Purpose Pulse

Why the credibility / creativity trade off?

August 2024

The Purpose Pulse newsletter is a monthly roundup that focusses on insights and inspiring stories for businesses on a mission.

When it comes to ‘green marketing’, there seems to be a real trade-off between credibility and creativity somehow. For many this translates into uninspiring ‘beige’ campaigns.

The culprit here is a fixation on ‘getting everything right’. Perfection.

And no wonder. Savvier buyers, ever tighter regulations and stretching sustainability targets can make communicating about our progress feel like walking a tightrope. Especially as businesses know just how important - and hard - it is to build credibility with our customers. Not to mention how easily it’s lost.

That credibility is also the ‘most important marketing currency’ today, according to research by both the FT and Wim Vermeulen - author of the insightful sustainable marketing book Speak up now: Marketing in times of climate crises.

But the antidote isn’t perfection - it’s transparency.

Progress over perfection

Discussing this on a podcast recently, we were asked: “what do you wish everyone in sustainable marketing knew?’. Our answer: ‘that nobody has cracked this yet!’

There is so much noise around this topic that it’s easy to feel like we’ve somehow missed the boat. In reality, no business has its sustainability journey all worked out yet, which means that no organisation needs to pretend, nor prove, that they have either. And if they do, it’s simply not believable.

Instead, the real opportunity to build credibility and stand out lies in ‘progress over perfection’. Being transparent about your journey, where you are at - and what you’re still struggling with. Having the courage to call out the elephant in the room, because that leaves little wiggle room for the competition and plenty of opportunity to lead the way.

The importance of 'insights-led' content

Naturally, what you decide to ‘share’ has to be rooted in your customers’ wants and needs; real marketing fundamentals. However, because the sustainability space is so complex, the process of insights gathering to understand them and the customer journey is more involved than usual. It means going further and deeper, and that time is rarely built-in.

And this is critical, as a recent Financial Times survey highlights. Their research of 800+ decision makers shows that as the b2b buying journey grows ever longer and more complex, insights-led content is becoming more important. In fact, nine out of ten of the respondents acknowledged that ‘thought leadership’ campaigns are playing a more important role in the sales process than ever and had influenced their buying decisions.

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What does good business look like?

Another challenge is to know what ‘good business’ looks like. That’s why we’re committed to showcasing what b2b businesses are doing to drive progress (away from the big consumer brands) with our Best-in-class edit. We’re in the process of updating this with more inspirational stories at the moment - so watch this space.

Since we've been looking for organisations to feature in our guide, one of our favourites is from Positive News. It highlights an industry’s potential to save emissions equivalent to taking 3.8m cars off the road - by simply turning a dial!

Apparently, that would be the impact of the frozen food sector increasing the temperature of commercial freezers by +3C. This simple action would reduce the energy demand by 10% according to research - with zero impact on food safety.

What we've been reading & listening to this month

Long read: Do Story / How to tell your story so the world listens, Bobette Buster. Bobette teaches the art of great storytelling for business inspired by leaders and visionaries from across the world.

Sign-up: The Carbon Brief- daily (or weekly) newsletter with a broad and credible summary of key ‘climate change’ news across the world

Good listen: Can Marketing Save the Planet podcast: Unpacking the Action - Intention Gap with Sandy Skees, Purpose and Impact Global Lead, Porter Novelli