UNCERTAIN WORLDS

PART 2: DESIGNING BRANDS AS A FORCE FOR GOOD

8-10 MINUTE READ. PUBLISHED 20 NOV 2023. UPDATED 7 SEP 2024.

CREATIVE COMMONS CC BY ELECTRO STRATEGY STUDIO. WRITTEN BY ADRIAN JARVIS. EDITED BY TIM WILD.

TL;DR Brands can become a force for good by committing to a sustainable future, aligning their business model, and embedding values into their actions. This strategy helps brands to design good into the brand — navigating short-term commercial pressures and supporting long-term sustainable growth.

A POSITIVE FRAMEWORK FOR BRAND AND DESIGN STRATEGY.

In an uncertain world, designing brands as a force for good is more critical than ever. This article presents foundational concepts for brands who want growth that is positive as well as profitable.

A dogmatic addiction to saliency and penetration shows a stark disconnect from our imperative to build sustainable, forward-thinking brands. We need a new way of thinking about the ‘laws of growth’ that considers the science of climate change and growing evidence for purpose-driven businesses. Growth for the Future, Jan 2023

These concepts are inspired by 20 years working with Unilever, the strategy team at Jones Knowles Ritchie, and designing connected brands at R/GA — with contributions from many brilliant colleagues in London, Berlin, Helsinki, New York, Tokyo, and beyond.

  1. COMMIT TO A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE: use trends and insights to define a brand purpose that positively impacts communities, customers, employees, and partners.

  2. ALIGN THE BUSINESS MODEL AND BRAND PURPOSE: address conflicts within many categories, ensuring good intentions align with commercial realities.

  3. DESIGN GOOD INTO THE BRAND: challenge established norms, turn shared value(s) into meaningful actions, and leverage the power of connected technologies.

This is part 2 in a series about practical frameworks for brand design. Jump to Part 1 — Connected Brands and Ecosystems, Part 3 — Systems Thinking for Brand Designers, Part 4 — Designing Resilient Brands or Part 5 — Exploring Brand Futures.

(1) COMMIT TO A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE.

Designing brands as a force for good starts with a commitment to a sustainable future — for communities, employees, partners, and even competitors. It is important to not just meet regulation, but to exceed it — to set a higher bar for environmental and social impact.

90% of executives recognize the importance of having an aspirational reason for being which inspires and provides a call to action for an organization, and provides benefit to society. EY / Harvard Business Review, 2020.

Sustainable futures have become critical in fast-moving markets. It is hard to find a market that is not now characterised by rapidly changing behaviours, evolving technology, and shifting regulations. So, having a future-vision helps define a macro space for the brand that is rooted in shared beliefs and sustainable behaviours.

Typically, this might be the motivations behind healthy and wealthy living, environmental protection, craftsmanship or the potential of technology. And ideally, this would be informed by what the world really needs, using data on Sustainable Development Goals.

Ecover is on a mission to lead a clean world revolution. For over 40 years, they have maintained a single-minded strategy of producing high-performance cleaning products, made from biodegradable and plant-based ingredients. Using environmentally-conscious design to minimise impact, throughout the full value chain; from sourcing raw materials to post-consumer waste.

Tony’s Chocolonely has a become one of the world’s fastest growing chocolatiers. This was built a goal to shake up the entire cocoa industry — eliminating child labour and ensuring farmers get their fair share. Cutting unnecessary middlemen to push returns back to the rural cocoa communities, and opening challenging ‘big chocolate’ to change. All the while, riding the increasing cost of ingredients due to global dynamics.

While brands often use different language at different places and times — under the labels of a mission, vision or purpose — the following statements demonstrate sustainable futures at the heart of each brand:

CONSUMER BRANDS

  • Method Products - To inspire a happy and healthy home revolution.

  • Farmdrop - To fix the food chain and ensure sustainable practices.

  • Rapanui - A lifelong mission, to make fashion sustainable.

  • Impossible Foods - To save meat, and the earth.

  • REI - For a lifetime of outdoor adventure and stewardship.

  • Freitag - To create high-quality, thoughtfully-designed items that support 100% circularity.

ENTERPRISE BRANDS

  • ABB - To run the world without consuming the earth.

  • GSK - To unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together.

  • HSBC - To nurture progress and growth, helping to create a better world.

  • Siemens AG - We make real what matters by setting the benchmark in the way we electrify, automate, and digitalise the world around us.

  • Intel - Create world-changing technology that enriches the lives of every person on earth.

(2) ALIGN THE BUSINESS MODEL AND BRAND PURPOSE.

Reconciling long-term sustainable growth with short-term commercial pressures is a challenge for any business.

Existing business practices are likely to have built-in assumptions and tools that do not reflect the purpose and strategy and perpetuate business-as-usual mind-sets, creating inertia. Therefore, key core business practices will need to be adapted and modified to reflect and enable the purpose and corporate strategy. ISL Cambridge, 2020

81% of executives would accept only a 1% or smaller reduction in returns to advance ESG objectives — both those that are relevant to the business and those that have a beneficial impact on society. PwC, 2022

Aligning the business model and brand purpose directly connects commercial and brand strategies. It also enables the collaboration necessary for greener value chains, and achieving long-term growth.

Unilever's Corporate Sustainablity has drawn criticism for unnecessarily 'force fitting' brands to have a purpose. It’s a great news story, but the reality is an unrelenting focus on making sustainable living commonplace; such as reducing plastics and carbon, challenging toxic gender stereotypes and more. Each year’s Growth Action Plan defines the priorities for brands used by nearly 4 billion people every day. As of 2024, Unilever remains committed to reducing pollution and changing a food system that is unbalanced, wasteful and vulnerable.

Sephora Collection continues to expand its climate-conscious and clean labelling schemes, to bring more clarity, consistency and transparency to consumers looking to shop based on their values. The goal is to make sustainable choices more accessible.

This all takes place amid a welter of greenwashing — brands that use language of sustainable practice to disguise or distract from their negative impacts. A number of brands have become unstuck, and have had to invest to regain customer trust.

H&M has improved its supply-chain and product reporting, as part of a strategy called Transparency Layers, after a legal challenge to their environmental claims. And their investment in machinery for fabric recycling, illustrates H&M's ongoing efforts to demonstrate action and drive industry-wide transformation of fashion.

Volkswagen had a significant setback due to their vehicle emissions scandal. In the aftermath, the Way to Zero initiative has focused on electric and hybrid vehicles to rebuild their reputation as a forward-thinking innovator.

(3) DESIGN GOOD INTO THE BRAND.

A brand purpose means nothing if it’s just a platitude in a brand book or strategy deck. The following building blocks turn shared value(s) into actions, and help design a brand as a force for good. These activities need to be supported with clear commercial objectives, operational priorities and a robust measurement framework.

Win with our brands as a force for good became one of Unilever’s five strategic choices — “growing brands by delivering functionally superior products, as well as taking action on social and environmental issues that consumers care about: improving the health of the planet, improving people’s health and wellbeing, and contributing to a fairer, more socially inclusive world”. Unilever, 2022

PLATFORM

Adopt an active approach to market disruption and brand engagement:

PRODUCT

Principles for designing sustainable products and services might include:

PRACTICE

Develop a culture founded on participation and a sense of community:

GET IN TOUCH TO DISCUSS DESIGNING BRANDS AS A FORCE FOR GOOD…

This article was written by Adrian Jarvis, who founded Electro, an independent strategy studio based in London. He has 25 years experience of working with enterprises of all sizes. The concepts discussed here are highly scalable from start-ups to multinationals, across a range of categories. Find out more.