The Swoop: May 2024
Introducing The Swoop: my regular roundup of Insights & Ideas at the Intersection of Marketing & Sustainability. There are a ton of phenomenal resources out there providing deep dives into one or the other, but here we’ll think more about how the two functions complement one another.
You can expect: examples of purpose-driven brands who are doing it right, hot takes on intriguing marketing tactics, spotlights on innovative new tech and service solutions in this space, recommendations of books, podcasts, or other resources I’m finding particularly informative, climate news (the uplifting kind), academic research boiled down into key takeaways, and more.
Your time is precious, which is why The Swoop distills just the highlights from all the many marketing, branding, social impact, and climate resources I encounter each week. So we’ll keep it to 3 delightful tidbits, for no more than a 10 minute read (maybe 5 if you’re speedy).
So without further ado, here’s The Swoop for May: A sustainable apparel poster child, stats on premium pricing, and a dose of climate confidence.
Brand Spotlight: Cotopaxi
When it comes to thoughtful and compelling interviews, veteran CMO Jim Stengel hosts one of the best Podcasts around with his aptly titled The CMO Podcast.
A recent episode featured Brad Hiranaga, Chief Brand Officer of Cotopaxi, the sustainable outdoor apparel brand competing against industry darlings like Patagonia. Their brand offers a masterclass in imbuing purpose throughout the entire business model and marketing strategy, but I particularly loved hearing about how the brand's iconic multi-color look came about.
Their Del Dia pack collection was created from what's called "Dead Stock Fabric," material waste destined for the landfill. Those scraps are now repurposed into highly recognizable multi-colored products. This taps into the concept of personalization at the physical product level, offering customers one-of-a-kind packs (younger generations especially prize the opportunity to be recognized as their own unique individual... but don't we all.) And consciously or not, consumers often leverage brands as a status symbol, and this one telegraphs their ethical standards loud and clear.
So is this a sustainability play? A marketing play? It's both/and, it's a win-win, and it's exactly the kind of fundamental "doing well by doing good" example that makes me so excited about how businesses can grow and shape the future.
The Shrinking Price Premium
Graph courtesy of NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business’ 2023 Sustainable Market Share Index report
NYU Stern's Center for Sustainable Business puts out some of the most useful research I've yet to find on the topic. Former CMO and now Senior Scholar Randi Kronthal-Sacco recently unpacked one of the data points I've found most confounding in a webinar hosted by Sustainable Brands.
Their recent market share research has shown that the price premium between sustainable and conventional products has decreased year over year, nearly 12 percentage points from 2018 to 2022.
It's easy to assume this is due to the prices of sustainable products decreasing as they become more ubiquitous, but actually it's due to the prices of conventional products increasing in an inflationary environment while organic, local, or otherwise sustainable products held their pricing fairly constant.
That shrinking gap in pricing represents an even more compelling opportunity for sustainable brands to differentiate themselves based on their values and standards compared to their conventional competitors, and seize on this universally high-priced environment to capture market share.
Embracing Climate Confidence
On the way up to Cathedral Rock in Sedona, Arizona
I was lucky enough to find myself on a trip to Sedona, AZ this month, my first time visiting the American Southwest (and...wow).
At a few points my feeling of awe at the sheer splendor of our incredible plant turned to a more bittersweet feeling, and I found myself asking my husband whether he thought our kids and grandkids would have the privilege of seeing sights like these.
He quickly answered "Of course," which was shocking to me, given all we know about the imminent threat of climate change. His take: humans got ourselves into this mess, and we're innovative enough to get ourselves out.
I gave him major props at the time but it turns out there's a term for this kind of thinking: Apocalyptic Optimism. The New York Times recently covered this concept (gift link), along with some pretty explicit examples of how this relates to marketers and other storytellers.
The key takeaway? Hope matters.
