Nearly nine out of 10 millennial investors want sustainable investments. ESG-related instruments have already attracted $35 trillion. The sector will likely exceed $53 trillion by 2025. A recent study found that millennials are twice as likely to invest in companies targeting social or environmental goals, while 72 percent of Gen Z believes in responsible investing. In response, many organizations are embracing sustainability as part of brand management. Many companies now see environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting, as a tool to attract customers, investors and financing. It’s also a benchmarking tool that helps stakeholders find the best corporate performers.

Unlike the more elusive claims of sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR), ESG reporting is more rigorous and more formal. ESG involves the disclosure of environmental, social and corporate governance data—not just plans and ideals. As with all disclosures, it sheds light on a company’s ESG activities while improving investor transparency and inspiring other organizations to do the same. ESG promotes the disclosure of actual and potential impacts of climate-related risks and opportunities on the organization’s businesses, strategy, and financial planning where such information is material. It helps companies disclose how the organization identifies, assesses, and manages climate-related risks.

In a recent survey, EY found that 82 percent of CEOs embrace ESG as a strategic opportunity. ESG strategy can help a company build customer loyalty, attract and retain loyal employees, attract capital and more.

“ESG is Brand Management 101,” said Gary Chandler, CEO of Crossbow Communications. “We should be leary of any company that doesn’t promote transparency and efficiency.”

As ESG’s popularity grows, its critics become louder. They claim that scoring a company on these metrics is subjective. They claim that ESG ratings rarely inspire meaningful change. Unfortunately, they have been used to cover up environmental crimes.

There are plenty of incentives for unscrupulous companies to lie. The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) created a Climate and ESG Task Force to help identify misconduct. It also created a website to receive ESG-related tips, referrals, and whistleblower complaints.

The key is to maintain safeguards, ask tough questions and invest in better reporting. We must define what constitutes material information. We need standardized frameworks and definitions for issues such as climate impact, human rights, and income inequality. Transparency and consistency are essential. Failure isn’t an option.

Read the Full Story About ESG Reporting

Gary Chandler is the CEO of Crossbow Communications — an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

The post Investors Fueling ESG Movement appeared first on Gary Chandler.

I have been a marketing professional for more than 40 years. At the tactical level, the industry has evolved drastically over the past 20 years. The Internet, social media, mobile phones, streaming video, influencers and more have changed the media landscape and more.

Meanwhile, marketing strategy is still largely the same. Most of the fundamentals are still rock solid. Market research, strategic planning, messaging and targeting are still the pillars of success in brand management. To help you blend some of the old-school strategy with new school tactics, I’m posting several highlights from my corporate blog as a touchstone.

Market Research: The best brands in the world have a firm pulse on their market and their top customers. The best brands understand the direction and momentum of each market segment. They know what their customers want and need. Successful brands position themselves in the minds of customers and prospective customers constantly based on market feedback. Most of these companies position themselves as leaders and problem-solvers in the market.

Brands that are struggling are often disconnected from their customers and their prospective customers.

One of the best examples is a classic disaster. In the 1980s, Coca-Cola ruled the cola market, but Pepsi was gaining market share. The Pepsi Challenge urged consumers to compare the taste of Coke and Pepsi. As more people took the challenge, many people preferred Pepsi over Coke, which chipped away at the Coca-Cola brand. In response, Coca-Cola introduced New Coke in 1985 to deliver the sweeter taste that many consumers preferred about Pepsi.

Coca-Cola failed to conduct market research to understand its customers and prospective customers. It also failed to test the new product adequately among its own customers. The new product and the marketing campaign was meant to take momentum away from Pepsi. Instead, the product change generated a backlash among Coke’s loyal customers. Within three months, Coca-Cola put the original Coke back on shelves under the name Coca-Cola Classic. The company continued to dilute its brand with New Coke until 2002. The damage was done. Read the full story about Coca-Cola’s marketing mistake of the century

Social Media: Many organizations rely on social media to help promote their brand, their candidate or their favorite cause. Although social media is an important part of brand management, it isn’t a silver bullet. It’s more like a double-edged sword that can work for you or against you.Social media is another form of earned media. In order to earn attention for your posts, you must build your audience. Some organizations are absolutely crushing it on social media platforms, while others are missing in action or shooting themselves in the foot.

Harnessing the power of social media requires strategic planning and opportunism.

It requires a team effort that includes the executive leadership team, not just an uninformed rookie who manages social media platforms with random posts. Corporations, nonprofits, government and advocates can all harness the power of social media. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes and don’t be afraid of being human. Social media can be a powerful team-building tool among all stakeholders. Read the full story about best practices in social media.

Crisis Communications: Businesses and advocacy organizations around the world are facing a rapidly changing landscape. As the pandemic evolves, so does the threat of global warming, climate change and disruptions to supply chains. Lives, businesses and entire communities are being lost to fires, floods, droughts and the pandemic. The worst is yet to come.

As a result, crisis aversion and crisis management have taken on a new urgency in the world of brand management. The companies that navigate these challenges proactively and responsibly are more likely to survive, if not thrive, as these events unfold. While some short-sighted companies are trying to capitalize on these crises, others are wisely positioning themselves as responsible citizens. They are positioning themselves as leaders, the voice of reason and reliable problem solvers. They are building relationships, while leading stakeholders to higher ground. They do the right things at the right times without concern for the bottom line, but investor relations must be handled simultaneously with public safety concerns.

Videoconferencing: The pandemic accelerated many aspects of the digital age, including videoconferencing. Unfortunately, many companies have lost clients due to simple mistakes. Jobs have been lost in the process. In a survey of U.S. executives at large companies, 83 percent of respondents have seen employees disciplined for mistakes made during a teleconference call. Bad etiquette includes joining a call late, having a bad Internet connection, accidentally sharing sensitive information and not muting the microphone. According to the survey, 25 percent of companies have fired someone for a videoconferencing error.

Furthermore, executives only trust 66 percent of their staff to properly navigate the technology necessary to make remote work successful. And 32 percent of those executives have lost a client or business opportunity because of technology or connection issues, while another 41 percent have missed a project deadline. With these complications in mind, let’s review several details to consider before making a professional, productive conference call.

Gary Chandler is the CEO of Crossbow Communications — an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

The post Common Mistakes In Brand Management appeared first on Gary Chandler.

Grassroots movements continue changing the world. It’s a dynamic that needs to gain momentum now more than ever. It’s up to citizens and nonprofit organizations to purge threats to democracy and people.

Most nonprofit organizations could boost their impact with more aggressive advocacy campaigns. Much of the sector should shift from crisis response to problem prevention. They must build awareness, understanding and support from all stakeholder groups to build support for reform.

The power to share information and engage stakeholders has never been greater, but most organizations aren’t making the most of opportunities. These failures are costly. To help you avoid missed opportunities, here is a quick checklist of strategies and tactics that can help organize and optimize most campaigns.

Internal Communication 

All advocacy campaigns begin internally. Notify, educate, motivate and empower your support structure first. Members, customers, employees, allies and others will help you start the parade and they can serve as spokespeople, recruiters, donors, volunteers and more. They will play instrumental roles of disseminating information and opinions via social media. Segment out these groups as much as possible for tailored messages.

Advocacy and Lobbying

Lobbying is when an organization tries to influence the outcome for proposed legislation through communications with legislators and their staff. All lobbying is advocacy, but not all advocacy is lobbying. Nonprofits can hire lobbyists and use staff for lobbying, but it’s important to know the rules to protect your campaign and the policymakers from violating procedural rules.

Legislator engagement and education can be different than lobbying, especially when the legislature is out of session. It’s important to build awareness, understanding and support for your issues outside of the legislative process. Be sure to target newly elected legislators, committee chairs, past allies, past foes and others who can hurt or help your cause. The pursuit of common ground can yield important alliances and neutralize the most challenging adversaries.

Elected officials respond best to messages from people they know well and from the people they represent, their constituents. While your top level (grass tops) advocates are talking with many different elected officials, support those efforts with you front line (grassroots) supporters should be mobilized and directed to the elected officials that represent their districts.

Public Opinion

Public opinion still influences most public policy, but the battle for the hearts and minds of citizens, communities and leaders is fierce. Plus, people are being bombarded with issues at an accelerating rate, so gaining attention and keeping audiences engaged long enough to act is part of the challenge.

Every issue is different, which means that every public relations campaign is different. However, the assessment and planning process is fairly standard. The following checklist is a simple overview of our process at Crossbow.

Stakeholder Research and Segmentation. Start a list of all groups that share a stake in the issue and the outcome. Build and buy lists with current contact information. Make sure that you can segment that list based on a variety of factors to help you send custom messages to each group as appropriate. Learn as much as possible about each group and each contact.

Competitive Research. Who stands in your way and why? What can you do to overcome their objections? What can be done to neutralize their voice?

Identify & Recruit Existing Allies. Recruit the strongest supporters first. Use that momentum to keep recruiting other key individuals and organizations.

Coalition Development. Do you form a coalition or just have supporters, members and endorsements to represent your position? Coalitions can help the movement position itself and the adversary in a strategic light. The coalition name can serve as a statement itself. A coalition also can help deflect attention away from individual supporters or allies.

Campaign Strategy and Plan. establish a clear and measurable goal. Draw up the action plan that can reach that goal. Include a timeline and budget.

Message Development. Who needs to hear what? Can we segment our lists/mediums and customize messages accordingly? What are the top three points that we must convey? What objections must be overcome? What action do we want people to make?

Community Engagement and Education. Who are the major stakeholder groups? Who are the local leaders and influencers? What are their goals and concerns?

Community engagement can broaden understanding of the issues and increase people’s willingness to give their time and money to support your cause. It also can activate clients that directly benefit from nonprofit services.

Channel Development and Management. Build your audiences and networks on social media. Build your email lists. Encourage people to subscribe to your RSS feed.

Earned Media. Earning media coverage is one of the most powerful tactics available.It’s credible, it’s influential and it can become viral. Pitch journalists and reporters to write features. Send out media releases to consumer and trade mediums. Offer expert lists and media kits, fact sheets, b-roll, photos and other resources necessary to tell the story from your perspective. Write letters to the editor and comment online in response to related news coverage. Use these opportunities to expand the conversation or focus it as appropriate.

Social Media. Have your advocates create and share videos telling why your issue is important to them. Upload it to YouTube, share it on social media, and embed it in your landing page or website. The organization’s leaders can do this as well for educational purposes. Start off by using social media to educate and expand your networks. As a bill moves through the legislature, for example, your social media should move from educating and organizing to mobilization with specific calls to action. Remind people to share and spread the message to friends and their networks.

Develop Spokespeople. Who are the most influential people in your organization and coalition? Recruit them to serve as official spokespeople. Train different leaders to help you reach specific target markets. Train them to deliver the key messages concisely. Empower them with tools that can help maximize their reach and their impact.

Develop Volunteers. Grassroots campaigns depend on volunteers. They can help with logistics, events, fundraising, social media and so much more.

Petitions. Some petitions are actionable and some are purely symbolic statements. Seek more than signatures during these outreach efforts. Make the action step easy to find and appealing to take. Keep these supporters informed and engaged.

Events and Rallies. Events can help accomplish many objectives. Use them to help build awareness, understanding and support for your cause. Use them to feature your most influential supporters. Use them to recruit new supporters and engage existing ones. Use them to educate citizens, the media and stakeholders at large. Use them to position your supporters as leaders and your opponents as losers. Use them to raise money and generate online buzz.

Web Strategy. Maximize your online visibility and influence. Have an online portal (a microsite specific to the cause) and drive traffic there for more information and engagement. Maximize search engine optimization to help stakeholders and media find you.

Ongoing Email and CRM. Keep stakeholders and supporters informed and engaged. Aggregate all the actions that have happened on your legislative landing page and email it directly to legislators prior to their vote. Send it also to your supporters and let them know that you have sent their actions on to their legislators.  Everyone wants to know the results of their actions and stay informed.

Good luck with your campaign. Please contact us for more firepower.

Gary Chandler is the CEO of Crossbow Communications. He is the author of several books about health and environmental issues from around the world. He also is the author of the Language and Travel Guide To Indonesia.

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