Thomas Kolster
As a marketing activist, Thomas Kolster uses his platform to advocate for using advertising as a vehicle to promote a more sustainable world.
Why you should book Thomas Kolster in action
- Audiences are enthralled by Thomas Kolster's high-energy presentation about using advertising as a vehicle to promote positive social and environmental messaging.
- Providing step-by-step guidance, Kolster offers listeners actionable steps for incorporating sustainable and social elements into advertising campaigns. His Goodvertising philosophy has caught on globally impacting messaging from major advertisers and inspiring consumers.
- Kolster's popular books include Goodvertising and The Hero Trap. Goodvertising provides insights on implementing social change advertising and The Hero Trap focuses on humanity's power to chart its own destiny.
Focusing on putting people first, Kolster spearheads the Goodvertising movement. He consults corporations, nonprofits, and government agencies to make a positive impact on environmental and social issues with advertising. Traveling the globe to deliver his message about making a positive impact, Kolster has presented his sustainable advertising message in more than 70 countries. A featured speaker for TEDx, he's transformed how businesses view marketing by helping executives understand their power to create a better world. With topics including being a catalyst for change to empowering people, Kolster's keynote addresses highlight advertising as the vehicle for positive social and environmental change.
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Keynotes
Keynote by 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.
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.
Keynote by Thomas Kolster: 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.
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.
Keynote by Thomas Kolster: 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.
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.
Thomas Kolster
Thomas Kolster inspires audiences to social change through advertising
As an inspirational speaker, environmental activist, and marketing guru, Thomas Kolster is globally recognized for his work transforming advertising into a vehicle for social change. Leveraging his branding experience, he advises top-tier corporations, non-profits, and small businesses on how to incorporate sustainability and social messaging into advertising campaigns. Passionate about the use of ads to change the world, he travels the globe to inspire advertisers all over to integrate positivity into marketing campaigns.
Kolster is the founder of Goodvertising, a global movement set to transform how advertisers create messaging for consumers. In his books
The Hero Trap
(2020) and
Goodvertising
(2012, he opens up to readers about the power of positivity in advertising messaging and personal life experience. Speaking on a variety of inspirational topics, he addresses how to inspire people, brand purpose, and value-based leadership.
Putting people and the planet first, Kloster inspires marketers to include transformative messaging in ads to make a positive impact on the world. Consulting Fortune 500 corporations and small businesses, he leverages the power of advertising to promote change. With environmental and social change as his primary focus, his Goodvertising global movement has transformed advertising into a vehicle for positively impacting global consumers.
Kolster is the founder of Goodvertising, a global movement set to transform how advertisers create messaging for consumers. In his books
The Hero Trap
(2020) and
Goodvertising
(2012, he opens up to readers about the power of positivity in advertising messaging and personal life experience. Speaking on a variety of inspirational topics, he addresses how to inspire people, brand purpose, and value-based leadership.
Putting people and the planet first, Kloster inspires marketers to include transformative messaging in ads to make a positive impact on the world. Consulting Fortune 500 corporations and small businesses, he leverages the power of advertising to promote change. With environmental and social change as his primary focus, his Goodvertising global movement has transformed advertising into a vehicle for positively impacting global consumers.
Thomas Kolster speaks about these topics
Thomas Kolster's Hero Trap keynote at Direct Day 2021, Switzerland
Watch Thomas Kolster in action
