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brand transparency- patagonia (39.53264411091661 , -119.78668212890625) It might be tempting for a brand that's built a reputation for environmental concerns to rest on its laurels and continue on with the same old strategy.

However, that's not the case with Patagonia, who despite building a brand that's focused on supporting the environment, it's recently turned its attention to the eco-footprints of its products.

There's a dedicated space on its website that examines the footprints of four of its products.



While this is a very limited selection of its total SKUs, the manner and honesty in which the information is presented is refreshing for the following reasons.

1. It explores the breadth of the issue from materials to transportation

2. They acknowledge that things aren't perfect

3. They highlight the fact they want to improve

4. They encourage others to comment

5. The translate the impact into language we can all understand- the energy to produce a rain jacket is the same as leaving a regular lightbulb on constantly for 42 days!!

It would be good to see other brands follow Patagonia's lead.


Posted by Ed Cotton With the continuing momentum behind all things green and environmental, the issue of standards is becoming more and more important.

There's a growing feeling that there need to be objective measures to help people understand what's a good thing and a right thing.

In the last few years, the LEED rating for buildings was often highlighted as a great example.

However, recently the tide has turned against LEED, witness this amazing example relating to San Francisco's new Federal Building.

"Too damn ahead of its time, the systems used for environmental control in the Fed Building are so innovative that they have yet to be considered so by the overly-prescriptive commandments of Green. The Green Buildings Council, however, claim that LEED is a work-in-progress, and have consented to take the next few months to reevaluate the Federal Building. Hopefully they'll continue to update their requirements so that LEED becomes less of an pocket industry encouraging architects to "tack on" expensive third-party features and more of an impetus for carefully conceived, environmentally-integrated designs."

SF Curbed

The whole area of standards is something that needs serious thought and investment.

Is government going to lead this?

Industry associations?

It's really unclear who is going to take responsibility and the longer the wait, the more confusion and the more cynicism.

Everyone agrees that environment is the critical issue, but we need more effort to measure.




Posted by Ed Cotton It's now a given that most multinationals are paying at least some attention to their ethical performance.

With the environment becoming such a big issue, the area of corporate responsibility is going to be under the microscope even more than in the past.

The problem is that there's very little performance measurement and comparative auditing between companies.

There are surveys and polls, but it's hard to find anything else that challenges and compares company standards.

It was therefore interesting to be send a press release from Covalence in Switzerland, who have been measuring and ranking companies on the their ethical performance for the past 3 years.

The company tracks performance by examining a variety of sources including the companies themselves, news media and non-profit organizations.

Covalence has just released its performance data for 2007 and there are some interesting findings.

The company provides three rankings.

1. Best Ethical Quote Score (positive minus negative news)

2. Best Ethical Progress

3. Best Reported Performance (How the company presents itself)

It's interesting and something of a challenge for US companies to see the foreigners, Unilever, Toyota and HSBC leading the way, with HP, Alcoa and Starbucks trailing in their wake.

On a cynical note, the US companies do a rather good job at talking up their own performance with Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola emerging as the leaders in that category.



Covalence also found that in 07, the environmental impact of production, eco product innovation and anti-corruption policy were the leading areas of ethical responsibility.

In addition to the annual report, Covalence provides real-time tracking of ethical peformance.

Useful if you manage an ethical funds or work in the CSR or PR department.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, audits and quality standards are going to emerge as an important issue for the environment and corporate ethics this and its good to see someone attempting to provide some comparative data.





Posted by Ed Cotton I am not going to try and match JWT’s list of 80 things, but here are 8 things that I believe will be preoccupying our minds in 08.

1.Slowdown?

The terrible “R” word is everywhere, with Wall Street looking nervously at every seemingly contradictory figure. It’s clear there are massive issues with housing and personal debt doesn’t look so great. The impact on communication spend is obvious and it looks like its time for people to dust off all those famous papers and books about the importance of brands spending during a downturn.

2.Attention Spikes

It’s now clear that agencies are competing on something of a level playing field in the war for attention. They don’t have the luxury of just hoping to be best ad in the pod or best in the break; it’s now about the most viral idea of the moment on any medium. It's now clear that television isn't the only way to do this. This year, Fallon’s Gorilla for Cadbury and Crispin’s Whopper Freakout showed us how.

Interestingly, although the campaigns had similar goals to spike attention, they approached it in very different ways. Fallon went all out for entertainment based on the strategic premise of joy and Crispin integrated the product into the heart of the idea.

Look for more of this type of thinking in 08; more media neutral ideas, more shock, and more entertainment from brands looking for attention.

3.Brands and The Social Network

The role of brands is the big question hanging over Facebook and all its competitors. It’s clear that advertising can and will continue to exist on these platforms in the form of links and banners, but the networks are promising brands an opportunity to be a part of the conversation. Certainly, there will be opportunities for the right brand, if the product is interesting and relevant enough.

There are two viable routes currently open:

a.To build or buy an application that adds tremendous value to the community and is discretely branded
b.To create a brand page that offers content to fans that is unavailable anywhere else on the Internet.

Brands will be trying feverishly to crack the code on both these areas in 08.

4.Collaboration

Collaboration will be the word of 08, with more layers of complexity being added to communication plans everyday, collaboration has become an essential component of success. It’s no longer possible for a duo of authors to crack the code on everything. Success will come to those who turn collaboration into an art, seamlessly blending media, creative thinking, digital outside partners and clients into the mix. This is all about culture and the willingness to learn and experiment.

Black Swan thinking is required.

5.The Digital Holy Grail

With content being unleashed and re-distributed across the internet, banners seemingly becoming less effective and all the questions about pre-roll, it’s unclear exactly what options brands have on the web. The build your own big website and expect people to visit theory isn’t necessarily a winner, unless you can do something interesting with it. It’s clear that those brands that are “Attention Spiking” should have a digital component to their efforts and then there’s the whole idea of Brand Utility.

How can a brand build something that helps people out in a way that they aren’t being helped already? 

This is the Holy Grail and something that requires an incredible force of thinking.

6.Environmentalism is Dead

It’s clear the issue of the environment is now mainstream, but the big question is what happens next? It’s likely that the biggest problem is going to come from separating the fact from the fiction. The more consumers and industry learn, the more complex the questions become and it’s not always clear what solutions are best or better.

The uncertainty will have a damaging impact on the issue with consumers and brands feeling paralyzed over choices.

The next phase of the environmental movement will revolve around the establishment of standards and practices that gain widespread acceptance.

We’ve already seen some of the impact things like LEED standards for buildings can have and we are starting to see carbon audits developing to a point where they can become standardized. 2008 will be a tricky year for those looking to push green credentials for all the reasons listed above.

The smartest brands will be looking to do two things this coming year:

a.    Take real action-do things that are measurable and have an impact
b.    Look at the issue as one of social responsibility and not just the environment

7.What the Hell Are We Measuring- ROI?

Media measurement has always been a questionable issue ever since the day it was invented. Methodologies and samples have been picked over and analyzed. This is not going away, but as more layers of media get added to the mix, you start to multiply the complexity. This issue is far from being solved and the conversation keeps changing, often to the benefit of the media owner. Surely, brands spending billions of dollars a year on communication should understand what’s working on a cross media basis? Again, this is an area where new standards and new tools are urgently needed and we are likely to see the emergence of some in 2008.

Interestingly, many of these will be proprietary, as global agencies and clients use their muscle to build their own, instead of waiting for industry bodies and research houses to get up to speed.

8. A Year for Mobile

The success of the iPhone in 07 showed everyone a new vision for the mobile device. Elegant, simple and designed with the user in mind, it gave everyone the chance to see a future where television, video, The Internet and location specific information could be used on a mobile device. 2008 will see Apple build upon this with a 3G version of the phone that offers high-speed access and GPS functionality. The race is now on to develop mobile applications for brands that benefit the user. The issue isn’t too different from the Social Network, privacy and personal space are of critical importance in the mobile environment and brands will abuse that at their peril.

Clearly, there’s massive appeal for location-specific applications that link brands to users and perhaps their social network as well. It’s likely we will see some interesting first moves in this space in 2008 from the fast food chains and the big retail brands. The iTunes, iPhone and Starbucks initiatve in 2007, is a taste of things to come.

Posted by Ed Cotton There seem to be no limits to Radiohead's cultural impact; all the headlines for the name your own price album, the upcoming New Year's concert on Current TV and Johnny Greenwood getting critical aclaim for his soundtrack to the movie of the moment, PT Anderson's "There Will Be Blood".

In additon, to all this the band has recently undertaken an audit of its touring practices with the objective of reducing the band's carbon footprint.(the audit can be downloaded here)

Here's what they found.

• Fan travel and consumption made up 86% of the Theatre tour and 97% of the Amphitheatre tour.
  
• Of the band’s touring impact – Travel and energy use accounted for 60% (Theatre tour) and ~40% (Amphitheatre tour)
  
• International travel accounted for a further 34 – 40% of impacts.

Short of no-one coming to see us, we’d like to share with our fans some ways of reducing this – our early research suggests that how you come to our shows can significantly reduce the tour’s carbon output. To help achieve better results, we’re trying to play as many shows as possible in city centres because of their better transport links. From the Best Foot Forward report, the rough figures below give you an example of how much of a difference you can make.


It's a good example of the environment playing an important role as a cultural issue. Clearly, the band isn't going to stop touring, but they are looking at ways of reducing their impact. This makes sense if you are Radiohead or even a brand on the grocery shelves. There can be no harm in taking a look at working out your impact, the challenge is once you've measured it, to work out what you are going to do about it.

In 2008, environmental statements from brands are going to come under increasing scrutiny.

Many brands are hoping that consumer fatigue will give them the chance to do nothing, others will take the opposite view and focus on real actions as a way to demonstrate their sense of responsibility.

Measuring your carbon footprint is a good start.


Posted by Ed Cotton I am sure the World Wildlife Fund welcomes Coca-Cola's financial support to save the seemingly endangered polar bear.

Obviously, Coke feels they owe the polar bear something, it’s been an icon for over 50 years and CAA made it into something big for the brand over a decade ago.

However, the more you think about it the more absurd the idea of Coca-Cola’s support becomes.

Perhaps the kindest thing Coke should be doing for the bears, is to take a thorough look at its carbon footprint especially with regard to the transportation of its products.

Thankfully, Coca-Cola is doing something, at least, according to the Corporate Responsibility section of its website, but to save the bears it might need to being doing more.

“Beverage concentrate is largely shipped to bottling operations by sea, while finished beverages are mostly transported by road to distributors and retail customers. The environmental impacts of the transportation of our product -- whether by land or by sea -- result from fuel consumption, exhaust emissions and maintenance.

We are working to conserve fuel in our fleet of approximately 200,000 diesel vehicles through the introduction of idle-reduction and biodiesel technologies, which can also help reduce emissions. We also have begun use of diesel-electric hybrid trucks in select markets.

In 2006, a two-year test run of bottling partner Coca-Cola Enterprises' (CCE) new diesel-electric hybrid truck revealed a 32 percent improvement in fuel economy. With CCE, we also put into place a way of systematically evaluating and promoting energy-saving fleet technologies for replication throughout the entire Coca-Cola system.”



Posted by Ed Cotton