why you may want to help your company rethink that notion.

1. You're looking for profitable growth. According to Ethisphere, the world's most ethical companies have seen a growth rate twice that of the S&P 500. And A.T. Kearney recently reported that sustainable companies are outperforming their rivals during the downturn. 
2. You need to reduce operating costs. For example, Sun Microsystem's new datacenter in Broomfield CO saves over $1,000,000 in electrical costs and reduces Sun's corporate carbon footprint by 6%. Wal-Mart set a goal to reduce packaging in the supply chain by 5 percent by 2013. Reaching that goal would prevent 660,000 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere and save the company more than $3.4 billion.
3. Your industry is contributing to social problems. Tobacco and lung cancer, fast food and obesity, oil and war, autos and global warming... it's tough when your entire category carries negative associations. Forward-thinking players in these categories should be thinking about how to disrupt their own businesses before someone else does. Examples include BP's investments in alternative energy, McDonald's healthy menu and the Toyota Prius. There's definitely still room for improvement, but hey, progress is progress.
4. Your brand or business is capable of being part of a social solution. GE was already in the business of solving energy and water issues, so it wasn't a stretch to create the Ecomagination commitment to become a leader in sustainable energy. Nike's brand is all about unleashing potential through sport, which is an umbrella that easily covers social issues like childhood inactivity.  
5. You're lagging behind committed competitors. In today's transparent world, you don't want to show up at the bottom of an industry review on CSR practices. To be on enlightened consumers' consideration sets, you really need to be in the top 2 or 3. Case in point: ClimateCounts pocket guide shows consumers how to "vote with their wallet" by presenting the best and worst companies across a range of industries in supporting climate change. 
6. You''re in danger of (or in the middle of) a PR nightmare. Nike got on the CSR bandwagon after being accused of child labor violations.  Unilever and Starbucks were more proactive, identifying social and environmental challenges in coffee and tea plantations and transforming potential liabilities into triple bottom-line advantage. Lately the financial industry has taken a big trust hit; look for more alignment with and promotion of ethical business practices here.
7. You're looking for differentiation in a highly competitive industry. Whole Foods disrupted the grocery market. Clorox' GreenWorks is a visibly different option in an overwhelming mass of cleaning products. UK retailer Marks & Spencer's Behind the Label initiative strengthened their brand and boosted profits by 28% in one year. One article notes that "by challenging consumers to 'Look behind the label' M&S has increased pressure on its competitors to demonstrate their own efforts."
8. You want a unified, passionate workforce. GE found that its Ecomagination initiative had a positive and unintended side effect; employees became more energized and broke down silo barriers to help contribute to the cause. According to Kellie McElhaney in Just Good Business, "GE's CSR program turned out to be one of the highest-impact internal unification strategies that the company has ever implemented." 
9. You need to boost customer loyalty. It costs more to gain a new customer than keep an existing customer, so loyalty is one of the easier ways to grow revenue. Loyal customers also serve as a volunteer army of word-of-mouth advocates. Goldman Sachs referenced studies that show consumers identify "being socially responsible" as the most likely factor influencing brand loyalty at 35%, compared with lower price (20%), easily available products (20%), product prestige (3%), company shares your values (14%) and quality (6%).
10. It's the right thing to do. You spend most of your life sitting behind a desk; why not make that time worthwhile?

The Girl Effect

I was just pointed to The Girl Effect, a shared mission to create opportunities for girls (change agents) around the world and especially in developing markets. It's rooted in the work of the Nike Foundation. I encourage you to watch the video opening of the website; it's very well done.

In the downturn, green companies outperform

A new study by global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney indicates that firms with "true commitment to sustainability" outperform industry peers in the financial markets. The study, called Green Winners: The Performance of Sustainability-Focused Companies During the Financial Crisis, found that in 16 of 18 industries, sustainability-focused companies outperformed their peers by 15% in a six-month period.  The performance differential translated to an average of $650 million in market cap per company.

The big takeaway for me is seeing that the companies prospering now were the companies who embarked on this journey ten years ago, well before it became a media-worthy item. Now these companies have pulled ahead of the pack in terms of competitive advantage and are building momentum.

The report cited as an example a global consumer packaged goods company that "views sustainability as not just a philanthropic endeavor but a fundamental part of its business strategy." It began its sustainability efforts more than 10 years ago and has incorporated sustainability practices in every link of the value chain.

Despite increasing production volume by 76 percent since 1998, and over the same period reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 16 percent, water consumption by 28 percent and energy use by 3 percent, according to the report. In 2007, improvements in energy efficiency led to a $30 million savings. Over a 16-year period, the company saved more than $500 million by optimizing packaging volume.

And it's not just about savings.

IBM has generated $500 million in new contract signings in 2 quarters from their Big Green initiative. Clorox is projecting $40 million in first-year sales from its GreenWorks line.General Electric vowed to improve the energy efficiency of its operations by 4% a year and double its revenues from relatively clean products to $20 billion by 2010.

This is a trend that is not going away. If your business hasn't committed to baking in sustainability (and/or a social-good outcome that's more directly related to your business) into your business strategy, the mounting data on both consumer expectations and competitive advantage suggest that you will be left behind.

Virgin's socially good businesses

Virgin offers a great case study of a company that's seeking ways to align inputs and outputs with social good to create both competitive and societal advantage. They're making an active effort to not only run more sustainable businesses, but also to integrate social good into the customer experience and raise awareness and social engagement among their customers.

Inputs (behind-the-scenes business operations)

• Virgin Atlantic's sustainability manifesto outlines 29 steps to making their business as sustainable as possible.

Outputs (customer-facing products, services and touchpoints):

• Virgin HealthMiles is a first-of-a-kind health incentives program that empowers Americans to take greater control of their health and fitness. In a pilot deployment in 2006, 40% of members who had previously been categorized as inactive moved up to the active category. Additionally, 21% of members saw a reduction in hypertension over a period of six months.

Inputs as Outputs (turning sustainability into competitive advantage)

• Virgin Trains is actively marketed as the more sustainable travel option compared to cars and planes. They also launched Europe's first 20% biodiesel train.

They're also leveraging the power of community, actively engaging customers in socially good actions like:

• VirginUnite, Virgin's non-for-profit entrepreneurial foundation. In addition to being a social entrepreneur incubator and a consultancy to Virgin businesses to be a force for social good, it's also a facilitator to help everyday people start their own fundraisers.
• Virgin Mobile's RE*Generation, a pro-social initiative to build awareness about the issues surrounding at-risk youth and teen homelessness. Musicians donate ringtone royalties on selected tracks, and Virgin Mobile donates 100% of net profits from the same selected tracks. Virgin Mobile customers can also contribute to The RE*Generation by sending a text message to deduct $1 from their balance as a contribution or making a cash donation via credit card at VirginUnite. Their blank2clothe initiative, in partnership with American Eagle Outfitters, donates clothing to homeless youth for every 5 videos that customers upload. 

I'm compiling a list of companies who have baked social good into their brands, and will be writing about them on this blog. If you have other examples (Whole Foods, Ethos water, Timberland, Zipcar come to mind) I'd love to hear about them.

Launching my new company

After almost two years at Prophet, I am reconnecting with my entrepreneurial spirit to start up a new social-good consulting firm called Fruitful. The focus is on aligning business strategy with social good to achieve triple-bottom-line results. I'm really excited about it... I've been wanting to use my skills to help make the world a better place and I think this will be a great vehicle through which to do so.

I'm a "glass is half full" kind of person, and I believe this is the perfect time to start a business like this. Here's why:

• Change equals opportunity. We're seeing a convergence of market forces that indicate that the era of “business as usual” is coming to an end (more on this in my next post.) Game-changing opportunities are being created for businesses to be powerful and profitable catalysts for good. Yet the recession is causing wide-spread, knee-jerk reactions to cut or eliminate spending. Businesses will either be seen as a leader or a me-too in their respective categories when times improve.
• Perception is reality. There’s a lot of skepticism towards companies jumping on the social-good bandwagon. Accusations of greenwashing abound. Socially good business is not about PR programs or legal checklists. The only way to succeed is by embedding social good initiatives throughout your entire organization in a way that supports and extends your brand and business strategy. It’s about walking your talk.
• There's a smart way to prune. Many larger businesses have numerous philanthropic efforts that don’t align with their brands or support their business strategies. This is a good time to eliminate scattershot programs in favor of a strategic, focused approach that can effect greater change and drive future growth. And hey, maybe even be profitable. 

I'll be writing a lot more about socially good business here on this blog until I get my new website (with an integrated blog) up and running. So stay tuned...

Who else can win?

I've been writing about companies who are committed to making a difference. I think the issue boils down to a very simple question: "Who else can win?" The primary focus has always been on how companies make money... ie. how the company wins. But precious few companies contemplate how their business model can help others win too. I'm calling this "mindful business"... stopping auto-pilot for a moment to really think about the ecosystem in which you operate, and what you can do to improve it.

Brands win when they help others win.

A few examples:

• Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty addresses self-esteem and our society's distortion of beauty. It's a great example of a mindful marketing program that benefits everyone.

• Starbucks' concept of social responsibility is embedded deep into its brand, including conservation, community volunteerism, commitment to coffee producers, the Starbucks Foundation (youth literacy), Ethos water, socially responsible investing, and more.

• Squidoo enables lensmasters to send their revenues directly to a charity of their choice (Squidoo will add your favorite charity if it's not currently in their system.) Over half of Squidoo's lensmasters participate in this program, and Squidoo itself donates 5% of net revenue to the charity pool.

• Intel's World Ahead program is committing a $1 billion investment to extend broadband PC access to the world’s next billion users while training 10 million more teachers on the use of technology in education.

• Whole Foods helped establish national organic standards, supports the Marine Stewardship Council to ensure sustainable seafood, established the Animal Compassion Foundation, and helped organic farms in North America grow.

• From its earliest days, Patagonia has been committed to environmental activism. Their mission statement is to build the best product, do no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis. They have an impressive list of actions that their mission has inspired.
  

Many companies wanting to fill in the "social responsibility" checkbox will adopt a non-profit or encourage employees to volunteer. Not bad, but this type of add-on activity won't gain traction. Mindful businesses tightly integrate a social perspective into their current business models. This is about being, not just doing. In the examples above, each company is mindful of their role within a larger ecosystem and seeks ways to leverage their role to strengthen the entire ecosystem. Their beliefs and actions attract like-minded, passionate customers and employees. Everybody wins.

Words and meanings

I've been thinking about brands that are making a difference in our lives and society, and I used the term "worthwhile brand" to define them. However, I don't think that term sets the bar high enough; as one reader commented, there are plenty of brands that are "worth" my time and effort.

So why not just call it corporate responsibility? A widely quoted definition by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development states that "Corporate social responsibility is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large." There's also a more easily quoted slogan, Doing Well by Doing Good. All of this sounds great and admirable... so why am I searching for a new term?

A few reasons. First, words carry a lot of underlying meanings and associations. When you think of the words responsibility and behave, what pops into your mind? Maybe I'm the odd one out here, but I think of my mother and house rules. I think about times when I was a young girl getting into trouble because I didn't behave the way I should.  I think of what I have to do vs. what I want to do. I think of chores. I think "not fun." The term "corporate responsibility" implies that the people at corporate HQ -- execs and board members -- are responsible, taking the emphasis off the individual. And perhaps that's why corporate responsibility has typically been encoded into rules, programs and accounting standards. Sometimes it's delegated to HR to initiate charity or volunteer programs. Other times it's used as a tactic for good PR (note Enron's yearly "Corporate Responsibility Annual Report" and tobacco corporations' social reports.) Rarely is it a mentality that's embedded in the DNA of the culture.

Back to definitions: responsibility and behavior are things that you do. Character is something that you are. If you're focused on actions, you create your to-do lists and check off the fact that you did your one good deed for the day. If you're focused on character, then your identity and intentions naturally create win-win opportunities for everyone involved. It becomes fun and rewarding to give back and "do the right thing." Corporate responsibility is the effect, not the cause.

Brand building focuses on character. If we're interested in how companies can act for the good of employees, customers, communities and the world, then we must choose words that are motivational and aspirational... words that define character (cause) not behavior (effect). Initially I used the word worthwhile, but in hindsight I see that I was still focusing on the effect. Now I'm thinking along the lines of noble, upstanding, honorable, and integrity. These are aspirational character traits for a brand. When used as hiring criteria, these traits can create formidable brands that make measurably positive impacts on the world. 

Good vs. Worthwhile

I'd like to elaborate on this morning's post on Worthwhile brands, ask a lot of questions, and then open this up for discussion. My earlier post discussed some initial ideas for defining a worthwhile brand: does it measurably improve quality of life, make the world a better place, or leave no trace on the Earth? But of course nothing is so black or white. I'm trying to find the line between worthwhile and the rest, and it's pretty damn hard.

I'm going to ramble a bit, so bear with me. First I started thinking about brands that are the opposite of worthwhile: cigarette brands, perhaps, or gambling (but of course smokers and gamblers would disagree with me.) Then there are the irrelevant brands, those running 10th or 20th in their categories with marginal points of difference, doing no harm but contributing to the clutter (I'll come back to this one in another post.) And finally there are good brands -- plenty of them -- that don't make my original Worthwhile cut but they're part of our lives.

The brand that I've thought a lot about is Apple. By all traditional accounts, Apple is a great brand... probably one of the best. But are they worthwhile? According to whom? Objectively speaking, they make computers and music players with an original spin. How does that benefit the world? I think that purists would say: they're not following sustainable business practices or giving to charity, and therefore they don't qualify. But are sustainability and charity the only two ways to create a brand that makes a positive impact on the world?

I think not. And yet there's a danger in opening the criteria too wide; too many marketing and advertising folks latch on to words like "meaningful" and "purpose" and "passion" and dilute their true meanings. I think it's time to raise the bar. But where to raise it, and which brands to exclude? Ahh, now things get tricky. What is the difference between good and great? Between great and worthwhile (ie. making positive contributions to individuals, society and/or our planet)? How is "positive contribution" defined?

Back to Apple. One could say that without Apple, this world would be rather dreary. Many people can't imagine life without their Apple computer or their iPod. It's their form of self-expression, and there isn't a comparable alternative. Does this qualify as a worthwhile and positive contribution? I could argue both sides. And Apple's a member of the coveted club called "cult brands:" Harley Davidson, Ikea, eBay, and the list goes on. These are the guys everyone's striving to be like, right? But do passionate customers make a brand Worthwhile? Not necessarily... but again, where do you draw the line?

Lastly, while I like the term 'worthwhile' because it hasn't been completely diluted from marketing-speak, I feel a bit bad for the good companies excluded by my definition. Does that imply they're worthless? Not my intention, but it could come across that way.   

I could keep rambling but I'll stop. I haven't come to any conclusions yet, and I'd love to hear from you.

UPDATE:  I do want to clarify that I'm trying to broaden the perspective from "corporate responsibility." I believe that corporate responsibility is vitally important (Brandchannel has a great article on it). However, I'm not a fan of the word "responsibility" because it sounds like a chore, and I think its definition leaves a lot of beneficial businesses out. For example, a number of large tech companies are trying to solve the digital-divide challenge in emerging markets. They're starting to create a virtuous circle where everyone wins (including themselves, of course). And  when companies initiate sustainable business practices, everyone wins too. No corporate action is completely altruistic, but I think there are plenty of opportunities for brands to think more creatively about how to benefit more people than themselves. This is what I'm terming a worthwhile brand... but it's broader and harder to define than corporate responsibility.   

Worthwhile Brands

In the next few posts I'm going to play around with the idea of a worthwhile brand. I like this term because a) it's not overused, b) it implies important, valuable and rewarding. Along these lines, the manager of a worthwhile brand would answer "yes" to at least one of the following questions:

Will this product/service/company...
- measurably improve quality of life?
- make the world a better place?
- leave no trace on the Earth?

And you can't weasel out of the first one with marketing-speak. "Our customers' lives will be improved by yet another brand of toothpaste because they have been long-deprived of grape flavoring." Sorry, that doesn't cut it. However, if part of the proceeds from the new grape-flavored toothpaste goes to provide dental care for underpriviledged children, you've introduced a worthwhile purpose into the brand.  Not every product is going to change the world, but brands like Starbucks are, at the very least, "walking softly on the earth." Starbucks' recycled-content cups are expected to lower the company's dependence on tree fiber annually by more than five million pounds. The Gap's RED line is contributing 50% of proceeds to fight AIDS in Africa.

Let's all expect more from the businesses from which we buy, and expect more of the companies where we work.  Marketers and executives: how can you can make your brands more worthwhile? Even from a pure business perspective, it's worth thinking about. As Hugh says, "the market for something to believe in is infinite."   

Working Purposefully

I haven’t written in a while, I know. I find that when I’m resisting something, it’s a sign that I need to do some thinking and reevaluation. So that’s exactly what I’ve been doing, and it’s time to start sharing my thoughts.

 I’ve been struggling with the age-old dilemma of doing something that satisfies the soul OR doing something that pays the rent. Yes, I’ve read plenty of books on the subject and had long talks with friends. I’ve thought about teaching, writing, coaching, counseling… even moving to some godforsaken place in the world in order to “make a difference.” I've envied a good friend of mine who took a year-long sabbatical to figure this out for herself.

 One thing I haven’t thought about until recently is whether I could make a difference in my own profession. Seems a bit odd in hindsight, but I’ve finally recognized that I’ve been suffering from cognitive dissonance: I believe that over-commercialization is leading to the demise of our society, and yet I’m in a profession of helping companies sell stuff that people don’t really need.

 Hmm. That’s a problem. Somewhere down the line I subconsciously accepted the message that business isn’t meaningful. Looking back at some of my employers and clients, I can see how I could come to such a conclusion. I've been fortunate to work with some companies filled with passion and purpose, but I saw them as a rare exception.

 And yet there are plenty of companies out there that do stand for something. They’re serving a need and making a difference. But typically these companies don’t need much branding help; their single-minded passion is the brand, and it fuels success. Whole Foods wants to improve the way America eats. Nike wants to inspire people to reach for their best. The Body Shop stands for the pursuit of social and environmental change. Starbucks is committed to social responsibility. 

Many small companies are seeking to make a difference as well. A good friend of mine has wanted to make a positive impact on education for years, and he just launched his social education site www.edu20.org. Another friend wants to help people reach their goals; she maintains a thriving community goal-setting site called Superviva. I recently met the founder of Sustainable Marketing and he definitely walks his talk.   

What all these companies have in common is a strong sense of purpose that attracts employees of a certain mindset. The purpose creates a virtuous circle: passionate leaders and employees attract passionate customers. The purpose acts like a magnet. This is what building strong brands is all about. And yet the people who started these companies didn’t think in terms of branding; they simply followed their passions.

 Execs who are looking to marketing, advertising and sales to become successful are barking up the wrong tree. They’re looking for an external fix for an internal problem: they either got sidetracked from their original purpose, or they never had one to begin with. I have heard more than one executive say, “I’m not paying employees to be passionate; I’m paying them to do a job.” Ouch. These are the same people who keep tweaking the sales comp plan to figure out what’s really going to motivate sales people. Hmm… how about giving them a product they’re really excited about selling?  Marketing and sales people are only as good as the products & services they have to work with.

 So to wrap up a rather long post, I’ve finally realized that I don’t have to switch careers or join a non-profit in order to align my values with my work. We live in a capitalistic society where businesses have a huge impact on how we live. It’s time we all expected more from them. I’d like to work with companies who are either doing something they believe in, or else they recognize the need to create a purposeful brand. I’m currently working with some great folks at “evil empire” Microsoft who are passionate about helping small software companies – especially those in emerging markets – become successful. And that means that I feel good about putting my energy and time into this project.

Are your values and your work in alignment? Do you feel great about what you do and who you work for? Kudos to those who have already figured this out; perhaps I’m just a slow learner. If you answered “no”, what can you do to help shift your corporate culture to one that is meaningful to you, your co-workers and your customers? My next few posts will talk more about creating brands with passion and purpose. 

Let's be the change we want to see

I was going through my old posts yesterday and came across this one from last New Year's day. I really liked this one, so I thought it was appropriate to repost for this New Year!
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New Years Day. Always a time of deep introspection, reflection and reiteration of what I want my life to be all about. I like to think about my life in relation to the whole; in other words, what do I want my relationships, family, business, etc. to be like, and what actions must I take to make that happen?

Along these lines, I couldn't help but think about some of the major trends in business today. There's been so much written about the failure of corporate America to satisfy the needs of customers, and in an attempt to fix the symptoms we've created new mantras (create customer evangelists!), new technologies (CRM), special programs (frequent flier miles), and the list goes on.

But who, exactly, is "corporate America"?
We are.

The corporate transformational change that we consumers have been crying for will happen when we -- the consumers, the customers, the employees -- begin living the changes we want to see. Instead of fixing the symptoms, let's address the root cause. Putting the blame on faceless corporations is the same error as putting the blame on our spouses, our co-workers, our families. Not only are we all connected, but we ourselves are individual components of multiple intersecting wholes.

We, the individuals who make up today's society, have created the world we see today. We've made -- and are continuing to make -- different choices than our parents and grandparents did at our age. These choices have created consequences that we often don't want to recognize or own, so we point outside ourselves and declare the culprits to be the big bad corporations (for whom we work) and government officials (whom we elect) and 'the system' (which we accept).

So what are these choices? Here are a few factoids from Bowling Alone that indicate that our social and family ties are loosening, and we're increasingly withdrawing into ourselves:
- In the past 3 decades, participation in government, local clubs and organizations dropped by up to 50%.
- Job instability, churn and the increasing numbers of independent contractors have resulted in a measurable decline of social connectedness in the workplace.
- Americans are entertaining friends at home 45% less frequently now than in the mid-70s; the number of picnics declined by 60% in the same time period.
- The fraction of married Americans who say that their family 'usually dines together' has dropped from 50% to 34%
- The number of families who vacation together dropped from 53% to 38%; watch TV together from 54% to 41%; sitting and talking, from 53% to 43%
- Reported charitable giving dropped by almost 20% from 1980 to 1995.
- The percentage of those who feel that "people in general today lead as good lives -- honest and moral -- as they used to" dropped from 50% in 1952 to 27% in 1998.

It's interesting to note that these percentages have remained more stable in small towns versus large cities. It's tough to be impersonal in a small town, but quite easy in a city. It's harder to be impersonal when you run a small business than when sheltered in the walls of a large corporation.

These statistics don't just show trends; they reveal our choices. We have chosen -- under the veil of 'too busy, not enough time, not enough money' -- to distance ourselves from our families, our co-workers and our communities. As isolated individuals, it's much easier to forget that we're part of a whole; that we're interconnected with everyone else and that our choices impact others as well as ourselves. We have made these choices individually but the combined effects are now reaching critical mass. How can we connect with a customer when we're not making meaningful connections with our own loved ones?

The lack of corporate/customer relationships is just the tip of the iceberg; it is symptomatic of a much more far-reaching issue. We've somehow adopted an us versus them mentality: not only between companies and customers, but between departments within the same company, between neighborhoods, races and religions. For real change to happen on the corporate and societal level, each one of us must first decide to build richer relationships within our own sphere of influence.... the forged bonds will move upward and outward, but we must start at the core, where we live. We must start by breaking down silos and walls within our own communities and companies and neighborhoods; by reaching out to others with compassion instead of holding back in distrust.

In a similar vein, we're calling on corporations to be more authentic, transparent and honest. Yet how will that happen if we're not transparent and honest ourselves? We so often are fearful of what others will think that we lose sight of our own authenticity. Political correctness has its limits. It's time for both individuals and businesses to stop trying to be all things to all people, and give ourselves permission to live honestly, and -- most importantly -- allow others to live their own truths without trying to change them. Each employee, each member of the whole, must be encouraged to live their own personal brand honestly and openly. When that happens, authentic and transparent corporate brands will naturally fall into place.

So perhaps our 2005 resolutions need not be so mundane. If each of us chooses to take ownership of our small section of the vast social fabric that ties us all together -- to tighten it up and halt the unravelling, not just with technology but with our own authentic goodness -- our society can be irrevocably changed for the better. Speaking for myself, I plan to seek out ways to be more authentic and transparent, more compassionate, and more willing to make time to deepen my connections with others. These are a few of my New Years resolutions; I hope you'll join me.

Rant on socially responsible branding

As I'm reading Atlas Shrugged for the nth time, I started thinking about socially responsible branding (SRB). In Ayn's world, that phrase alone would be grounds to have me shot. But SRB, done right, is an authentic and rewarding way to earn an honest living. Let's look at the different options for SRB:

First, the real SRB is the company that allocates dollars to a good cause -- say The Body Shop or Ben & Jerrys -- and its corporate culture supports and reflects its support to that cause. The cause IS the brand. It's a win-win-win for the company, the cause and the customers. The brand is appealing to a distinct target audience that shares a common belief system with the company. The company makes money, the cause makes money and the customers feel good about their purchases. Hurray for everyone.

Another real SRB is the brand that doesn't align its business with a particular cause, but the brand's execs make decisions in favor of the brand's long-term rational self-interest. In other words, they understand the law of causality. They understand that the only way to survive and thrive in today's fickle economy is to be honest with customers, to overpromise and underdeliver, and to genuinely care about making their customers' lives easier or better. Customers are like dogs; they can usually smell it when companies are just in business to make money. Not that making money is wrong; but trying to make a buck without expending the effort to produce significant value is trying to cheat the system. It just doesn't work.

The anti-SRBs are the companies who make a show of giving to causes, but their business practices are not socially responsible. Let's go beyond toxic waste for a moment. I'm talking about "what can we get away with" mentality rather than "how can we make money by adding real value." I'm thinking of the phone companies who donate money to local charities while marking up surcharges by 500% because that's a great way to make more money without increasing their publicized basic line charge or adding any more value to justify the income. (Yes, that's right, many of those fees on your phone bill are federally condoned but not federally collected. Check out http://abtolls.com/information/readingbills.html for more info). And the phone companies have trapped themselves in a pricing war, so none of them want to be honest about how much your phone bill REALLY will be after you've switched providers to save money. I'm waiting for the day when a phone company will have the cajones to say: here's our basic line charge; yes, it's higher than some of the other companies but we're not making an exorbitant profit on taxes and surcharges; what's on this proposal is exactly what you're going to see on your first bill; and by the way, our prices are slightly higher because we're going the extra mile on customer service and reliability, and you'll get what you pay for. OK, I'll stop my rant on the phone industry... (if there are any phone companies out there who don't do this, my apologies and I'd love to know who you are)...

Bottom line, I believe that socially responsible branding is NOT about donating to causes. It's about taking the long-term view and asking, "what's the right thing to do" instead of "what can we get away with." It's about creating and using corporate values as a decision-making tool, a compass of sorts, instead of publishing a bunch of list of values because it's expected and it looks good, but doesn't truly drive the decision-making process. And if you can work out a way to support and communicate those values by contributing to a cause, great; that's solid reinforcement of your brand. But socially responsible branding starts with a value-oriented philosophy, not with an open checkbook. A donation does not a socially responsible brand make.