Thomas Kolster

Purpose: A failed promise?

Thomas Kolster challenges the audience with a tour de force around the purpose landscape to an emerging post-purpose market looking for fresh answers. In challenging economic times will value for money win over values?

Most leaders and companies today are firmly on the social and environmental issues bandwagon like bees around a honey pot from oceans plastic to diversity. Kolster demonstrates how to build an authentic leadership that inspires change. It’s not about making people believe in your company’s purpose, but rather making them believe in themselves and their ability to bring about change.

Don’t tick the ESG boxes, think outside it

The hacks you need to cut through the ESG noise and stay effective

ESG is not another social media acronym or youth phone slang. It stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance and if you as a marketer or agency don’t speak or even better do ESG, your brand is at risk. Compared to the early days of digital, it’s not just about conversation rates or engagement; when you get sustainability wrong, you jeopardies your brand and its legacy as people turn against it and scream “Greenwashing!”.

There’s a real lack of knowledge and education in the industry and this shows in how most brands engage people around ESG. Yes, people want to know where their food comes from, what the packaging is made of, or how you treat your workers, but wallpapering your communication with Fairtrade labels, beautiful corn field pictures, or way-too-happy farmers won’t be your lifebuoy.

Go for synergies

When you’re a big multinational, you won’t beat the challenger brands on adapting faster, but you can win on sheer size. How can you use synergy across your brand portfolio to really ramp up impact?

Often the ESG agenda is tackled on a brand level and can even sometimes cannibalise or compete for attention on issues (e.g. responsible drinking or packaging waste). Another approach would be to look at a more synergistic approach like when, for example, Pernod Ricard committed to responsible drinking campaigns across brands and commit the shared budgets to make it happen. Or when Heineken highlighted its commitment to renewable energy by installing a solar-powered billboard at Brazil’s “Rock in Rio” festival that cools beer at a local bar. The text on the billboard informs viewers: “This billboard is cooling your Heineken. Cheers.” But this is not your traditional one-off stunt, it’s part of Heineken’s bigger commitment to supply energy to 50% of its partner bars in Brazilian capitals by 2030. If you want to succeed in the ESG space, you must think outside the box.