Being Bold

Many brands are taking on this mantle and running with it—embracing the “trusted leader” role and making it central to their brand identity.

Some of this activity has been bold and controversial—and widely reported. Nike, Inc.’s partnership with National Football League player Colin Kaepernick, after he took a knee to protest against racial injustice, is among the most notable.

Also noteworthy was a multi-platform marketing campaign by Airbnb, Inc. in 2016. After then-U.S. President Donald Trump temporarily closed U.S. borders to refugees, the company launched a #WeAccept campaign, including a Super Bowl commercial, “that promoted a message of ‘acceptance starts with all of us.’” It coincided with the company’s pledge to provide US $4 million to the International Rescue Committee and housing relief to 100,000 people over five years.

In addition, Airbnb unveiled an anti-discrimination policy, which it introduced as a response to reported discrimination by hosts with vacation rental listings on the platform. In 2015, a Harvard Business School study found that guests with distinctively African-American names were 16 percent less likely to be accepted by hosts, relative to identical guests with distinctively white names.

Airbnb’s subsequent change in internal policies, combined with a powerful marketing campaign, showed how seriously the company took the issue. The public heard its message. In the company’s submission to The Shorty Awards for social media content, Airbnb reported a 13 percent increase in U.S. and Canadian visitors to its Facebook and Instagram accounts in the week after the Super Bowl, and more than 15,000 volunteer hosts subsequently responded to the company’s appeal to list their homes as safe havens for refugees and survivors of natural disasters.

Some attempts to address social issues can also prompt a backlash. Nike’s campaign, for instance, was followed by a vociferous boycott from some customers, including those who posted videos of themselves burning Nike products. So why engage in these issues at all?

“A brand is often the most valuable asset that any business owns, because it represents all of that business’s values and the goodwill that it has generated through trade,” said Rigel Moss McGrath, partner and trademark attorney at HGF (UK).

She continued: “Arguably a brand with purpose is additionally valuable, because it incorporates that extra, very powerful message.”

Because They Can

For Louise Stuhr, head of Trademarks and Licensing at Chr. Hansen Holding A/S (Denmark), brands that are able to leverage their organization to do good, should.

Chr. Hansen, a bioscience company that develops natural ingredient solutions for the food, nutritional, pharmaceutical, and agricultural industries, has for four consecutive years (2018 to 2021) been listed on Corporate Knights’ Global 100, a list of the world’s 100 most sustainable corporations.

“Brands may support a responsible company’s role in helping to tackle climate change and constitute a platform for communicating the company’s commitment to the broader sustainability agenda,” explained Ms. Stuhr, who describes the “privilege” of the company’s being seen as a sustainability enabler by its customers. Chr. Hansen’s microbial solutions enable a healthier environment, leaving a “positive ‘handprint’ in society and on our planet,” she added.

However, Ms. Stuhr noted, “Being a purpose-led company with a technology platform that can help our planet and tackle societal challenges comes with a great responsibility to do well by doing good.”

The company is helping the agricultural sector, which faces the double challenge of increasing productivity while needing to reduce the sector’s environmental impact. Chr. Hansen has entered the rapidly growing plant health market and wants to get more out of land by increasing crop yields using bacteria to develop and produce natural solutions for today’s farmers.

Latin American e-commerce platform Mercado Libre, Inc. (Argentina) has a large infrastructure, which inevitably has a big environmental impact. To reduce its carbon footprint, the company has measured its carbon dioxide emissions since 2016 and introduced more sustainable elements to its shipping network, workspaces and warehouses, waste management, and packaging.

As Juan Cichero, head of brand protection at MercadoLibre (Argentina), explained: “Different brands choose different strategies to address sustainability and climate change. For MercadoLibre, the first step has been to acknowledge that the growth of our business brings new challenges and opportunities in handling our environmental impact as well as new responsibilities in creating actions to mitigate it, both internally and externally.”

Mr. Cichero said that measuring the company’s carbon footprint was the “backbone” of its environmental strategy, because it is the most efficient and the fastest way to try to implement ways to reduce it as the business develops.

He said the company can precisely measure its carbon emissions, allowing it to act in very specific ways to reduce its impact on the environment.

Brands on the Front Line

In the food and beverage sector, brands will sometimes owe their entire creation to a social or environmental purpose. One such brand, cited by Ms. McGrath as an example, is Tony’s Chocolonely (the Netherlands).

Its mission is to eradicate slavery and child labor from the cocoa industry. In West Africa, approximately 1.5 million children are working on cocoa farms, according to a 2021 study by the International Cocoa Initiative (Switzerland). An earlier study funded by Chocolonely, in 2017, found that 90 percent of the children were working illegally and approximately 30,000 had been traded as slaves.

The company’s founder, Teun (Tony) van de Keuken, was previously a journalist who investigated the issue. What he discovered inspired him to produce his own chocolate bars—and in 2007, the brand was born.

Ms. McGrath said the link between food and drink and belief buyers can be found in the phrase, “You are what you eat.”

“Most people interact with food and beverage brands every day and that enables consumers to express their beliefs from their morning coffee to their evening meal. Conscious consumers can effectively campaign for what they believe in all day, every day,” she said.

The challenge of authenticity is one all brands with a CSR message must address. Taking a stand, according to Mr. Wood, must mean “more than adopting a hashtag or posting a few pictures on Instagram.”

“It needs a committed board and leaders who will drive through change, sometimes working together,” he said. “Big statements on social issues fall flat if diversity and inclusion are not at the heart of the company, reflected in day-to-day practice and reaching even as far as the images used in marketing campaigns.”

But promoting or embodying a CSR message will not always be straightforward. Employees, shareholders, and customers may well have different values: some will care about foundational issues such as welfare or poverty, others will focus on climate change or education. And brands do not operate in a political vacuum—what is popular in one country may be illegal in another.

“When you take a stance,” Mr. Wood observed, “you will ideally be confident that the issue aligns with your strategy, that you can make a meaningful difference and your stakeholders will support you.

“The information that you present should be truthful and unbiased because the public can smell virtue disinformation and hate virtue-signalling,” he emphasized. “Finally, your messaging and how you present it should demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

For more on this topic, join With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Brands Doing Good (today, November 15, 10:45 am–11:45 am EST).

Moderator: Nick Wood, executive chairman, Com Laude (UK)

Speakers:

• Marjorie Goux, chief legal officer, Rodan & Fields, LLC (US)
• Matthias Stausberg, group advocacy director, Virgin Group (UK)
• Richard Smith, head of Distribution, Digital Partnerships, BBC Distribution & Business Development, BBC Future Media (UK)

Video courtesy of Envato Elements / StockHunter