Communications and Marketing

"Powered By BP"? — The New Republic Is Actually Powered By Readers

Thursday, April 17, 2008 / KW

If you keep tabs on media coverage of the environment, you may have heard about the recent about-face at The New Republic regarding its new blog focusing on energy and the environment. When the blog was first launched a week and a half ago, it bore the logo and message, "Powered by BP," representing sponsorship by the somewhat controversial UK oil company. It was the only portion of the magazine's website to bear such a logo (though advertising not linked to any particular magazine feature does appear elsewhere on the site).

Readers protested, the blog's chief writer wrote a post explaining his own discomfort with the sponsorship, and within hours the other shoe dropped. The following note appeared on the blog:

You may notice that this blog looks a little different. The phrase "powered by BP," which appeared in the banner when we launched yesterday, led to some (justifiable) confusion about the blog's relationship with BP. But TNR's agreement with BP was and is purely an advertising deal, and the company never had any say in our editorial content. Today, the TNR business staff and BP decided to remove their logo placement to make sure that relationship is clear.

It's an interesting story that illustrates yet again the great and growing power of grassroots stakeholders — in this case, the readers of The New Republic — to force companies to back down from policies or practices of which they don't approve.

What I find most interesting, however, is the reason those readers objected to the BP sponsorship. It wasn't, apparently, any fear that BP would be dictating or influencing the content of the blog. Writer Bradford Plumer had addressed this issue in his post expressing concerns about the relationship, titled with disarming frankness, "Are We in the Tank?" His answer, obviously, was no — and judging by the comments he received, most readers accepted it.

No, what bothered the readers was the possible impact of the sponsorship on BP itself. As a commenter known as Nippers wrote:

The danger for T[he] N[ew] R[epublic] is not so much that BP will influence its writers as that TNR will lend BP integrity and eco-cred. Running BP ads would be one thing. But pinning that little petrochemical boutonniere to the web site's lapel — well, it's a mistake the magazine would do well to reconsider.

In other words, readers of The New Republic for whom the magazine's reputation is important were upset with the idea that that reputation would provide a little borrowed luster to an oil company.

Imagine — a group of customers who care more about the halo effect of the company's reputation than the company itself does! And one that pays close enough attention to the behavior of firms in other industries (like energy) to consider itself capable of judging which companies are and are not suitable business associates for a magazine they respect.

Now that's what you call an active, involved set of stakeholders. The New Republic did the right thing by reversing the sponsorship plan so quickly. If you're lucky enough to attract customers who care that much about what you do, you'd better treat them with respect — as the business partners they are.

Technophobia and Religion: Can Businesses Overcome the "God Gap"?

Thursday, February 28, 2008 / KW

Maybe you noticed this curious item in the front pages of the March 3rd Business Week (no link to this story):

In a recent poll, only 30% of 1,015 Americans said they morally approved of nanotechnology — the engineering of matter at the molecular level to create everything from slice-resistant golf balls to cancer drugs. That's much lower than the results of similar surveys in key nanotech markets like Britain (54%), Germany (63%), and France (72%), notes Dietram Scheufele, a University of Wisconsin life sciences professor who ran the U.S. poll. He believes the approval gap is due to religion's "important role" in America. On both sides of the ocean, he says, many who identified themselves as religious objected to the idea of altering molecules.

I found the story weird because I've heard so little in the mainstream media about nanotechnology — and certainly nothing that would stir fears of Frankensteinish nanobots running amok. (By contrast, genetically engineered foods have gotten a lot more negative publicity — to say nothing of the hotly controversial stem cell research.)

When I did a little further reading on the poll, I became even more puzzled, especially when I read a comment from Professor Scheufele to the effect that the popular opposition to nanotechnology is not due to ignorance about the technology but rather to religiously-based objections: "The issue isn't about informing these people. They are informed."

What does this mean? Are we to believe that there are large numbers of devout Christians who are deeply knowledgeable about nanotechnology and have developed thoughtful theological arguments against it? The idea struck me as rather implausible — so much so that I emailed Professor Scheufele for further information.

The articles the professor linked me to did a lot to clear up the mystery. Turns out that one of the things Scheufele and his colleagues studied was whether knowledge about nanotechnology is correlated with positive attitudes toward it; and another was how religious belief affects this relationship. As explained in a forthcoming article in Public Understanding of Science, co-authored by Scheufele, Dominique Brossard, and Eunkyung Kim,

...highly religious respondents...showed the lowest levels of support for funding for nanotechnology; and being more knowledgeable about nanotechnology did little to influence their support for funding. For less religious individuals, however, our data showed a strong link between knowledge about nanotechnology and greater support for nanotechnology funding.

In other words, to know about nanotechnology is to love it — unless you are religious, in which case you hate it whether you know anything about it or not. (I'm oversimplifying, but you get the point.)

I find this story slightly depressing. It suggests that the U.S. contains, at the moment, a large, essentially irreducible minority of people who reflexively oppose new technologies, fear them, and express these fears in moral terms. For these people, scientific innovation is equated with "playing God" or "tampering with nature," and they assume that there is something sinister about technology unless the opposite can somehow be convincingly demonstrated.

The apparent link between technophobia and religious sentiment suggests specific issues that business people need to address.

If you're in charge of public relations at Monsanto, Dow, Schering-Plough, Amgen, or any other company that is in the business of marketing technological breakthroughs, you ought to consider creating a department for religious outreach. Talk to theologians, including some conservative ones, and work on developing an appropriate, non-scientific, spiritual language for explaining what you do — perhaps describing technology in terms like "human stewardship of creation" and its benefits as "blessings produced by God's gift of reason."

And devote resources to making connections with religious leaders, especially in the United States. When future public battles are fought over issues like technology regulation and funding, you'll probably want to have some well-informed, open-minded, and widely-trusted pastors on your side.

In this day and age, it may seem strange that these strategies are necessary — but evidently they are.

The Other Side of Greenwashing — "Greenmuting"

Wednesday, December 26, 2007 / KW

As the debate over what is or is not greenwashing continues (our contribution to the discussion can be found here), Scot Case of TerraChoice points out this thought-provoking post by Bob Langert on the McDonalds corporate blog:

I agree there are dangers associated with environmental marketing, but I actually think many companies are reluctant to talk about their environmental efforts because they are concerned they will only be met with criticism. After all, true progress is hard to define, and achieving perfection on the environmental front is impossible, because there will always be ways to improve.

But not talking about environmental efforts, or "greenmuting", can be a sin as well.

Langert goes on to provide his own list of the "Six Sins of Greenmuting," which basically involve companies' reluctance to publicly engage environmental issues at all out of fears they will get burned. As Langert, in effect, points out, as pressures to be socially and environmentally responsible continue to mount, you are likely to get burned sooner or later, one way or another; but if you get out in front of the issue and communicate freely about your honest efforts to do the right thing, the burns you suffer will almost surely be less severe and faster-healing (to push the "burning" metaphor perhaps one step too far).

An interesting case in point comes from the blog of hotelier Bill Marriott. Marriott recently wrote about his company's efforts to make their corporate headquarters greener, involving recycling, energy conservation, and other initiatives.

What's interesting is that Marriott's post has drawn a few dozen comments — some of them thanking Marriott for his company's environmental efforts, but others offering criticisms from every possible direction. Some complain that the headquarters building is just the tip of the corporate iceberg ("How about the thousands of hotel rooms that leave lights on! As a Platinum client (over 100 nights a year... mostly Toronto Airport) I found out that all lights and music in your suites are put on at 2pm!!"); others say that customers ought to receive some of the financial benefits from environmental cost-saving ("Please put your money where your mouth is — if you want your customers to save water, than show them some green!"); others worry that worthy issues such as comfort may be getting short shrift ("Look at the way the poor soul in the picture is sitting. Can someone please find him a keyboard tray, with a proper mouse surface. Why not green and healthy — that's the ticket!"); and still others disdain the whole concept ("the efforts to reduce greenhouse gases is misguided and ill informed. The latest research does not point to man as the cause of a changing climate, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change and Mr. Gore's film notwithstanding").

If I were Bill Marriott, my reaction to this barrage of often-contradictory advice might well be to throw up my hands and wonder, "If this is what I get for trying to do the right thing, why do I bother?"

But of course that would be a short-sighted and counter-productive reaction — though perfectly human and understandable. And to Marriott's credit, I see no sign that he or his company are in fact responding that way.

I think they recognize this as one of the perennial truths of business (and of life): Anything good you do quickly gets taken for granted, and the conversation is always about "What's the next good thing you are going to do for us?" The only way to avoid criticism — well-founded or not — is to do nothing at all. And where's the fun in that?

How To Respond To The Coming Turmoil In China? Going Green Is A Good Place To Start

Saturday, November 17, 2007 / AS

Perhaps you saw this week's story in The Wall Street Journal about how protesters are gearing up for the Olympic Games and what sponsoring companies are doing about it. Short version: Most companies are focusing on "going green":

Coke is playing up its water-conservation efforts on the Yangtze River and putting natural-refrigerant coolers and vending machines at all Olympic sites. Since March, Volkswagen has been planting thousands of trees in Inner Mongolia. GE is touting its role selling ecofriendly products such as solar-power and water-filtration systems for the Olympic venues.

By concentrating on the environment, companies can show they are acting responsibly and score points with the Chinese government while avoiding politically charged issues such as Taiwan or Darfur, PR executives say. Mr. [Richard] Edelman [of Edleman Public Relations] calls it a "win-win" situation.

A close reading of the article indicates that the most vehement and well-organized protests may actually be focused on human rights and other non-environmental issues. Which does mean that companies need to have that part of the sustainability agenda under control in terms of having appropriate policies, procedures, and programs in place.

But companies are right to focus on the environment for several reasons.

Dirty air will have an impact on the games themselves and on the athletes, whereas human rights and other issues will be at one step removed. The human rights activists will be trying to draw connections to the games, but the athletes and spectators are most likely to be talking about the environment and will have every good reason to do so. They will not seem like agitators serving some other, unrelated interest.
The media will thus be talking about the environmental problems as part of the daily coverage of the overall "Olympic Story." Bad air is likely to affect the performances (think marathon), and it will be easy for the media to follow that angle and go deeper. Unlike human rights and even contaminated toys (the regime will make certain that there are no child laborers or contaminated toys within 1,000 miles of the Games!) there are easy, accessible visuals — smog, belching factories, traffic congestion — that will tell the story. It's the easiest story by far with no investigation and little explanation required. Also, bad air and possibly water (the foreign athletes may not be drinking from the taps) may well make this Olympics different from any other, and the media loves that.
Of course, all of this plays into the two biggest stories of the decade: China and climate change.
Then there is the political side of the environmental issue. Never having been to China, I have no real idea how big, strong and deep the environmental movement is there. (Elizabeth Economy's book on the subject, which my writing partner Karl Weber happened to work on, is probably a good place to start in learning about that topic.) But my guess is that the Olympics, and the presence of the international media, will give that movement plenty of cover, not to mention the international environmental activists who will be at the head of the parade. It will be hard for the government to arrest them all, if they do join hands. They would look really bad if they just arrested the locals, and even worse if they put the foreigners in the clink. And if there are protests and arrests that just gives the media an even bigger story to cover.
Finally, I think the human rights activists may understand all of this, and may rally behind the environment as a wedge issue. That's what happened in Hungary — the democracy movement rallied and prevailed around environmental concerns related to the planned construction of a large hydroelectric dam. In so doing, they served their broader political goals — undermining the power and authority of an autocratic central government, and demonstrating to the public that they could affect change if they chose to do so.

For all these reasons, a green focus is a very reasonable strategy for sponsoring companies to use in dealing with the challenges of China 08.

Sustainability Talk, Corporate and Otherwise

Thursday, August 23, 2007 / KW

Some housekeeping notes:

Just did a quick update on our blogroll. We've deleted a couple of sites that appear to have gone dormant. Also added a new one, My Green Element, which casts a wide net in tracking interesting developments from around the world regarding the interface between business and the environment — well worth a visit.

On another front, we've been following some official corporate blogs that focus on sustainability issues — specifically, topics related to environmental and social responsibility. We'll be reporting on corporate blogs we consider interesting and revealing (even if unintentionally so), and are considering adding a blogroll section to list them.

Among the companies whose sustainability blogs we've so far discovered are Intel, GE, HP, Johnson & Johnson, and McDonalds. If you're familiar with others, whether good or bad, please let us know, either in the comment section or by sending us an email via the link at upper right.

One last point, regarding commenting on this blog. It is easy to do and does not require any special registration. If you happen to have a Blogger or Google account, you can log in using that name and password, but it's not necessary. Others can click on the "Other" button and comment to their heart's content, giving as much or as little identifying data as they choose.

Of course we reserve the right to moderate comments and may do so if trolling or spamming rear their ugly heads, but so far there have been no problems. Let's face it, we in the sustainability community are a bunch of sweethearts!

Even an Olympic Fanfare Can't Drown Out China Protests

Wednesday, August 22, 2007 / KW

I asked Andy about what topics we ought to be writing about more on this blog, and in response he sent me this email:

I always get questions on the lecture circuit about how companies in this country [i.e. the United States] can afford to be more sustainable or more responsible when they have to compete with low-cost goods and services provided by China and the rest of the developing world.

The first point I make is to refer to one of your initial posts about how globalization means that China and the others can't get away with bad practices for long if they are planning to export to us.

The second point I make is that the chickens are coming home to roost, even faster than I would have expected. Last week, for example, there was an article in The Times about how American toy manufactures are having a resurgence because of the China toy recalls. You might want to link to the piece ... just don't quote the whole bloody thing.

(Andy thinks I have a habit of quoting too much from the stories I link to. In deference to him I'll link to the Times story, but I won't quote a single word. Read the whole thing if you like. Seems as if retailers and consumers are happy enough to pay higher prices for toys when the cheaper alternative products are coated in poisonous paint...)

But speaking of chickens coming home to roost, it seems as if an entire blog about sustainability could be written using nothing but stories from China. Between Darfur, child labor, censorship, and capital punishment — not to mention rampant pollution, product piracy, and, now, shoddy manufacturing practices — it seems as if being linked with China is an increasingly dangerous corporate strategy.

At the same time, there's no doubt that China is a rising world power than no global corporation can afford to ignore. What to do?

Today I encountered this good column about the issue from consultant David Wolf. I'll quote him — sparingly enough for Andy's taste, I hope:

Several things set the Olympics apart. The Olympics is global. It covers a wide range of sports. It is a pinnacle event, meaning that in most of the sports involved you can reach no higher than Olympic champion. It occurs every four years.

But there is one more thing that, in the mind of sponsors, sets the Olympics on a higher plane than even the Superbowl, The World Series, or the World Cup. It is the unspoken conviction that the Olympics is somehow the last form of pure athletic endeavour, and that supporting the Olympics is somehow a good thing, in and of itself.

But any company (and I guarantee you, there will be a few in the coming months) that attempts to frame their support of the Olympics as some form of corporate social responsibility should be publicly ridiculed. Olympic sponsorship is a marketing exercise, pure and simple, and should be universally acknowledged as such.

It's an excellent point. Wolf goes on to stress that any company associated with the 2008 games needs to make sure it has in place a robust sustainability program focused specifically on its China practices. The best possible response to protestors who want to attack your corporation for its sponsorship of the Beijing games is to be able to point to your policies that are bringing concrete assistance to Chinese workers, children, human rights activists, and other worthy beneficiaries. Without such a response, protestations about your good intentions as a partner of China and a supporter of the Games will ring hollow.

One last point: Although many of us assume that the "commercialization" and "politicization" of the Olympic Games — along with the attendant controversies — are recent phenomena, that's simply not true. Corporate sponsorship has been a feature of the modern Olympics since their founding in 1896. And as for controversy — well, one of the sponsors of the infamous 1936 Berlin Olympics was none other than Coca-Cola.

How's that for a corporate affiliation — to be linked forever in history with the likes of Hitler, Goebbels, and Leni Riefenstahl? It might take a brand as powerful as Coke's to shrug off that kind of publicity.

So if you're a corporate manager trying to figure out how to position your company in today's interconnected, globalized world, don't feel too sorry for yourself. The problems you're wrestling with may be thornier than ever, but they're scarcely brand new ... if that's any comfort.

John Mackey and Corporate Transparency — The Risky, Essential Value

Saturday, July 28, 2007 / KW

This isn't a blog devoted to corporate communications, public relations, or business transparency. But all those topics are deeply intertwined with the theme of sustainability.

As we explain in our book, sustainability today is about doing business in an interconnected world and paying attention — not just lip service — to the responsibilities that entails. And in an interconnected world, you can't afford not to communicate with all your stakeholders. You need to listen to them, learn from their gripes and demands, and work with them to create meaningful improvements in the way you operate. And you need to talk back to them, presenting your side of controversies honestly and clearly, and claiming your fair share of credit for the genuinely good things you do.

For these reasons, we pay a lot of attention to how well corporations connect with the world around them. A few do a great job. Most, not so great. And one of the weirder current stories of bobbled communication efforts involves one of America's otherwise more responsible, sustainable companies — Whole Foods.

As you've probably heard by now, Whole Foods' founder and CEO, John Mackey, has gotten caught up in controversy over a series of unfortunate communications missteps. They include his vocal complaints about what he perceives as biased enforcement of the antitrust laws by the FTC (seeking to block Whole Foods' merger with Wild Oats while approving other similar acquisitions) and his posting of scores of pseudonymous messages on a Yahoo chat site that lauded Whole Foods and dissed the future prospects of Wild Oats.

Mackey has apologized to shareholders for his indiscretions, but this hasn't deflected an ongoing SEC probe into whether his postings violated corporate disclosure rules, as well as a wave of criticism from various watchdog groups and commentators ("monumental poor judgment," in the words of Nell Minow).

With this background, we were interested to read a recent Fortune magazine interview with Mackey in which he sounded a defiant note about not allowing his own CEO blog to be silenced, despite the controversies swirling around him. When the interviewer questioned Mackey about "the proper role for a CEO's blog," he responded:

I don't want to say what the proper role for a CEO's blog is. We want to communicate as honestly as we can. I am talking about the things I most care about. I don't do what other bloggers do. I don't post all the time. The great thing about blogging is that I don't need you journalists to interpret me anymore.

Strong, forthright language, and for those of us who believe in the value of transparency, rather heartening. But then we tried logging on to Mackey's blog to read his latest honest, spin-free comments on business. And here's what we found:

Dear Stakeholders,

A Special Committee of our Board of Directors' is conducting an independent internal investigation into online financial message board postings related to Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats Markets. In light of this, it is in the best interest of the company to temporarily hold off on posting on my Company blog. The ability to post comments to this blog will be disabled during this time as well. I look forward to resuming our conversations and plan on being in touch with you again soon.

Best regards,
John

So much for Mackey's experiment in unfettered corporate honesty — at least for the time being.

It would be a mistake, however, for CEOs to conclude that the Mackey saga demonstrates the folly of striving for transparency. If anything, the lesson is just the opposite. Mackey's mistake was hiding his identity behind a false identity while promulgating messages that served his own interests and those of Whole Foods. It wasn't transparency but opacity that got him in trouble.

The World Wide Web makes it possible to communicate anonymously (as the famous cartoon says, "On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog"). But anonymity is a luxury that company chieftains can't afford to indulge. If you're a business leader, you're a public figure, and you need to behave like one. That means taking responsibility not only for your actions but also for your words, whether you're being interviewed on CNN or typing an off-the-cuff blog posting in your pajamas at 2 a.m.

Are there risks involved in taking this attitude? Absolutely. But trying to elude responsibility for the messages you send is even more risky — as John Mackey and Whole Foods have discovered.

Nuclear Industry Notices Once Again That Publicity Is a Two-Edged Sword

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 / KW

Hmm — from a P.R. perspective, it can't be good news for the nuclear power companies to have a Fortune magazine cover story lauding the revival of your industry hit the newsstands the same week as the release of a movie about America's most-famous and least-competent nuclear power plant employee! With your industry finally back in the spotlight, Homer Simpson is not exactly the image you want to present to the world.

But I'm not worried. These things have a way of evening out. I'm sure some competent writer on a utility company payroll is already working on a movie script starring Tom Hanks as an heroic nuclear plant worker — preferably with a fanatical environmentalist as the chief villain...

Buying Our Way to a Cleaner World?

Monday, July 09, 2007 / MT

A recent article in the New York Times addressed the conundrum that increasing eco-consciousness among consumers has led to a buying spree of “green” products. While substituting organic, fair-trade, locally-made, or otherwise morally-righteous products for regular purchases is an incremental improvement over what we’ve been doing, many argue that it’s not enough. They say that buying less stuff is closer to the answer.

Another school of thought says that making it “hip to be green” is the only way to get sustainability out of the crunchy-granola niche and into the mainstream. And since buying less is a hard sell in terms of hip-ness, making cool new eco-products is our best shot at moving in the right direction. GOOD Magazine is an example of that zeitgeist.

So what’s a manager to do, in an economy awash with signals that growth is imperative?

For one, make sure that the environmental benefits you’re touting are both real and significant. Keep in mind the “if everybody did this” mentality; i.e., if everybody bought an “Eco-McMansion” where would we be in the long run? Certainly not somewhere clean and green and naturally preserved.
Use the fad-factor carefully. Generating an eco-buzz around a new product can be great for marketing and sales, but be sure to look at your message critically — before someone else does. Can activists accuse you of over-doing the hype for a fundamentally unsustainable product? Anticipate their stances early.
Combine eco-product development with meaningful actions to reduce your company’s environmental footprint – to save paper, energy, biodiversity, and so on in your business operations. If your company can go beyond the selling-more-stuff mentality, you’ll fare better with both consumers and environmental advocates in the long run.
Even in cleaning up your own house, keep in mind that product substitutions are not always sufficient. For example: rather than just buying offsets for corporate air travel, try to reduce unnecessary travel or to use trains between nearby cities.

Your green products may be selling great right now, but over the long run you’ll be glad you were ahead of the pack in going beyond green consumerism. Already, some environmental advocates are claiming that “green consumerism is an oxymoronic phrase,” and others are rejecting consumerism itself for alternatives like freeganism, community-supported agriculture (CSA), and gift economies like freecycle.

If managers do indeed want to keep selling more stuff, especially to the growing number of environmentally-aware “consumers” (or potential consumers), they’ll need to do more than simply make eco-themed products. They’ll need to find real ways to help would-be consumers reduce their own environmental footprints, and they’ll need to walk the talk in their own business processes.

The China Olympics: Watching the Watchers and the Perils of Corporate Sponsorship

Friday, June 29, 2007 / AS

Browse the web for any Fortune 500 company followed by the word "watch," and you will find websites devoted to overseeing the company's activities. Use an expletive following the name and sites appear detailing grievances that run from reasonable to far-fetched to demented. (If you haven't already scanned the web for hostile sites aimed at your company, you should try it soon — just be sure to have the antacids within reach before you start.)

Olympic Watch is a recent addition to the watch sites. Dubbed the "Genocide Olympics" by human rights activists who have their eyes on China — for its role in Darfur, not to mention child and slave labor, capital punishment, forced evictions, political repression, and denial of free speech — the site aims to put pressure on Olympic sponsors to speak out against the host country's human rights abuses.

Putting pressure on the authorities directly may be hopeless, but associating big corporate brands with China's denial of basic human rights, might just work. Pressure on business to leave South Africa eventually worked to end apartheid, so why not oppressive practices in China?

The time is right: People in the United States are very upset with China right now, not primarily for human rights violations, but for lead paint on toy trains, poisonous toothpaste, contaminated food and a general concern that China might just grow bigger and faster than us.

So it's a good time to turn up the heat on human rights.

Sponsoring companies will maintain they can't be held responsible for the actions of the Chinese government. But that's like saying that you can’t be held responsible for poisonous toothpaste or child labor simply because you outsourced the manufacture to a third party. If your logo is on the product, it doesn't matter that the culpable party is a separate legal entity, or even a sovereign government. Just ask Nike. Or any of the companies that are under pressure on Darfur.

Corporate managers should be aware that:

Your company can be held responsible, and your brand held hostage, for the egregious actions or policies of the government in any country where you do business. This is why, for example, the pressure on Google to fight for free speech in China will continue.
You must consider that risk when making any investment in a country with suspect environmental or social policies, or one that is engaged in bad acts, even when your activities in the country have no direct connection to the activities in question.
You can't expect a free pass just because the specific operation you're involved in is politically blameless or even has positive connotations like those generally associated with the Olympic movement. Controversy can become attached to any activity under the right (or wrong) circumstances. Fair? Maybe not. But that's reality.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't do business abroad or attach your name to any widely-publicized event. But when you do, do your homework. Research likely areas of controversy; track the vagaries of public opinion constantly; and be prepared to respond honestly and pro-actively to attacks.

Above all, be clear in your own mind why you are choosing to associate yourself with a particular regime and how you intend to have a positive impact on the people whose lives you will be touching. Having a clear, coherent, and believable story to tell can go a long way toward defusing the hostility you may encounter.

Summer Rayne Oakes — Eco-Model Extraordinaire

Friday, June 22, 2007 / MT

There are many people spreading the gospel of sustainability these days, and in many different ways — but perhaps none in such a hip and stylish way as Summer Rayne Oakes.

One of the many hats I wear is Chapter Leader of Net Impact Boston, and two nights ago we put on our biggest event yet — the local launch party for SustainLane.com, a new web directory of sustainable businesses. It was a great opportunity to invite a speaker I’ve wanted to meet for some time now: Summer Rayne Oakes.

An environmental activist since childhood, Oakes has put together her unique basket of skills in a very compelling way — all in an effort to mainstream issues of environmental and social justice.

What are those skills? Well, for one, Oakes is about 5’11 and completely gorgeous, so modeling has always been a career path open to her. She is also artistically inclined, with an eye for fashion and an impressive portfolio of drawings. And she’s smart — she earned a degree from Cornell University and has written some impressive academic papers on very non-fashionable topics like sewage sludge. To top it all off, she’s a genuinely nice person who is easy to like and who cares about doing good in the world.

Put all that together, and what do you get? An amazing career that is going in about twenty useful and exciting directions at once. Here’s a small sample:

Oakes models for many eco-conscious labels, and also works with major companies like Levi’s to develop new earth-friendly apparel. And it’s not anoraks and Birkenstocks — more often it’s lace or leather. Sometimes even latex.
She produces and writes a regular feature for the European fashion magazine Lucire, each month going “Behind the Label” to explore environmental, social and ethical issues in the apparel industry.
Recently Oakes started SRO as a consultancy which “couples the power of research with the pulse of current trends” — advising companies on branding and communication strategies that are aligned with sustainable business practices.
Always the educator on environmental issues, she’s even come up with a K-12 curriculum called Ecofashion 101.
She’s about to publish a book that encourages girls to integrate environmentalism into their fashion sense. And yes, she actually did write it herself.
And if all that weren’t impressive enough, she’s working with the United Nations to develop and co-host an Eco For The World (E4W) “edutainment” series.

Her basic philosophy, as far as I can tell, is that fashion and celebrity, and the underlying force of branding, are powerful ways to spread ideas in our society — and can therefore be an asset to the sustainability movement. It’s a radical departure from the strategy that most activists take, but a great way to connect with mainstream audiences.

One of the ideas that Oakes referenced in her talk last night was the power of tapping into everyday conversations as a way to spread meaningful messages. For example, think of this conversation:

— Hey, great jeans.
— Thanks, man.
— Who made them?
— Her name is Jasmine.

Jasmine is one of the factory workers featured in an recent film called China Blue. Her story is powerful not so much because it is unique but because it is very common — she works long hours in a factory, so long in fact that she uses clothespins to hold her eyes open so she won’t fall asleep. Jasmine is the personification of the sweatshop issue, a familiar face at the end of the “supply chain.” Making sweatshop issues known, making them personal and memorable, and introducing them into everyday conversations — that’s a very powerful combination that can drive a new movement of consumer activism.

Oakes is a good example of two trends:

The new generation of activists, who are savvy about motivating stakeholders to influence corporate agendas, and are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their use of online platforms.
A push toward the "mainstreaming" of sustainability issues, which are no longer relegated to a small consumer niche.

To learn more about Oakes and her work, and by extension about the direction that young consumers and investors are headed, visit http://www.summerrayne.net/.

The Re-Branding of JetBlue: How Quickly They Turn On You

Thursday, June 14, 2007 / KW

If you're a business executive with any doubts about how quickly your company's reputation can be transformed in today's superheated, interconnected, four-news-cycles-a-day environment, consider JetBlue. More specifically, consider the fact that, at least in some circles, the company's name has now morphed from a proper noun into a verb — one with a decidedly pejorative meaning.

I learned about this phenomenon while browsing the latest issue of GQ in my dentist's office and just saw it confirmed on The Urban Dictionary website:

JetBlued: Euphemistic way of expressing someone got screwed or ripped off.

Etymology: Originated shortly after the February 2007 series of mistakes that lefts countless JetBlue customers stuck in airplanes and airport terminals for many hours.

Jack: Check out this amazing diamond ring I bought for my wife on the internet.
Steve: Bro, that's clearly a fake ring.
Jack: You're kidding right?
Steve: Nah, man. You got JetBlued.

What makes this all the more amazing is the fact that the exact same verb was being used not so long ago with a very different definition, as indicated by this item on Fast Company magazine's blog posted in March, 2004:

I had lunch today with a former editor who was talking about a recent trip he'd made to the West Coast. "So I 'JetBlued' out to California..." he said nonchalantly, with little notice of the verb he'd just created. Like "Googled," which implies not only the search tool used, but the better search experience, "JetBlued" says he'd done a lot more than fly on the booming low-fare airline. Rather, he'd flown while eating his choice of snacks, watching TV in a comfy leather seat — and spending much less. So which meaning of "JetBlued" will end up sticking? That depends, in large measure, on whether new CEO David Barger can restore the company's once-uniquely-positive connection with customers (while turning around its recently lackluster financial performance).

For now, the customer-driven "re-branding" of JetBlue is an object lesson in how even a single misstep — in this case, one horrendous day of performance driven by terrible weather and a few very bad, very costly on-the-ground decisions by a handful of overstressed managers — can do huge damage to a great reputation built painstakingly over decades.

Today's customers aren't inclined to cut you a lot of slack, no matter how much you may have done for them yesterday. So being a "corporate good guy" is not just an essential part of twenty-first-century leadership — it's also an incredibly demanding, 365-day, 24-hour job.