BRAND CAST  There’s sooooooo much talk and excitement over ethical brands and branding these days. In fact, fewer and fewer conversations seem to be able to avoid the issue

And as Dave Cobban mentioned in an earlier podcast, the FTSE 4 Good Index seems to be outpacing its mainstream counterpart, suggesting that ethically-driven brands and enterprises are actually very good business

In this, the first of a series of BrandCasts produced for GfK NOP, Chris Davis hosts an engaging discussion on the issues involved in creating and sustaining ethical brands. He’s joined by sustainability consultant and best-selling author Julia Hailes MBE, and Zoe Morgan from the Co-op, 2007 winner of the most ethical UK brand gong

This podcast was commissioned and content driven by GfK NOP. We have featured it because of its value and the fact that ResearchTalk had editorial control over the editing

Listen to other podcasts featuring Julia Hailes

 STARRING 

• Chris Davis, MD Brand Strategy, GfK NOP
• Julia Hailes MBE, Sustainability consultant and author, The New Green Consumer Guide
• Zoe Morgan, Director of Marketing, Co-Op Group

This is a commissioned podcast which is published according to our yumminess policy

Timeline [21m05s]
00m00s Intro.
00m58s 2006 - the year the world woke up to climate change.
01m20s What is ethical branding?
02m35s Growing consumer scepticism.
03m21s The shift towards transparency and traceability.
04m17s Managing complexity and conflict in ethical brand decisions.
05m56s Additional benefits of trusted brands.
06m23s Co-op’s approach to communicating their ethical decisions.
07m44s Choice editing - deciding not to sell certain products.
08m57s Empowering consumers with information on the impact of their choices.
09m49s What brand owners should do.
11m24s Is a new business model emerging?
12m31s What Toyota learned after the initial failure of the Prius.
13m14s Merits of a targeted rather shotgun approach.
14m27s Ethical branding challenges the Milton Friedman view of good business practice.
15m33s Regulation vs. market forces.
17m13s Identifying authentic brands.
17m34s The role of the internet.
18m54s The effectiveness of labelling schemes.

Notable Mentions
Authenticity.
BP.
Choice editing.
Climate change.
Co Op.
Embedded carbon.
Exxon Valdez.
Fairtrade.
Green issues.
Greenpeace.
LinPak.
Local sourcing.
Marks & Spencer.
McDonald’s.
Milton Friedman.
Naomi Klein.
New Zealand lamb.
Organic.
Prius.
Tesco.
Toyota.
Transparency.
Wal Mart.

“New Green Consumer Guide” (Julia Hailes).
“The Corporation”.

Quotes
The ethical drive: “Ethical brands are growing at twice the rate of their non-ethical counterparts.” (Chris Davis).

The ethical drive: “We think there’s a couple million people in the UK…who make purchase decisions based around ethics…what’s changed is we’ve now around 13 million adults who say that they will make ethical choices if it was easy…and I think it’s that great big bulge of the middle consumer engaging with this agenda that’s causing all of the interest.” (Zoe Morgan).

Consumer scepticism: “You might think that with the growth of ethical brands that people would say things are getting better, but we are finding increasing scepticism…I think it’s heightened consumers awareness and sensitivity to how companies are behaving generally.” (Chris Davis).

Transparency: “One of the things that the focus on the green issue does is it really forces that transparency and traceability.” (Julia Hailes).

Ethical conflicts: “That’s one of the advantages of having the trust from the consumer…consumers will accept that we will have thought about the basket of issues (e.g. local sourcing) and have tried to make the best choice for that product.” (Zoe Morgan).

The ethical brand dilemma: “Even in environmental terms [product decisions] are complicated. If you’re adding ethical and social issues in as well you’ve really got a mix that is not obvious to consumers what the best choice is. And therefore it does require the retailer to assess those impacts and also very good at communicating them.” (Julia Hailes).

Choice editing: “We have to do it at the pace and in the way that the consumer will come with us. And if they take their whole shopping basket elsewhere…because they can’t get what they want to eat, we’re not doing the world or ourselves any favours.” (Zoe Morgan).

Proportionate impact: “3% to 4% of fruit and vegetables are imported by air, but they account for over a third of the transport-related [environmental] impact.” (Julia Hailes).

On the initial failure of the Prius: “…people have a conscience but what they really want to do is convey their values to other people…Toyota needed to make the branding much more prominent…which they did…it then really took off.” (Chris Davis).

Targeting: “…you don’t have to try and appeal to all consumers.” (Julia Hailes).

Regulation vs. market forces: “I think that market forces are more powerful [in bringing about change]. With government they are prepared to listen to excuses…” (Julia Hailes).

Role of government: “Government do have a responsibility to help make sure the full cost is in the product.” (Zoe Morgan).

Trust: “For businesses, the brand is so valuable and the trust element is so valuable that I don’t think that businesses can take the risk any more of being found out as fraudulent on that.” (Zoe Morgan).

Music Steffen Coonan from the PMN

Series:MarketingTalk Series:AdTalk
Series:Commissioned