STRIVE FOR AUTHENTICITY
No one expects companies to be perfect. But we expect them to be real. As companies face pressure to be accurate and credible in their sustainability marketing, authenticity has become critical.
“Marketing has to be rooted in actual impact,” says Dr. Arlo Brady, CEO of Freuds. “You can’t just do a survey to work out what sustainability issues your customers are most interested in and then suddenly lean into those issues. You’ve got to sit down and think about the impact of your product or service, and focus on the issues that are material.”
BE HONEST ABOUT WHERE PROGRESS HAS BEEN MADE AND WHERE THERE IS STILL WORK TO BE DONE
“You should acknowledge the progress you are making,” says Miguel Veiga-Pestana, former chief sustainability officer of Reckitt. “But you should also acknowledge the challenges you are facing.”
“Audiences are looking for authenticity, and for companies to show they are really trying to make a positive contribution.”
Tracy Waxman Head of brand and marketing communication, Zurich Insurance
PRACTICAL EXAMPLES ARE MOST LIKELY TO RESONATE WITH AUDIENCES
“We believe in story-doing rather than story-telling,” says Karen Ngui, managing director and head of group strategic marketing and communications at DBS. “We’ve demonstrated it through real-life stories about real situations where we’ve helped a customer and gone the extra mile. So it’s authentic and it resonates well internally as well as externally.”
IT IS DANGEROUS FOR COMPANIES TO TELL STORIES IF THEY CANNOT DEMONSTRATE TANGIBLE IMPACTS
“You can’t tell a story about your impact unless you’re actually having an impact,” says Denielle Sachs, senior director and global lead at APCO Impact. “There’s a real disconnect between ‘tell’ and ‘do’, and we’ve got to close that gap now for companies to be able to lead authentically and use impact and sustainability as core parts of their strategy. It can’t just be telling a story — you’ve got to make good on those promises.”
“Where companies most often go wrong is that they don’t talk about the elephant in the room. The key is to do the homework first, identify the big issue and then lean into that and talk about it.”
Dr. Arlo Brady Chief executive officer, Freuds