The hardest part about leaving Monterey, California is… well, leaving.  I say this, in part, because the calm bay breeze and the snoozing sea lions just couldn’t be more beautiful.  But also, in part, because our puddle jumper connecting us to JFK via LAX was delayed, and then delayed again.  Flights were switched, new flights were delayed, and we just couldn’t make a connection for the life of us.  An overnight at SFO and 180 minutes of sleep later, I hope my mid-air ramblings are somewhat sensible.

No time for in-flight sleep when there’s wireless.

It was an honor to join Susan McPherson at the 2010 Sustainable Brands Conference in Monterey for her panel on Building and Measuring Cause Marketing Campaigns, alongside Aria Finger, CMO at DoSomething.org, and Parker Blackman, COO at Fenton Communications.

It was also incredible to see the turnout of high-level thinkers, movers and doers:  thought-leaders and believers who are making their businesses run better, smarter and for the larger good of the planet and its inhabitants.

As we struggle over next steps and next-generation implications in the Gulf, the speed at which businesses have to respond and be responsible to the public’s interest is increasing.  The window is smaller, the walls are closing in.  Certainly we cannot wait for things to get worse before we make them better.  And communicating what is being done towards sustainability of a civil society, as much as communicating what needs to be done, is critical to gain support and momentum in this direction.

To that end, our panel received standing-room-only attention.  Aria’s case studies on how DoSomething.org has rallied millions of Millennials to, yes, do something, were impressive, as was her dynamic and energizing presence.  Do Something’s cool commitment to meeting their audience, young people, where they are in order to ensure higher, better-quality and longer-lived involvement in the cause and social issue of their choice is a testament that businesses and organizations can be galvanizers with the right strategic thinking.  Businesses have to think like, and work for, their consumers as they reach out, or audiences will respond elsewhere.

Parker’s talk on Fenton’s successes positioning brands as allies for social issues shed light on how critical walking the talk is; any position a company takes must be authentic to its core values or consumers will sniff out the greenwash.  It’s the kind of scent, like bleach, that’s hard to forget.  Done authentically and transparently, consumers can become life-long advocates for you.

I, predictably, launched with a film reference.  The 2003 Canadian documentary film written by Joel Bakan, and directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott, called The Corporation, looked at the modern-day corporation, considering its legal status as a class of person, and evaluating its behavior towards society and the world at large as a psychiatrist might evaluate an ordinary person. General feeling in this film? Pathologically Greedy.  Hateful.  Reckless with people’s lives.  The simple, yet iconic artwork for the film speaks volumes.

In 2007, the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy reported The McKinsey Quarterly asking this question to corporate executives – to what extent do you agree or disagree that society has higher expectations for business to take on public responsibilities for global environmental, social and political issues than was the case 5 years ago?  Note all that blue in the chart below – 84% AGREED.  Agreed that society at that point was increasingly demanding better from business.

These executives knew the public at large was becoming more conscious of how responsible or irresponsible businesses were being.  But when asked about their confidence that they were getting appropriate credit for their philanthropic work – only 13 percent of respondents, i.e. corporate executives aiming toward that credit, said they were very successful in achieving it; one fifth of all survey respondents felt their company was not getting appropriate credit for their philanthropic efforts and a quarter were uncertain about whether they were being credited at all.

So what is the well-behaved, responsible company to do when the devil-tailed suit is largely a part of public opinion?

Enter cause marketing, which just a few years ago was considered foggy idealism, insincere swagger and inherently a load of crap.  Now, while still being tightly tracked for proven ROI, as we talked about in one of our last newsletters, cause marketing is not only here to stay, it’s the area of marketing that’s increasing its spending.  People not only want to know what good companies are doing, they will make purchase decisions based on that knowledge, or lack thereof.  As trends show that public expectations will increase, businesses are realizing the benefit of communicating good values, and that cause marketing is an effective way to accomplish that.

So how does one communicate good work the right way, so that the impression left is not one of self-serving boasting but of being a partner towards this greater good?  True stories of impact.  Not mission statements.  All the CSR, sustainability, and philanthropic focuses – they all shine through via the stories of what is actually happening. If there isn’t anything actually happening that you can report, that’s because you aren’t doing anything.

So what are you doing that you can report?  How are you reporting it?

As our presentations at SB’10 all touched on, if you’re running businesses inherently with strong values, then all the parts about building partnerships and aligning with causes that make sense for your brand, as well as communicating those stories of impact — it all comes naturally.  All the while, you are building an army of advocates in your consumers.  What better marketing can you ask for?

Thank you again to Susan McPherson for facilitating Moped’s participation at this event, and to Aria and Parker for their killer presentations!