Month: March 2016

My post yesterday looked at the way marketers and medical researchers sourced insights and sentiments from larger consumer group and used it to improve the service the provided whether it be the prescription or the types of messages being shown. This essentially is a B2C model of using data to improve outcomes by optimizing service delivery based on large scale market research.

This raises the question of how do sustainability marketers and professionals in other fields influence leaders in other organizations? This B2B context also includes internal efforts to sell decision makers into a decision.

But how many other types of professionals are focused on reducing costs, waste, increasing efficiency and have a goal of zero?

The safety professionals at WorkSafeBC.

Like any good sustainability marketer, professionals at WorkSafeBC are able to communicate a wider variety of information targeted at an incredibly diverse audience on decision makers.  There audience of decision maker leaders includes everyone because anyone can make a difference in making a workplace safer.

For example one can look at the way both groups promote their case

Furthermore a lot of thought goes into message delivery. If I want to promote workplace safety on a personal level one would create: Relevant infographics, guidance videos and online training platforms.

If I want to promote workplace sustainability on a personal level one would create: Relevant infographics, guidance videos and online training platforms.

These parallels continue to the industry level with firms forming boards to note their efforts to measure, benchmark and improve safety and sustainability.

One could always make the case that safety and sustainability are part and parcel of an organization’s enterprise risk planning as shown by McKinsey & Co.

They outline that a change maker must convince multiple parties that their interests are aligned, that the ROI is clear and that the actions required can be done; only then can they begin a credible push for change.

Getting buy from across the organization and making the changes required measurable, tangible and actionable are the most essential steps a change making marketer must do. If there is no buy in there no action, no action, no getting to zero.

As always I hope you had a great time reading this!

Cheers,

Yajur

Hey everyone I’m trying something new and wanted to see if you find this format interesting!

It is a post that involves the story of how big data used consumer search data to create targeted research questions that generated results that are changing the way doctors prescribe medication to improve.

Furthermore I make the comparison to the way marketers use digital marketing, programmatic advertising and marketing mix engagement analysis to create more effective ads.

Cheers,

Yajur

 

  

Consumers are more health sensitive and more company sensitive than ever before, the are more willing to research and change their consumption patterns based on perceived and real issues with a product due to the risks it carries.   These risks include the risk to one’s health and image. This of course raises how consumer view a corporation’s front end and product. So how would an informed consumer view and rate a corporation like PepsiCo ?

When evaluating a companies sustainability and health claims one has to look at their record of innovating on and improving the product. In PepsiCo’s case take the examples of their drive to improve the nutrition of the and reduce the salt content of their chips lines.

So it seems like PepsiCo is putting in the work. But how do you get that information across to a concerned consumer?

How do you prevent messages like these becoming top of mind?

The simplest way is via the website, but for a large and lucrative company like PepsiCo they may want to consider a more active strategy like McDonalds Our Food, Your Questions campaign.

This was an extremely successful campaign as it moved from a 4P strategy to a 4C’s of sustainability marketing strategy as it moved from a push to a pull in via 24/7 conversational engagement that was both persuasive and transparent.  In many ways it served as a model for what successful consumer engagement looks like in the 21st century.

As a marketer, part of our job is to clearly communicate the value proposition of the service or product. Part of that is crafting messages that address the needs and resonate with the values of the target audience, but more important is getting in the right place to get that message to the top of mind.

This is just a bunch of photos I gathered that I was going to use for a Green and Gray matters post that was took a different direction.

 

If you been at UBC for enough time you’ve probably had an issue come up, what trash can do I throw my trash in?

Placing an item in the wrong area leads to waste. Waste that ends up in landfills and at the end of the day is very expensive.

In fact a UBC waste audit estimated that only 9.3% of UBC’s waste was non recyclable! UBC then began to implement it Zero waste plan.

The plan puts forward the following milestones and targets:

• Implement multi-stream recycling stations and communications across campus by end of 2015, targeting food scraps collection by mid-2015.
• Increase overall diversion rates to 70 per cent diversion by 2016, and 80 per cent diversion by 2020

Luckily there have been a number of things that have help people make better decisions by increasing awareness (such as through posts like this!) and making the decision easier to make at the point of disposal.

On the decision making side UBC has reduced the number of waste streams by eliminating single type waste bins whose unsorted contents would go straight to landfill. It is also trying to make the signage clearer. In fact several faculties and building have taken this a step further like Sauder and Liu institute. However I learned that there are bin branding guidelines that faculties must follow and many of these modifications are off guide.

On one hand I understand that Sustain UBC wants to have a consistent bin look across campus but much of their own web content is often out of date (look at the 2nd paragraph). In fact the model of general guidance from the top and local ability to experiment could be based on a Green Labs style of faculty specific modifications/experiments. The key to this model is that information what works and what doesn’t is shared and used to further the goals of the program  like a postmortem conference/FailCon (2011 – Uber Case Study).

This is all very interesting because as sustainability marketers we are using behavioral psychology, design and communication to promote a noticeable change in behavior. Furthermore we use A/B/Z and iterative testing to make our impact better targeted and more effective.

Either way it looks like UBC is on its way to reach many of its sustainability goals like the Zero Waste Plan (Oct 3, 2014)!