When you’re sharing your story of sustainability, how do you frame it? If you’re talking to 17-year-olds, you might muscle past the philosophical “green” parts and get right to the tangibles of how you and your product are making their world better.
They get that!
This was the finding revealed last week by Dave Cobban, Consumer Mobilization Director for Nike, during the Sustainable Brands Conference in Monterey, Ca. Nike is trying to outdistance the favored sustainable terminology of other green competitors by reframing the green movement as a “Better World” for its youthful customer.
Three of my favorite sentiments from Dave’s presentation are:
- A survey respondent noted, “We’ve been in Code Orange since I was nine. I’m not worrying anymore.”
- Somehow Americans have fooled themselves into believing that to luxuriate means to be inactive.
- Sport can actually solve tremendous cultural ills, like calling time out during a war. On their new Nike Better World site, they point to a civil war in Ivory Coast that came to a cease-fire during the 2006 Football World Championship when the national soccer team progressed to the finals.
What I especially like about Nike’s approach is that they still focus supremely on the performance of their product, and sustainability becomes a powerful, actionable theme that backs up their product promise through the “Better World” campaign. It is an elegant and relevant evolution of “Just Do It.”
It proves that smart organizations, especially the “Andre the Giant’s” of the world like Nike, champion themselves and the communities they impact when they listen intently to what make their customers tick, and then they respond accordingly.
This two-minute “Better World” movie, made completely of recycled Nike commercials, pretty much sums it up.
