It goes without saying that customer trust is a brand’s most valuable asset – but we thought we’d give you a reminder anyway. With 92% of consumers saying they are more likely to trust brands that support social issues and environmental efforts, it’s time for companies to stand up and take notice.
Over the past decade, social responsibility, employee satisfaction and environmental impact are now more entrenched than ever before in the marketing sector, in an effort to build trust and encourage positive social change. In a world increasingly filled with fake news, customers are more sceptical towards environmentally-driven marketing efforts, which is why brands need to create a solid content strategy that truly showcases their brand’s tenacity, unity and most of all transparency.
Take a look at Wordsmith’s top 5 examples of how to create a compelling narrative around your brand’s social and environmental initiatives.
1. LEGO – building blocks to a more sustainable future
When it comes to building trust through content, Danish toy company The Lego Group leads the way. Known primarily for creating plastic colourful building blocks, in March 2018 Lego announced it was looking to produce pieces made solely from plant-based sources. Dedicating DKK 1 billion of investment into research, development and implementation, The Lego Group’s commitment aims to use sustainable materials in all core products and packaging by 2030.
Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, Chief Reputation Officer of the Reputation Institute was quick to comment,“Lego is a very solid corporate entity and a very purposeful company that drives learning through play while respecting the environment… it’s literally putting its sense of corporate responsibility into its products.”From informational YouTube videos to product-showcasing Twitter posts that rave about the release of its sustainably sourced, sugarcane-based Lego bricks, the company delivers a consistent, environmentally sustainable message across every social medium.
2. Unilever – #rethink how we clean
In November 2018, transnational consumer goods company, Unilever combined forces with One Young World and A Plastic Planet, to get some of the world’s best creative minds together for their first #RethinkPlastic Hackathon. Bringing industry-leading designers, venture capitalists, external experts and young entrepreneurs to Unilever’s London Pitch Centre, the company wanted contestants to create a new, innovative way of ensuring Unilever’s Home Care Brands go plastic-free and waste-free to help the future of our planet.
Unilever created intrigue by drip-feeding content for months leading up to the event across its wide network of social channels. On the day of the event, Unilever, sustainable designers, NGOs and partners took to shouting on Twitter, Facebook and Unilever’s global channel Instagram account in an effort to promote the hackathon’s poignant sustainable message.
The winning group received £100,000 pounds from a crowdsourced innovation platform. Their aim was to replace single-use laundry powder sachets by introducing an affordable, plant-derived tablet that Unilever will develop and pilot across their worldwide markets. President of Unilever Home Care, Kees Kruythoff, stressed, “As a major player in the consumer goods industry, we are aware that our response is critical in setting the pace of change. This hackathon is part of our broader work with leading experts and innovators to redesign our packaging and work with the wider industry to accelerate the systemic change that is so urgently needed.”
Publicly sharing all the ideas from the event helped to maximise potential market opportunities and scale up the impact. Other highly-commended pitches included ‘Laundry on a roll’ – environmentally safe, dissolvable fabric detergent sheets; and a detergent subscription model using glass or ceramic bottles.
As one of the 250 organisations that signed a new industry-leading commitment, Unilever is taking its role in building a sustainable future seriously – and it shows. With countless sustainable initiatives in play and a solid content strategy in place, the FMCG giant recently revealed that its most sustainable brands grew a whopping 46% faster than the rest of their products, delivering 70% of its sales growth last year.
3. PepsiCo – Performance with Purpose
Alongside releasing its ambitious 2025 Agenda, food and beverage giant, PepsiCo have been building a strong sustainability initiative, Performance with Purpose, which focuses on 3 main areas: Product, Planet and People.
This global strategy underpins the commitment to the needs of the more than 200 countries and territories PepsiCo serve, including sustainable farming initiatives, cleaning the oceans, reducing greenhouse gases and even tweaking their original Pepsi formula to dramatically reduce its sugar content and calorie count. And they have no qualms sharing the great work they’re doing on social media either, from interactive Twitter videos and informative infographics to PDFs on their homepage showcasing their sustainability reports, PepsiCo is stepping it up when it comes to initiating and following through on environmentally friendly practices.
Former chief architect and CEO behind Performance with Purpose, Mrs. Indra K Nooyi, believes in the importance of, “Recognising that our success—and the success of the communities we serve in the wider world—are inextricably bound together. Today, it's more important than ever before to advance sustainability and profitability at the same time, and I'm so proud to say that's what we've been doing for more than a decade. We are stewards of a great company with the opportunity not only to make a profit but to do so in a way that makes a difference in the world.”
Going from strength to strength, PepsiCo introduced its Food for Good programme and has grown from delivering 114,000 nutritious servings in 2009 to 80 million1, cumulatively, today. They also recently invested $100 million in partnership with the PepsiCo Foundation to support initiatives to benefit 12.5 million women and girls around the world by 2025. Taking an active approach into every area of sustainability and sharing content in a transparent way, PepsiCo are now at the forefront of transforming their image into a company that’s deeply invested in Corporate Social Responsibility.
4. Starbucks – creating a happy, diverse workforce
Known for their social responsibility efforts, Starbucks made it onto Forbes List of America’s Best Employers By State in 2019. Former CEO, Howard Schultz, explained in internal communication to his employees that, “Striking the delicate balance between profit and a social conscience is a responsibility I take personally.” – and this starts with employee satisfaction.
In their offices in China, Starbucks established a new precedent by introducing a fully-sponsored critical illness insurance plan beginning with 10, 000 parents of employees, which is expected to be rolled out across the country. Starbucks is thinking holistically byhonouring family values that are deeply-rooted in Chinese culture, sharing the news across local social media content platforms such as WeChat, Weibo and Youku. Belinda Wong, Chief Executive Officer at Starbucks China, said employees’ parents, “are a natural extension of our Starbucks family in China. Through this new investment, we are stepping up on our responsibility to help our [employees] take care of their ageing parents by alleviating the financial coststhat may arise during a family emergency. Starbucks’ success in China is directly attributed to the passion and dedication of our [employees] as well as the unwavering support from their family.”
5. Taylor Stitch – one sustainable stich at a time
When it comes to sustainability messaging, you don’t have to be a corporate giant to make a lasting impression on your audience. California-based men’s clothing company, Taylor Stich, creates an engaging, compelling narrative around their sustainably-sourced and responsibly-built clothing products. Instead of your average marketing Call-To-Action (CTA) of “buy now” Taylor Stitch instead invites their customers to “fund now”
Challenging the way the clothing industry operates, this company weaves together social copy that shows they are committed to using recycled and regenerated fibres and socially responsible sourcing partners to ensure their customers know that every step of the supply chain is above board and ethical. But it doesn’t stop there, they also support fire relief efforts and create re-stitch and repair programmes that only reinforce the socially responsibility aspects of their business.
It’s hard to deny that we are now in an age of radical transparency. Instead of “Corporate Social Responsibility” being shelved as a human resource buzzword, we are now living in an environment where transparency and progressive environmental initiatives are paramount to potential and existing customers. Not communicating how socially responsible you are as a brand can directly affect your bottom line.
We are now seeing brands that effortlessly intertwine their company mission and environmental initiatives into a compelling narrative that not only builds consumer trust, but actively encourages them to be agents of social change. As Hahn-Griffiths summarises, “Creating a company that is viewed as having high corporate responsibility begins from the inside out.”