This week has seen social media go #nomakeupselfie mad. Cancer Research has raised over £2m and counting in 48 hours by seizing the opportunity and there are some great lessons for brands (be they charities or companies). 

If you have managed to avoid a single selfie of a female friend without make-up, let me recap. The #nomakeupselfie trend is said to have started with author Laura Lippman who posted a picture in solidarity with actress Kim Novak, who was recently criticised for her looks – nothing to do with cancer awareness or fundraising. 

People joined the trend and at some point started adding  #breastcancerawareness to their pictures.  What is crucial here, is that there was no link to any specific cancer charity initially.  Cancer Research was quick to seize the opportunity and posted a picture and message on social media, in essence taking ownership of the hashtag:  

“Thousands of you are posting #cancerawareness #nomakeupselfie pictures and many have asked if the campaign is ours. It’s not but we love that people want to get involved! If you’d like to help beat cancer sooner, please visit our website at http://bit.ly/1hAa1uD or text to donate using the code in the picture.” 

One wonders how Macmillan, Marie Curie, Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research and myriad other cancer charities feel as they watch the millions going to Cancer Research – I'm sure they won’t begrudge them (they are working for the same cause after all), but equally I'm sure they wouldn't have minded a share!

This is nimble decision making and marketing at its absolute best. It is also a bold decision that I think many brands can learn from – not just those looking to boost fundraising. Some of the lessons that I see are:

• Empower your marketing and social media teams – a decision like this has to be taken in hours, not days and that requires staff to be empowered to take strategic decisions
  
• Don’t fret too much about your brand – whilst Cancer Research can make interventions, campaigns like this have lives of their own and some people will put out the wrong messages or post things in bad taste; most consumers realise this has nothing to do with Cancer Research and more organisations would do well to remember this when issuing strict brand guidelines or cracking down on 'misuse'.  Cancer Research was brave enough to harness an unpredictable, yet powerful bandwagon
  
• Leave your high horse behind – the internet is full of narcissism debates as a result of this campaign but this has not bothered Cancer Research one bit.  The reality is that it has captured the imagination of the public and that is ultimately what is crucial

The power of social media never ceases to amaze me and it will be interesting to see how brands adapt following the no make-up phenomenon.  One thing I am sure of though, you can't try to recreate or initiate this as a planned campaign - it will never be as powerful as when it is started by the crowd.

by Jesper Ekelund

BMW may have taken its time entering the electric vehicle (EV) market, but its latest offering, the carbon-fiber i3, is creating a stir in the motor industry.

What makes the i3 interesting is the thinking that went into its design. Jacob Harb, Head of Operations and Strategy explains: [the project]..started a decade ago, looking at how to ‘future-proof’ our business…it sounds a cliché, but we really started with a blank slate, we re-examined the design process from the ground up. Sustainability and innovation are embodied in the i3.”

The result is a carbon fiber chassis, 50% lighter than steel. Amongst other efficiencies, production uses 50% less water and 70% of the energy used in conventional processes.

Designed with disassembly in mind, the i3 is an impressive 95% recyclable. Perhaps just as importantly, it is the sort of car you can imagine people aspiring to. It’s not a half-baked nod to sustainability, it’s a car that expects to capture a good portion of the market on its own merits. The i3 may well shake up the burgeoning EV market and push its competitors (the hitherto dominant Chevy, Nissan, Tesla and Prius) to go one better.  This can only be a good thing- for consumers and for the environment. It’s a good example of a competitive marketplace driving a ‘race to the top’, stimulating more creative thinking to solve our sustainable transportation challenges faster.

Delve a little deeper into BMW’s story, however, and you’ll discover that supply-chain and community collaboration also played a key part in creating the world’s first mass produced carbon fiber vehicle. Carbon fiber is pricey. Very pricey. So in order to make the production process cost effective and reliable, BMW formed a partnership with SGL Carbon SE and opened a hydro-powered carbon fiber plant in Moses Lake, Washington. The two firms worked with a local community college to train employees for the plant, which created 80 new jobs, and according to SGL’s Managing Director, Dr Joerg Pohlman aided in “starting the production at a high level of quality and efficiency.” Without the bold $100m invested in the Moses Lake joint venture, BMW’s vision may have stalled.

The i3 is an interesting example of an innovative, more sustainable product created for a highly competitive market. Yet it is also a useful case study in collaboration and the value of well-managed partnerships in creating social and environmental value.

It’s a conclusion Darwin arrived at more than a decade after the publication of On The Origin of Species. In the Descent of Man (1871) he outlined his conviction that cooperation and reciprocity were as essential as competition to the evolutionary process. According to philosopher Roman Krznaric, Darwin’s new thinking was “largely neglected at the time, and we are only beginning to recover it now.”

Perhaps what businesses really need to help solve the knottier social and environmental challenges of our time is more of this kind of thinking- a philosophy that balances intelligent and well executed collaboration with an ability to compete (and fight fairly!) in the evolution of ever more effective and sustainable products and services. Perhaps then we might realise the true power of the emerging social economy.

by Jenny Ekelund

I recently saw this short clip from Paul Sloane on why customers are a bad source of breakthrough innovations. He states that "if you want breakthrough innovations you don't start by asking customers, you start somewhere else". He then simply and powerfully makes his point, illustrating how if we asked customers back in the 1950s how we could improve spectacles, they would never have suggested contact lenses or laser eye surgery.  A similar and often quoted example is Henry Ford's "if I asked customers what they wanted they would have said a faster horse". 

In my opinion, customer insight and involvement is critical to all forms of innovation, including disruptive innovations. It should always be at least one of your starting points. 

Of course customers wouldn't have come up with the car, but they would have came up with the need of getting from A to B more quickly. Equally, in the glasses example, we can learn from what customers say - "plastic lenses instead of glass lenses", "a scratch proof lens" and "a flexible frame" are all fantastic insights and great stimulus to generate ideas for solutions. After all, the contact lens solves all the real issues the customer is highlighting here.  It is then up to innovation leaders along with the right mix of internal and external stakeholders to interpret the customer needs through a series of creative exercises and R&D processes.  

To be fair to Paul he may well go on to say this (I've only seen the two minute clip), but ignore the customer at your peril in any type of innovation.

by Jesper Ekelund

Watching Channel 4's recent 'Scandimania' series I learned a fact about Sweden that I had never been aware of:  Volvo invented the three point seat belt in 1959, but instead of filing for a regular patent, they filed for an open one, meaning it would be free for anyone to use. In fact, the company went further than this - they sent Nils Bohlin, the inventor, out on a global mission to convince competitors, consumers and governments alike that this technology had to be adopted to save lives.

There had been versions of seatbelts before this, but Bohlin's was the first three point model. Crucially, he realised the importance of consumer behaviour and adoption - customers want a 'no-brainer' solution.  So his design ensured it could be buckled quickly, with just one hand.

And it certainly worked - it is estimated that over 1 million lives have been saved to date and it is considered one of the most important safety inventions of all time.  The West German Patent office in 1985 voted it in the top eight patents it had handed out in its first 100 years.

This case raises many interesting questions: 

1. Why would a company spend significant money on R&D only to give the invention away and not earn any licencing fees? 
   
2. Was it completely altruistic or was it actually a long term strategic decision by Volvo?
   
3. Would Volvo make the same decision today in the cut throat market that is the 21st century automotive industry?

Having done some internet searches, I'm surprised how little debate there seems to be about Volvo's decision and the questions above. 

Volvo maintains that the reason it gave the technology away was that it was simply too important an invention to profit from - increased revenues just didn't stack up against the lives that could be saved.  Volvo realised that consumers would be slower to adopt the technology if it was an expensive optional extra in other cars.  I also wonder if the Swedish social welfare model and culture of equality contributed to the decision; had Volvo been in a more Anglo-Saxon country one wonders if the same attitude would have been taken.

On the other hand, was it actually a very shrewd business decision? If you asked 100 people to name the first word that comes to mind when you say 'Volvo', 80-90 would probably say 'safe' (unfortunately for Volvo, the rest would probably say 'boring' or 'box' despite neither really holding true any more!). But this is the point - Volvo's differentiator has always been safety and reliability in the first instance.   One of Volvo’s managing directors, Alan Dessell, is quoted as saying: “The decision to release the three-point seat belt patent was visionary and in line with Volvo’s guiding principle of safety.” Judging by the fanfare and PR around the 50th anniversary of the three-point seatbelt, perhaps Volvo realised that releasing the technology would help reinforce and build the brand for years to come. How would people have perceived them if they kept the technology to themselves and squandered the opportunity to save so many lives?

This leads us to the question: would they have done the same today?  I'd love to think so but fear they wouldn't. The car industry is much more cut-throat today than it was in the early 60s.  Volvo has perpetually lagged behind its main German competitors and a breakthrough invention like this could be a brilliant competition killer in the short term. That leaves an uncomfortable question - why, in the economic system we have, would any CEO sanction giving a major patent away?

I would suggest there are three very good reasons.  Firstly, trust in big corporations is at an all time low and a gesture like Volvo's could go some way to restoring confidence - after all, I can think of few more trusted brands than Volvo.  Secondly, there is long term brand and ultimately bottom line benefit to be had - especially in today's world of social media and marketing campaigns that can go viral.  Finally, as the backlash against short-termism and bonus cultures in big corporations continue, managers are likely to be given longer term targets. Decisions like this, which forfeit short term gain for longer term benefit, will work greatly in favour of managers willing to make them - wider societal benefit will increasingly become part of remuneration.

And a final thought: companies are made up of human beings.  Perhaps it was simply a case of the board looking at each other and saying - 'what if it was your kids and spouse in an accident without a 3-point belt?'

by Jesper Ekelund

Those who work in sustainability and related fields are prone to fret about language. A lot. In many ways they are right to do so. It is certainly true that the variety of terms in use to describe conducting business responsibly can be baffling to the uninitiated. “What does Sustainability really mean?” we ask ourselves. What does it mean to the (wo)man in the street? What is the difference between corporate responsibility and sustainable development? Is natural capital the same as biodiversity? If I say “responsible business” in my report will shareholders understand? 

The sustainability comms specialist Sustainly recently analysed the terms used by the top 100 companies in their Social Media Sustainability Index. They found 36 used “sustainability”, 16 used “corporate responsibility”, and 8 used “citizenship”. Other terms included “sustainable development” and the now decidedly less fashionable “CSR.”  Sustainly, who emphasise the “storytelling of sustainability” quite sensibly question how effective communications to the public can be if “the very advocates of good business can’t work out a common term for the values they want to uphold.”

Whilst I agree that it might be more convenient if every organisation used the same, neat all-encapsulating term, I don’t think it’s realistic, nor may it be desirable for three main reasons. Let me explain. 

Firstly, we need to accept that the field of sustainability is still young (relatively-speaking) and developing fast. Social media is changing perceptions and accelerating discussions. Isn’t it only natural that the language should evolve alongside the ideas? There is nothing wrong with that, and the range of terms used by the organisations in Sustainly’s survey is evidence that society is trying on the available words for size. Perhaps in five years time 90% of companies will revert to using “Sustainability” – or perhaps it will be an entirely new term yet to be coined. My point is- does it matter, since the language is necessarily a dynamic system? Shouldn’t we embrace it as part of the debate?

Secondly, I feel that the diversity of terms available allows organisations to pick the word that best describes their approach- and in so doing, they tell the reader something about them. This is no bad thing- after all, homogeneity is rather dull and undoubtedly the best sustainability programmes are customised to the organisation rather than copied from a textbook. Assuming one common term works across all organisations assumes they are speaking to an identical set of stakeholders- which is of course not true. Since arguably the company is best placed to decide what resonates with their customers, shareholders and interested parties, isn’t it positive that they can pick how to frame their sustainability efforts? Of course, you might say that the diversity of terms make comparison difficult, but since the majority of benchmarking is carried out by experts very capable of comparing one firm’s ‘responsible business’ efforts with another firm’s  ‘social & environmental capital’ programme I hardly think it’s worth sweating over.

Lastly, in response to the argument that all this is confusing to Joe Public- I would argue that semantics mean very little.  To the public, actions on social and environmental causes are far more meaningful than words. Whilst reporting has its place,  I have seen many hours sweated over a report (to the practitioner’s frustration) at the expense of the real stuff- and lets be honest, how many of your friends and family debate corporate sustainability reports over breakfast, or have the time or inclination to search for the information online?  In fact, I would go further and say that it is crucial for companies communicating with the public on specific sustainability programmes to tailor their message and use language that is relevant to that audience- whether it fits with the latest “buzzword” or not. The recipients of a youth community football programme do not need to know that this is considered part of the supporting organisation’s CR efforts- they simply want to know how to sign up. 

If the good work is being done, and the benefit is felt by society at large- do semantics really matter all that much? 

by Jenny Ekelund