An interview with Stephen Mangham
The marketing function is often seen as the greenwasher of sustainability. Some would say that the other functions do all the hard work of making real progress and the marketers simply share the stories!
Yet, marketing and sustainability actually have a strong connection. In this interview, we explore the subject of sustainable brands with Stephen Mangham.
Transcript
The timings are there to help you dive into the video at the right point if needed.
[00:00:05 –> 00:01:02] Edmund: Hello, everyone. I’m Edmund Bradford. I’m a Director of the Good Growth Academy and today we’re going to be talking about sustainability and marketing, which I think is a really interesting area. I’m delighted to have with me Stephen Mangham, who is a branding expert and also a Master at Masters of Scale International. You and I, Steven, have chatted a little bit in the past about branding, sustainability and another concept that we’re kicking around called “good growth.” It’d be really interesting to get your thoughts on what we mean by Good Growth, a good growth brand, and how that is different to other brands that are out there. So any thoughts are very well received!
[00:01:02 –> 00:01:29] Stephen: Okay. Thanks. Well, the purpose of marketing has always been to produce growth. So in today’s world, I’d argue that the role of CMOs is to produce good growth, where sustainability is a strategic imperative at the core of their brand strategy.
[00:01:31 –> 00:01:40] Edmund: When we talk about good growth, do we mean sustainability? Is that something different to sustainability?
[00:01:40 –> 00:02:29] Stephen: We do mean sustainability. But I’d say two things about it. First of all, that it is where sustainability is at the core of the brand strategy. It’s defining the brand in terms of its social purpose rather than being an add-on or an addendum or a part of the brand, it’s core to the brand. Arguably, it goes further than simple damage limitation or mitigation. It’s about the idea of being that good that you put in more than you take out. When you define a brand in terms of its social purpose, ultimately it’s putting more into the ecosystem than it takes out.
[00:02:29 –> 00:03:02] Edmund: That reminds me of something that I saw a couple of weeks ago from Professor Steve Kempster, who’s a Professor at Lancaster University. He was telling me about the fact that we now talk about a regenerative company as being a higher goal. You’re thinking there about being “net good”. Is that a higher goal than just being sustainable?
[00:03:02 –> 00:04:12] Stephen: Yes, I think it is. Net-zero is a very laudable target, don’t get me wrong. But it’s about a different way of looking at your business as your brand. It’s about the idea that it isn’t looking at sustainability in terms of damage limitation or defining it in terms of mitigation or what steps can we take to mitigate the impact we have on our world. It’s looking at it in terms of what is the inherent usefulness of our brand or our business? Where is it actually a promoter of good things in some way? And it’s about looking in terms of the brand as saying, on balance, that it has a strong social purpose that is inherently useful to society in some way. It’s taking all the right steps in terms of its impact on our world, both in positive terms as well as negative terms. But at the end of the day, it’s actually about being net good.
[00:04:13 –> 00:04:24] Edmund: Which companies would you put down as at least attempting to do this in a proper fashion?
[00:04:24 –> 00:05:00] Stephen: There are so many companies that are doing that at the moment, and obviously, there are some companies that were created from scratch with a sense of social purpose. Who Gives a Crap, for example? But actually, there’s also a large number of the larger companies who are taking significant steps. So if you think of Unilever, for example, Alan Jope has famously gone on record as saying that if a brand in their stable of brands doesn’t have a social purpose that they can define, they’ll sell it.
[00:05:01 –> 00:05:04] Edmund: Yes, that’s right.
[00:05:05 –> 00:05:19] Stephen: They’re taking major steps in terms of giving all of their brands a defined social purpose and measuring the impact and the success – or otherwise – of that purpose.
[00:05:20 –> 00:05:38] Edmund: Excellent. And I think when we’re talking about a kind of good growth brand, it’s a brand that can be applied at a company level or could be applied at a product or service level. Do you see that? Or is it only a corporate level where this works?
[00:05:38 –> 00:06:52] Stephen: It can work at a corporate level. Of course, it can. It must because you have to look at the way you do business as an organization. But I guess what we’re talking about here more specifically, is defining your brands in these terms. By doing that, you are looking at your brands. At the end of the day, you define your brand in terms of consumer appeal, and a brand lives or dies. Of course, in terms of how strongly it resonates with customers and how it persuades more consumers to buy it more often. So when you’re looking at sustainable brands as opposed to sustainable companies, you’re defining it in customer-facing terms. How is the brand inherently useful for its customers and defining it in terms of social purpose? How will a brand, as a result, be more relevant to consumers, drive talk-ability, even protect its price elasticity, for example? So with brands, we’re talking about a customer orientated centric conversation.
[00:06:53 –> 00:07:06] Edmund: Excellent. And that, by the way, is a great teeing up for our next video, which is going to be all about differentiation. So many thanks, Steven. And I look forward to another conversation with you shortly.
[00:07:06 –> 00:07:08] Stephen: Thank you very much. Great to talk to you. Ed.
Branding Expert at Master of Scale
A graduate of Oxford University, Stephen has over thirty years experience in marketing and brand communications.
He has advised MNCs and start-ups in just about every business category in Western and Eastern Europe and Asia.
He chaired the largest brand communications group in Southeast Asia before setting up his own business, which was subsequently sold to Japanese owned Dentsu Inc.
Stephen now mentors a number of CEOs of professional services companies. He is also an Expert Advisor for Bain and Co’s marketing transformation practice, a ‘Master’ at the business advisory company Masters of Scale International, and an active shareholder in a video content platform company.
Stephen teaches Integrated Marketing Communications to Executive MSc students at NTU’s Nanyang Business School, and Marketing for New Ventures to Global MBA students at EDHEC Business School in France.
He has advised MNCs and start-ups in just about every business category in Western and Eastern Europe and Asia.
He chaired the largest brand communications group in Southeast Asia before setting up his own business, which was subsequently sold to Japanese owned Dentsu Inc.
Stephen now mentors a number of CEOs of professional services companies. He is also an Expert Advisor for Bain and Co’s marketing transformation practice, a ‘Master’ at the business advisory company Masters of Scale International, and an active shareholder in a video content platform company.
Stephen teaches Integrated Marketing Communications to Executive MSc students at NTU’s Nanyang Business School, and Marketing for New Ventures to Global MBA students at EDHEC Business School in France.
Latest posts by Stephen Mangham (see all)
- How can a marketer help sustainability? - August 4, 2021
- The CMO and Sustainability Leadership - July 22, 2021
- How can sustainability be a real differentiator for companies? - July 7, 2021
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