TexasDesign.com

We looked at where branding went wrong in the first installment of this discussion last month. Specifically, branding is no longer a differentiator because most firms claim to do it, because the word is defined too broadly, and because your activities (behind closed doors) are not all that different than what you did before you called it branding. Real differentiation, for yourself or for your clients, requires significantly more pain and permanence than we see currently.

So branding is diluted and ubiquitous, and this is unfortunate because all the claims of those who aren’t really doing it are bringing a hollowness to the few who really are doing it well. The firms who got on the branding bus didn’t really know where it was going, but they wanted to be on it when it arrived. Now that all these buses showed up at the same place and clients assume everyone does branding, the “me too” firms are going to need a new mantra.

That new mantra seems to be sustainability, and unless we think more carefully about this movement than the last one, we’ll continue to suffer the marginalization that accompanies me-too trends.

Concerns about Sustainability

Here are my concerns about sustainability as a marketing tenet, followed by some suggestions about how you might approach sustainability…in a more sustainable way. I care about this and I don’t want to see yet another wasted opportunity as you attempt to get a place at the table, so to speak, where you can have an influential role in your client’s affairs. Marketing-related firms are embracing sustainability, but the context for their beliefs and activities is troubling for multiple reasons.

First, sustainability is being defined too narrowly because it has become a synonym for environmental impact. It’s like applying a single-issue test on a political candidate, ignoring the sum total of what they believe, say, and do. It’s the new litmus test for some of your clients, and now for many of you. Of the many important characteristics that might accurately describe a given company, “greenness” is accorded an unfortunately greater role than those other characteristics that have just as much to do with sustainability (see below). Featuring sustainability has become too much like a sound byte without intellectual rigor. Sustainability is worthy of our attention, but the way it’s being handled is convenient, trite, and simplistic.

Second, sustainability is not generally coming from deeply held beliefs. As it is embraced by a significant portion of your clients and the competing firms in your space, sustainability seems more like something being wrapped around the same realities rather than a foundational belief upon which the entire company is rebuilt. It’s more co-option than assimilation. It’s as if we’re more in love with the idea of sustainability than we are with sustainability itself. The level of hypocrisy is staggering.

Third, some of the companies you are helping are using it largely as a marketing tool. And as one of the primary influencers on their marketplace, you’re an “accessory after the fact,” in the language of Law & Order. As consumers express a preference for products/services from companies that embrace sustainability, some companies are playing the game and telling customers what they want to hear. Every time we help a company lie about their sustainable practices, we undermine true sustainability (theirs and ours).

In spite of all this bad news, the good news here is that we have an opportunity to be relevant and to make a difference. Or we can thoughtlessly get on the bus again, caring more about being on it with the rest of the oblivious gang than knowing where it’s going. Let’s look at how that might happen.

How Sustainability Could be Sustainable

Acting in more sustainable ways is a very good thing indeed, but if we are not authentic (and aligned internally as we pursue it), the brief moments we get on stage will turn open consumers into skeptical critics. Here are some suggestions about having a deeper impact on the world around you.

First, start internally before you preach externally. Assess and then embrace the true cost of following your conscience and lead by example. It’s very popular but entirely too easy to suggest how other people should spend their money. Start with your own.

Second, don’t ignore the broader definition of sustainability. Your carbon footprint matters, but I’m not sure it should matter more than running a genuinely “sustainable” business. That would be one that cares about financial health, management culture, work/life boundaries, doing effective work for clients, and even the sustainability of your own role. Taming chaos today by solving the same problems you fixed yesterday doesn’t ooze sustainability. The best way I could synthesize this point is as follows: control follows viability, and impact follows control. Be the right sort of firm in order to give you the sort of control that can be wielded on behalf of clients that need it (even if they don’t know they need it).

Third, be yourself even if it isn’t all that sexy. Generally ignore what others are doing and craft something that’s real, authentic, and substantive, so much so that you’ll still be energized by it a decade from now. That’s the sort of real differentiation that accompanies genuine branding. If you’ve done it right, the message on your web site can remain virtually unchanged for years and years. That, my friends, is a component of sustainability, and throwing my Venti Latte into the recycling container is more lip service than substance.

It’s time to broaden our perspectives and be more balanced and authentic marketing partners who tell the truth, regardless of where it leads. It’s time to drop flippant uses of the word branding, and it’s time to take a more sustainable approach to sustainability. Seldom have larger businesses embraced a message as significant as this to marketing firms, and whether genuine or not, we have an opportunity to engage in meaningful conversation and move from the transactional work we’ve been doing to the consultative role we’ve longed for. Just keep in mind that good consultants aren’t always popular, but they do have a point of view and they are honest.

Too many firms are like fleas, jumping from one dog to the next as they desperately try to get to the county fair. They so long for relevance that they embrace the message the audience gives them rather than being the expert they could be. Let’s take a leadership position on this and take advantage of a rare opportunity to reverse the marginalization that we have allowed to date.

Next month we’ll look at how you can unbundle implementation from the rest of your service offerings and enhance it in the process.