5 minutes read: OpEd ” Doing Marketing Sustainably” featuring Toyota Motor Corporation , Lacoste & Fnac Darty + The Green Link Ecosystem Alliance’s collective of proactive forward-thinking sustainability doers : SUSXL: Sustainability. Excellence. Leadership.
Op-Ed_
Doing Marketing Sustainably
Marketing (your product or services) is the 4th domain in The Green Link’s Sustainability Strategic Framework. Time to let the world know how great what you offer is.
Brand logo placement, TV & print advertising, social media, digital marketing, launch events, limited editions…
The toolbox of Marketing is loaded with actions that carry a non-zero environmental impact – hello Scope 3 🙂
So, if you’re about to spend a significant budget on Marketing, at least let’s ensure you’re doing it sustainably or doing climate-positive good while you’re at it.
Let’s dive into some clever, thought-provoking marketing from industry leaders around the world.
1/ Toyota Motor Corporation used billboard ads to clean air pollution from cars.
Back in 2017 – yes, even back then climate positive things could be done by marketing teams – Toyota promoted its Mirai fuel cell electric vehicle in California using an eco-billboard campaign.
During the 2 months of the marketing campaign, Toyota’s Marketing team leveraged a titanium dioxide coating technology developed by the PURETI Group LLC and Clear Channel Outdoor on all billboards featuring their climate-friendly Mira vehicles to clean air pollution from car-traffic.
This specific coating reacts with the light & oxygen from the atmosphere and reverse the nitrogen dioxide (NOx) emissions of cars responsible for smog and acid-rain. During the campaign and with over 2,300 square meters deployed, Toyota’s Marketing team was able to remove the NOx emission of over 10,500 cars.
More information here about the campaign and here about the latest adoption by Convergent Print Group and MediaCo, 2 US-based large and grand-format printing.
2/ Lacoste replaced its iconic crocodile logo to raise funds for endangered species.
During Paris Fashion Week 2018, Lacoste – the French tennis fashion – partnered with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to create a limited edition of 1,775 white polo shirts featuring a Lacoste’s icon style logo of one of 10 animals currently at risk of extinction such as the Kakapo parrot or the Sumatran tiger.
Why only 1,775 shirts? Lacoste’s Marketing team decided that the number of polo shirts manufactured for each endangered species would match how many animals were still alive at the time. This is why only 231 polo shirts were created with a California condors’ logo. A scarcity and exclusivity strategy fully aligned with the brand’s marketing master plan.
This clever marketing campaign was a massive success with over and more importantly, all sales proceeding were given to IUCN to fund nature conservation projects. From a marketing perspectives here are the key results achieved:
- The shirts sold out within 24 hours
- Lacoste saw increase of 76% in new clients
- 600,000 shares on social media and over 2 billion impressions
- Lacoste fan based increased by 25% on Instagram and 10 times on Facebook.
- Donations for IUCN were multiplied by 4 during the campaign.
More information here and here.
3/ Fnac Darty created its own sustainability score based on product’s reliability, repairability & price of spare parts.
Clients always have the final say about which product to buy but if you don’t provide relevant information, how can they make the most enlightened purchasing decisions?
Since 2017 Fnac Darty a European leader in the retail of entertainment and leisure products, is supporting customers in their decision-making with insights about products’ “sustainability score”.
This sustainability score is based on hard-data about each product’s reliability (breakdown rates), repairability (the length of time spare parts are available) and the price of spare parts (price of spare parts can be a significant disincentive to repairing a device).The score is calculated for 5,000+ products, and updated based on continuous feedback from more than 2,500 field service technicians.
With ever-increasing regulatory pressure on e-waste generation as well as the EU’s focus on circular economy, Fnac-Darty’s sustainability score marketing strategy helps boost customer’s trust and loyalty towards both product manufacturers and itself as retail leader.
More information here.
SUSXL: Sustainability. Excellence. Leadership.
SUSXL stands for Sustainability, Excellence and Leadership. It is a dynamic, open collective of proactive forward-thinking sustainability leaders. Positioned at the forefront of the field, SUSXL’s mission is to push innovative thinking, cutting-edge policies and impactful action in corporate sustainability.
The landscape for sustainability executives is increasingly challenging and multi-faceted often managing a portfolio of demands and ambitions, mixed with accelerated regulation and compliance, information and data explosion, new frameworks, technology and heightened scrutiny both internally and externally.
Through a calendar of seventy on and offline talks, interviews, roundtables, seminars, podcasts, briefings, gatherings, and mini conferences, SUSXL facilitates the exchange of insights, understanding, intelligence, solutions and emerging best practice. SUSXL strives to expedite corporate action and effective policy with a commitment to positive change at an accelerated pace.
Join our mission. Follow us on linkedin.com/company/susxl. Visit susxl.com for more information.
