Social responds to a world on fire…

When social media first arrived nearly 20 years ago (time flies doesn’t it!) following the birth of Facebook, it didn’t take that long for the vital channel to commercially evolve, monetize itself and become an extension of brand broadcast strategy via paid distribution. However, the world has changed and with it the ‘best practices’ approach to social channel strategy is recalibrating. Are you ready?

Here we will examine the evolution and provide guidance on how to embrace the reset of what social is intended to be and how your brand should plan within it.

Culture influences consumer behavior

Culture change is coming more rapidly than ever before and it’s having a profound impact on how brands behave in the marketplace. Because, as always, consumers hold sway while they mirror and appropriate cultural trends. For example, witness the rapid ascension of —

• Values-driven consumer behavior.
• Escalating conscious consumption.
• Alignment between people and brands on mission and beliefs.
• Growing role of brand higher purpose, empathy and deeper meaning.

Integrating culture with social strategy

It’s time to integrate culture trends within your social plans and strategies. That means your brand must work hard to understand, then embrace, and also consider how to lead cultural change.

Think for a moment about what’s going in around us right now. Did any of you observe the incredible Instagram reels of raging floods and devastating mudslides in southern California? Don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen anything remotely horrific like that before in the SoCal area. It was truly alarming. Also symptomatic of what’s influencing culture shifts around us now, and it is having a profound impact on social media.

Here’s the culture influence impact gallery –

• Chaotic climate developments, news of same and extreme weather events.
• Elections that might appear to challenge the foundations of democracy.
• Looming concern of AI disruption on the horizon.
• Wars, more wars, attacks and terrorism on the rise.
• Pervasive feeling of lost control over our lives and the world around us.

The only thing that’s certain is growing uncertainty

• The key insight: Social communities are an anchor in the storm to help users navigate a world on fire around them. The shared interests, passions, attitudes of like-minded people all coalesce with those who seek common ground and to make sense of their lives.

Up to this point, social strategy was defined mainly by branded content and paid distribution of product-centric stories and promotions. It represented a co-mingling of branded content, community and media spend/traction imperatives.

Now with the influence of culture trends, brands need to build a more meaningful, relevant value exchange in return for consumer time and attention.

Move from brand first to audience first content and narratives

Social strategy is shifting to embrace authentic, lo-fi, real and more intimate content designed to both inform and entertain – and created intentionally for organic traction. It’s a de-emphasis on measuring reach and eyeballs in favor of qualitative assessments, shares and meaningful interaction. People want, maybe even need, to participate in communities of shared passions and fandom. It presages a rise in the importance of user generated content that will be unscripted, unpolished and also unpredictable.

Here are some tactical considerations to fold into your thinking:

Nano-moments and empathetic moves: A North Face outerwear user on a mountain expedition expressed a complaint on social media about their jacket underperforming in a critical setting. North Face leapt into action and managed to deliver a new replacement coat to the customer on a mountain top. Great social moment and expression of zealous customer care.

Rise of the creator economy: micro-influence from creators is redefining the social channel engagement plan. #booktok, #healthtok and #cleantok are all symptomatic of niche creator communities where innovation and brand collabs will become increasingly important. Coke recently invited creators to use AI inspired tools to share unique holiday themed images.

Video, video and more video: Did you know that 58.5% of time spent on social is spent consuming videos? We’re moving from ad cutdowns for social consumption to video intentionally designed to instruct, guide and coach in an “edutainment” format. As a natural extension of this development, longer form videos will gain favor like this lively, fun effort on behalf of Hilton Hotels.

The role of AI in social: AI is being deployed to automate and elevate community monitoring and in doing so to support social teams with intel on social behaviors, sentiment and social listening. AI will also be used to facilitate more customized content delivery and enable advanced content creation like Coke’s Real Magic image effort cited above.

LinkedIn and B-to-B outreach: LinkedIn has a grip on B-to-B social interaction. It is a great environment to showcase company culture and staff expertise. Nearly 75% of B-to-B companies already leverage CEOs, academics and doctors for content creation there. We expect employee engagement on the platform to grow, working to position staff as opinion leaders with insider knowledge.

Uncertainty in the world around us is changing the value proposition for social channels, with a call to level-up on community building. It offers a safe harbor at a time when people want to engage with others who share their specific passions. The essential strategic shift is from brand first, audience second thinking to the reverse of that point of view. Goes without saying that properly curated and fed, social channel value in the brand marketing playbook is growing while the content game plan targets relevance.

If this post gets you thinking about social strategy and you’d like to ask questions about your brand’s approach to optimizing your social community plans, use this link to share your thoughts and start an informal conversation.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

Narrowcasting to fans, followers and advocates…

If you look under the hood of a strong brand with a demonstrated higher purpose, belief system and investment in social community building, you will find a percolating audience of consumer ambassadors and believers. A symbiotic relationship exists here as the brand invests in them and they reciprocate with support as frequent users and evangelists often via word-of-mouth. All of this, mind you, can be strategic and intentional, even when the manifestations appear to be organic.

An outcome of the digital age, we find greater efficacy in narrower channels of media that cater to special interests and topics resonating to the hearts and minds of the brand’s most devoted followers. In many cases this also attests to the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of profits come from 20 percent of a brand’s most ardent followers and users. This happens repeatedly.

• So we pose the question: how does this play out in earned media strategy? It’s a fair question because earned media outreach is often devoted to a long-standing tool of the mass media era, the venerable press release, its distribution usually a shotgun affair that goes in every direction.

Narrowcast vs. broadcast

Name the category where strong brands exist and you’ll find media resonant to core lifestyle interests and passions of a brand’s most frequent users. It is here where the truly gifted earned media artists devote time and energy to building relationships with editors and contributors – those who populate these influential media channels with engaging content.

Earned media isn’t transactional, at least not most of the time. The path to outcomes in this setting are negotiated through interaction and conversation between people. The communications experts from the brand side are packaging and presenting relevant story background ideas/material to discuss with reporters whose areas of focus closely matches the topics of interest for a brand’s best users.

The entire proposition is driven by mutual respect, credibility, service to the reader, editorial sensibility and well-researched supporting material, reports and sources who form the alchemy of any solid feature story treatment. The paradigm is fueled through mutual interest and effort over time to build a solid, reliable relationship between source and scribe. It’s definitely not “spray and pray” as press releases can be referred to in wire service distribution terms.

• Our point: there’s more to be gained in narrowcasting earned media strategies to specific channels where special interests are served, and this is territory where media relationships are nurtured over time. Reporters tend to go back to reliable sources.

The ladder: vertical to national

Ask any brand executive and you’ll get feedback that national bluechip media coverage is always a desirable outcome from elite media brands like the New York Times, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or network TV news. Vertical media often get the short sheet in this conversation, but they shouldn’t. Category trade media plays a vital, vibrant role not only between a brand and its key stakeholder audiences of distributors and retailers, it’s also a proving ground for larger story ideas.

Trade coverage that touches on a core editorial idea relevant to larger national media is an immediate credibility booster to the story efficacy and dimensions in a non-competitive setting. This comprises a circular editorial eco-system where coverage in trades is useful in conversations with national media. While national coverage tends to drive incremental stories in vertical channels. Both are good, solid, strategic components of a strong earned media plan.

• Both indeed are driven by relationships, creativity and solid performances by brand PR experts who know their results depend on fulfilling the promises in a good working relationship with key editors, reporters and producers.

If this stimulates some questions about optimal editorial media strategies or similar situations you wrestle with, use the link below to open an informal dialogue.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

Artifice falls away, replaced by a tour behind the product creation curtain…

Much of what unfolded in 2023 has laid down a runway for how your strategy should evolve in 2024. Over the last year we’ve seen a distinct rise of consumer uncertainty, a decline in feelings of control and increasing uneasiness over extraordinary climate change impacts, a chaotic political environment, see-saw inflation, raging wars and other forms of personal and societal disruption.

• According to Kantar, 43% of Americans experienced mild to severe anxiety, up from 26% a year earlier, while half of millennials now rank their mental health as part of their well-being they are most concerned about.

It has authored a distinct premium on the desire for authenticity, truth, honesty, values, belief – all of which, incidentally, are desirable human traits. So how should brands respond in an environment where consumers crave honest, respectful relationships between themselves and the brands they care about? By adopting more human-like qualities and behaviors.

• In a recent story on viral engagement at Fast Company, Clinique Global VP of consumer engagement Lucy Burns said, “Gen Z can smell ads a mile away. They are the first generation that really wants brands and creators to authentically speak to them. And what does that mean? You don’t create an ad. You create content that they would want to engage with.”

This will be the year of yearning for discernment of the real and true while working to avoid the artificial and questionable. As reported earlier this year in the Emerging Trends Report, consumers have turned inward to themselves for guidance. Why? People have become increasingly skeptical and wary of less credible independent sources and therefore what they perceive to be unreliable and not-so faithful recommendations about products and services.

• Key insight: Further probing on this condition, we find consumers moving to seek a deeper level of discovery and understanding about the products they care about.

Know more, want more granular info

Emergent has been crunching the consumer insight research reports and studies, as we lean into our predictions for where CPG food, beverage and retail marketing is headed in 2024. The overriding theme and guidance for the coming year is an advancing consumer interest in securing more details about how products are created, manufactured and what’s inside them.

• In short both retail and CPG marketers will have a lot of explaining to do as consumers demand truth and transparency from the brands that matter to them.

What this means: consumers want to understand what the food and beverages they ingest consist of. They want their expectations to be fulfilled and this requires brands to take consumers behind the curtain and reveal more substantive details about formulation, ingredient sourcing and production methods.

Truth: consider the credibility of the content source and how the story is packaged

Transparency: take them behind the scenes to see how you do what you do

Here are six specific food/bev industry trends that remain common across generational audience segments:

1. Less Processed

Consumers do not believe that ultra-processed is a positive attribute. Brands with ultra-processed products should consider investing R&D energy to create less processed versions of products, with simpler labels and emphasis on the nutritional density of ingredients used. Plant-based brands should bear in mind this applies to how products are created and presented. Plant-based used to automatically convey an item is better for you. Not so much now. Some plant-based categories are seen as overly processed. Consumers know more, so Show Me is the operative behavior in brand communications.

2. Upcycled

We’re seeing a growing interest in upcycled ingredients used in product creation. Consumers perceive this as less wasteful and more sustainable. Plus, it’s a great story to tell in product creation narratives.

3. Sustainable

Consumer attitudes on sustainability has shifted due to greater knowledge and understanding of the environmental impact of our food system. It is no longer just the use of recyclable packaging, efficient energy sources and water management. Consumers have connected the dots between supply chain and emissions performance. They want to know what brands and retailers are doing to advance policies and standards related to regenerative agriculture and use of less carbon-intensive ingredients.

4. Nutritional Density

Consumers believe there is a connection between what they eat and their overall quality of life and health. Alongside the redefinition of what aging looks like and how lives can transform over time based on taking better care of yourself, brands can position themselves squarely in the bulls-eye of lifestyle partnership. This is accomplished by delivering products that provide functional ingredients designed to enhance delivery of vitamins, minerals, proteins without added sugars, the wrong kinds of fats and high sodium content.

5. Energy Reduction Plays

Previously, refrigeration translated to fresher, higher quality. That said, consumers increasingly see these as a hidden cost tradeoff to the planet on energy use. Development of more shelf stable versions of products will enable brands to talk about ways they are helping reduce energy signatures in how their products are distributed and merchandized in-store.

6. Disguising Fruit and Veg

Lingering in the back of consumers’ minds is a fundamental consideration that more fruit and veg in the diet is a good thing. How those better-for-you servings are acquired and consumed presents an opportunity for brands. How can you bring the nutritional benefits of these ingredients in a form consumers will find simple, easy and delicious to consume? Some smoothie beverage brands are great at this.

2024’s megatrend – healthy living, aging and self-care

People believe that what they consume has a direct relationship to the quality of their lives. This impacts health, wellness and helps answer their desire to slow down or even reverse the effects of aging. How can you partner with consumers on their healthy living journey? How can your brand proceed as guide and coach on helping them realize their goals and ambitions? Think of your brand as a true, reliable friend. What would a real friend do to help?

Tactics: what’s behind the thirst for information?

Consumers want to know more about how you create your products and what’s inside them because it helps re-establish their sense of control and ability to create customized solutions for themselves. With so much environmental noise causing people to believe they are losing control, giving it back to them is vital in your relationship. More information puts them in the driver’s seat while you supply the grist for their own lifestyle consideration. This should be reflected in your content creation plans.

Primacy of emotion, best served

As we’ve said before, decisions and actions originate in the limbic area of the brain, and our subconscious (dictates actions we take) is heavily influenced through emotion. This is best seen by emphasizing the joy of cooking alongside the joy of eating and drinking – no matter the category, this rule remains true: celebrate the experiences of cooking, consuming and their related social interaction benefits.

Emergent’s role refined for 2024

We believe that strong brands win so we’re obligated to help strengthen client brands by driving towards greater uniqueness and differentiation. Well-positioned brands say and do things differently than others in their category. They bring a different tone, see the future differently and have a clear point of view.

Our role: to help clients refine and package how they show up in the world. To that end, we work to build brand reputations, credibility, belief and transcendence. We believe the foundation for this work lies in refinement of brand purpose, deeper meaning and values. We know that conveying your brand’s “why” – its true purpose – is a more effective tool to win hearts and minds than the typical feature/benefit story. People are irresistibly drawn to brands that share a vision and reason for being they believe in. We connect this story to the brand users through stories – content and earned media.

Final guidance for 2024

Brand optimism. Through all of the doomer conditions people are confronted with on a daily basis, smart brands can be a safe harbor for an optimistic outlook based on progress and personal fulfillment. Your brand’s role as coach, guide and enabler can help people envision a better, brighter and more meaningful future.

If these observations and possibilities strike a chord for honing your 2024 plans, use this link to start an informal conversation about your questions and concerns.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

Now more than ever, brand storytelling is the link to engagement

It is our mission at Emergent to continuously study the evolving dynamics of influence on the consumer journey to purchase. No surprise, we are doing business in revolutionary times. To wit, advances in AI technology will permanently alter the future of brand communication and how consumers operate when buying. Meantime, another behavior shift has arrived ahead of the trust challenges AI will inevitably create. Below we bring you the details.

Since the dawn of modern retail shopping, people have invariably looked for guidance from trusted sources as they seek to make what they believe to be less risky purchase decisions (people always work to avoid a bad decision/experience).

Below are two more recent areas of influence on consumer behavior. Then ahead we see a third pathway that is currently dialing up.

1. 10 years ago, we started looking to credible third parties

We trusted those perceived to be credentialed experts from academic, scientific and reputational influence backgrounds who brought their educated assessment of what constitutes the state of the art in any given category.

2. Five years ago, this evolved to a focus on belief in peers

With digital apps came crowd sourcing and social community “proof” at our fingertips. We experience this through sites such as Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisors, Goodreads, TikTok, LinkedIn and Instagram that aggregate the views and experiences of our peers. We trust fellow citizens to verify and validate the assertions and claims made by brands.

3. Next, public trust failures have led consumers to turn inward for guidance

We are on the cusp of another evolution in buying behavior. People are looking inside themselves – relying on their intuition, inner wisdom and ‘gut feel’ about brands and businesses. This felt-to-be-true knowledge springs from an implicit understanding that originates in the subconscious. In essence, consumers land on a sense of what feels right to them. They trust these feelings to provide guidance and confidence for their decisions. Pundits in the brand strategy world are referring to this new school of thinking as Noetic Intelligence.

What does this mean for brands when consumers turn to intuition for trusted guidance? Your response should be to refocus on what people are feeling in the presence of your brand. Translating that into best practices means dialing up stories that amplify values, beliefs, deeper meaning and emotion to hit the right subliminal chords.

Storytelling is the most potent, engaging, strategically-differentiating form of communication available to businesses and brands.

By definition, this is a unique and more emotive approach focused on a different and more lifestyle relevant set of topics than pushing product features, benefits or reciting factoids and reports to support a new technology or innovation achievement. Specifically:

• What is your brand higher purpose?
• What do you believe in?
• What is your opinion on substantive issues impacting the world around us?
• How are you enabling a path for consumers to act upon their beliefs and values?
• What lies within the heart and soul of your brand’s value system?

Stories help people get involved with your brand and don’t present themselves like overt selling. Instead, storytelling cultivates interest and engagement, fueled by an increasingly easy ability to publish and distribute through social channels and other content platforms as narratives, videos and podcasts.

Stories can help build an emotional connection between brands and users, by enabling the humanization of brand conversations. This is how you secure rapt consumer attention.

• When I started in this business, we often bemoaned the challenges of controlling messages and lamented that our outreach existed only within media platforms owned and managed by third parties. Today brands can operate independently as publishers AND media channels. Yet some brands are hesitant to fully leverage this incredible controlled messaging capability to greatest effect.

All too often, brands remain tethered to product presentations rather than the context and belief afforded by stories. A pet food brand can self-promote its ingredient quality, nutritional philosophy, commitment to ethical sourcing and the like. Or the brand can bring forward stories of transformational change and impact their diets have on beloved pets whose lives were improved through better nutrition and the wellbeing that bestows. This blends with and imprints the positive lifestyle associations people desire with their furry family members.

Which is more compelling? The story of how a pet’s life has transformed from consuming a new diet. Or waxing on about nutritional panel ingredient integrity and high sourcing standards? It’s going to be the first approach every time. Human beings love stories. So why don’t we see more of it more often in marketing?

During the persuasion era of brand marketing, interruption-style media was deployed to circulate product feature communication constructed around entertainment or humor to bait the attention of its intended audience. Some of this marketing manipulation thinking still lingers today, despite our knowing consumers have the ability to avoid nearly all of it.

The story telling era has emerged to replace interruption and manipulation

Some of best examples of powerful storytelling can be found in books and movies that deftly use conflict, tension, struggle, and lead character redemption, ultimately leading to a favorable outcome as a blueprint for successful engagement. Yet many brands struggle with storytelling because it’s not a direct product hard sell. As if hard selling will continue as a bankable path to consumer engagement anyway?

Brand storytelling is at its most dynamic state when integrating:

Culture –

Culture governs shifts in preference, social relevance, priorities, meaning and even language. It is influential to behavior and so should be respected as a conditioning and context agent for brand stories.

Psychology –

Neuroscience proves how we work incessantly to avoid perceived risks. Our subconscious is the ruler over decisions and actions and so we use archetype development to help inform the tone, manner and character of brand messaging that resonates.

Emotion –

Humans are feeling creatures who think. We are not analytical, fact-driven decision-making machines. Emotion sits at the front door of how we behave and influences our opinions and judgments. It is fundamental to our actions and the decisions we make. It’s the emotional grist which makes the communication memorable by the way.

Today this approach manifests in a refined set of outbound tools including:

Content streams

Social communities

Installations and pop-ups

Real world and retail experiences

If you want to know more, ask questions or discuss Noetic Intelligence and its application to your business, use this link and let’s talk.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

Deploying the biology of effective communication

For a brand message to have any real impact, to influence behavior and seed advocacy, it requires more than awareness and publicity. It must advance a relevant higher purpose, cause or belief system that people who share your values will immediately resonate to. Only then can your message create any lasting marketplace impact.

It is not the quality of your products that causes the category to tip your direction. Absent a refined brand WHY, new innovations and technologies will rapidly find themselves playing the circular and commoditizing price-and-feature game. Your competitive advantage gets real traction when you are crystal clear about the human-relevant purpose and mission you exist to champion.

An identifiable cohort of consumers exists who share your beliefs and then want to integrate your ideas and products into their own lives. It is their ability to understand and embrace your purpose, your WHY, that causes them to embrace your brand. They view what you make as a tangible path to reflect and demonstrate their purpose and beliefs to the world around them.

Beliefs are powerful and can be enlisted to change the trajectory of brand growth

It’s important to remember that “consumers” are first and foremost real, human three-dimensional people. As such, we are hardwired to gravitate toward people, places as well as things (products) that reinforce what we believe about the world and ourselves.

• Beliefs influence our behaviors and how we see ourselves
• Beliefs are emotional and rise from deep within us to inform decisions
• Beliefs run underneath our cognizant, analytical radar to impact our feelings and decisions
• Beliefs help people understand, connect and engage with your brand
• Beliefs are respectful of human biology and how we’re wired to take action (through feelings not facts)

Yet we find that belief systems are largely undernourished in business strategy because of a flawed assumption that a better mousetrap is the motivating tool that draws in consumers. Ultimately, products in any given category will be more similar than they are unique. Frankly, there isn’t any proprietary tech advantage that can be sustained over time without competitive dilution.

Instead, people are magnetically drawn to leader-type brands that communicate what they believe. This unique approach helps consumers feel safe and special – like they belong – and are inspired to align with the brand because the story and mission resonates so personally.

Future of food brands are often mission oriented

Emergent works with emerging food brands who are reinventing how food is created with a vastly improved sustainability story. To a one, the founders and leadership teams believe they exist to improve the health and wellbeing of people while measurably improving the impact of our current food system on global warming.

Their technologies are instrumental in changing the greenhouse gas paradigm. But that is not the reason they will be successful or that people will be drawn to their offering. It is the inspiration they provide to help enable consumers in exercising their conscious consumption wishes. To improve their wellbeing with healthier food choices and create a safer future for themselves and their families. These brands understand that taste, eating experience and proper price are all table stakes and not the real reason for marketplace success. Empowering consumers to experience ‘making a difference’ is the real brand elevator.

Thus, why conveying values, mission and purpose are so vital to success rather than relying on historic tactics that attempt to leverage features, lower price or the more subtle tactical manipulations of persuasion, fear, vanity, status, shame, peer pressure and social acceptance to close a sale.

One big example: we live in a nation founded on inspiration of a better future for people

In July of 1776 the world was forever changed with the emergence of the United States, the first-ever constitutional republic – a democracy ‘of and for the people’ – now at 247 years of age the oldest of its kind on earth. A new nation founded on ideals and principles that espoused freedom of speech and press, an elected representative government, the rule of law and a promise of a better future for people.

These ideals form the foundation of an inspired sense of opportunity and the expectation of an individual’s ability to pursue their own goals and aspirations. Despite the enormous flaws and inconsistencies that dogged the nation through a Civil War 84 years after its founding, the resilience wrapped in these beliefs and sense of purpose have stood the test of time.

America is one of the most powerful examples of “Why” culture and the influence of deeper meaning writ large. It is embedded in our American attitudes, thinking and distinctive behaviors. These principles and aspirations have spread around the world, yet most of these new democratic governments are less than 70 years old and still evolving.

• We have unique stories to tell about our nation’s founding
• Symbols abound about the American legacy of freedom
• It is inspirational to how we think and see our lives
• Our societal beliefs are founded on the concept of greater good

Yet for all of the evidence of how a nation founded on beliefs and values serves as an inspiration to a brighter future over time, and the power of values to impact attitudes and behavior – this POV hasn’t rubbed off as fully as it could on business and brand development thinking.

When brands become symbols of values and beliefs we hold close

Health, wellbeing, achievement, creative exploration, better relationships, education, love, serving others – there are so many places a brand can live to inspire users and improve their lives. It is in this moment of unselfish thinking that an environment of trust is created.

The process to explore and refine a brand’s “why” begins with consumer-centricity and works backward from there. It is formative insight into your customers’ interests, concerns and desires that informs a creative exploration around brand beliefs – which should reflect and mirror your users’ aspirations.

Emergent has developed a proprietary process for this evaluation we call Brand Sustainability Analysis – in this case the word sustainable refers not to environmental concerns directly but to sustainable brand growth over time.

The six primary components include:

• Core beliefs that are consumer centric and address how the brand contributes to improving users lives and the world around them.

• Based on those beliefs, Why the company exists, its core mission and higher purpose.

• How the company will fulfill its belief-driven higher purpose and mission.

• Therefore, What business the company is truly in and assets required to fulfill that promise based on the brand purpose.

• The company BrandStand that expresses the business’ true north and becomes an embedded guide for decisions on strategy, policy, employee policy and recruitment, innovation and marketing going forward.

• Implications of the BrandStand on company operations and marketing strategies.

If you agree that inspiration is a stronger path to influencing consumer decisions than passe’ tactical manipulation, and that an optimized purpose and mission – your why – can lead to brand advocacy and evangelism, then we should talk. Use this link to begin an informal get-acquainted conversation.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

New report confirms ESG impact on business outcomes…

The consumer’s growing concern about sustainability and the environmental impact of food products is translating into behaviors on the path to purchase. A new study released by Glow, a Nielsen IQ research partner, affirms that ESG performance is impacting brand switching, preference and purchase.

• Glow reported their calculations that a brand with $500 million in sales and a Social Responsibility Score (SRS) that is 10 points higher than a similarly sized competitor, can expect to secure an additional $25 million in revenue over three years, on average.  

Glow’s study verified consumers are exercising choice by “shedding” brands that don’t meet their sustainability expectations, while also moving their allegiance to products that are more closely aligned with their values. In sum, consumers are increasingly regulating their purchases to operate in sync with their beliefs about environmental responsibility.

Sustainability driven brand switching – how much and which categories

The percentage of consumers switching brands based on their assessment of devotion to more sustainable behaviors and policies ranges currently between 30 and 40 percent. The categories where switching is occurring most often include:

Meat and seafood

Pantry (pasta, rice, condiments, oils)

Frozen

Pet

Bakery

Dairy

Don’t ignore the business driver – communications

The research also flagged that some brands aren’t getting the sustainability performance recognition they deserve, and thus aren’t seeing an impact on business outcomes. This happens because their environmental story isn’t breaking through. Glow’s report is a rallying cry for food brands to work harder to close the gap between rising consumer expectations of ESG commitments and actual progress towards credibly fulfilling and activating the brand’s sustainability story.

• Emergent’s recent Brand Sustainability Solution analysis of 25 food, beverage and lifestyle brands and retailers’ sustainability readiness, showed an almost universal weakness tracing back to sub-optimal communications efforts. Sustainability communications outreach to close the loop with consumers is missing or tepid. Read: not effective.

Glow’s study revealed the top five channels where consumers prefer to learn about ESG commitments:

1. News media
2. Product packaging
3. Advertising
4. Brand web site
5. Social media

News media scored highest because of its perceived credibility as a trusted third-party source. Packaging also tracked high given it’s a shelf-ready, shopper-facing place to get information. The most important on-pack claims to consumers were animal welfare, environmental impact, social responsibility and sustainable packaging.

According to Glow:

• Nine out of 10 consumers believe it is important for brands to act responsibly in their environmental policies and actions.

• One out of two consumers say they have changed brands based on their perceptions of ESG performance.

• 78% of consumers say brand purpose and values play an important role in their purchase decisions.

• 79% claim they are more loyal to brands with a clearly defined higher purpose.

• 85% believe it’s important for companies to act responsibly about climate impact.

• One in five rank ESG and sustainability in the top three purchase considerations alongside price and quality.

• Despite the challenges of inflation, sustainability commitments also provide a compelling reason not to trade down, especially among Millennial consumers.

Glow’s study analyzed the impact of 13 different ESG characteristics on consumer behavior. In the food category the most important considerations are:

1. Reducing emissions and climate change
2. Respecting natural resources (like water)
3. Protecting wildlife and eco-systems.

This study verifies what we at Emergent have been reporting now for over a year, that sustainability and environmental policies and commitments have formed one of the most important foundations of marketplace competitive advantage for the foreseeable future.

• Consumers are voting their preferences in the checkout lane and make decisions on the brands they prefer based on their perceptions of sustainability readiness.

When sustainability communications is just a quarterly progress report

Importantly, strategic communications cannot be underestimated in its relevant role to close the deal and convince consumers. And this goes way beyond regurgitating complex and often confusing scientific data points. Creative outreach works to connect investments in sustainability readiness progress with audiences most likely to act on that information. The absence of strong communications usually occurs when the sustainability team is not connected to the marketing team, or it operates as a stand-alone silo and isn’t integrated into the main go-to-market strategic plan.

• The Glow study validates that sustainability commitments, policies and performance isn’t just “talk” as far as consumers are concerned. It is impacting the “walk” of what goes in the shopping cart and gets purchased.

In our view, when organizations understand and act to secure the business benefits of sustainability investments, we will see more meaningful progress on the path to emission reductions and a healthier planet. And businesses will see consumer reciprocation in the form of enhanced brand preference, purchase intent and product movement. Sustainability is a business builder.

If you believe your sustainability strategies and communications could use fresh strategic eyes and a creative lift, use this link to start an informal dialogue around your questions.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.