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From French automaker Renault comes this great piece of creative that goes through what cars have provided us over time, asks some social critical questions, then elaborates on the values of the company before gently introducing its upcoming range of electric vehicles.

What I love is how they (or rather the agency responsible), has been able to combine these different topics together into a flowing narrative that, while promoting its upcoming electric vehicles, isn’t pushing a green or eco theme. It’s focused on people and values, things which the mainstream public can relate to.

Now if only Ford can also weave together a similar concise message.

via Futerra

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Interesting play on green marketing from CSX Trains, using air quality and messaging on comparative fuel efficiency from rail freight. In the past, intermodal transport (rail and truck) had been longer delivery times than trucks alone by about 2-4 days, although a logistics friend of mine had said the difference is now 0-2days difference. The important factor is of course total distance (price being equal). In slower economic times, delivery times are less important, so it goes without saying that rail transport should increase if logistics managers and 3rd party schedulers are inclined to use it.

I hope to see more awareness of rail being a preferred “green” option.

Sustainability is a vast field covering multiple topics in operations, marketing, design, innovation, and new business models. While articles, books, and conferences (if you have the budget and time to attend) can be great, nothing beats having professionals giving you the inside scoop.

The creators of the Sustainable Brands Conference, with whom I work as their community engagement manager, are organizing an online training seminar for 13 weeks. In order to help further this movement along, we’ve recognized many smart business people need to get up to speed - and we’ve done so by getting some of the world’s leading practitioners to teach the subjects they’re passionate about for 90min - available live and on-demand for a very affordable price.

If you’d like to learn more, go ahead and check out the speakers, session descriptions, and dates here. I’ve included the titles of the sessions here for you to see. P.S. - I’ll be speaking on the last session in February on public relations and social media

1. Introduction to Opportunities in Sustainable Innovation
2. Innovation Opportunities in Response to Today’s Environmental Hot Buttons: Climate Change, Water & Waste
3. The Changing Consumer Marketplace
4. Organizational Models for Integrating CSR with Brands
5. Building a Balanced Sustainable Brand Strategy
6. Sustainable Product Design – An Overview of Prevailing Approaches
7. Building Collaborative Supply Chain Partnerships
8. Transforming Your Company Through Sustainability – and Engaging Your Customers and Employees in the Process
9. Introduction to Life Cycle Impact Assessment
10. Business Metrics: Dashboards, KPI’s and other strategies for Goal Setting and Measurement
11. Building Credibility/Avoiding Greenwashing
12. Designing Communications that Resonate
13. PR/Social Media and Alternate Community Building Strategies

Tim Leberecht of Frog Design gave a presentation earlier this year at the Next09 conference in Berlin on how societal changes in regards to both the economy and people’s interactions with eachother and brands online are creating a convergence of services offered by the marketing and design agencies, and why “Meaning” has become sought after and a key deliverable. The video and slides are available below. See also his table of 5 attributes of meaning and the mediums/tactics to address them.

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Having come across a bookmark I saved with 12 tips on word of mouth marketing by Andy Sernovitz, I thought it might be a good idea to share them with you:

1. Happy customers are your best advertising. Make people happy.
2. Marketing is easy: Earn the respect and recommendation of your customers. They will do your marketing for you, for free.
3. Ethics and good service come first.
4. You are the User Experience (not what your advertisements say you are).
5. Negative word of mouth is an opportunity. Listen and learn.
6. People are already talking. Your only option is to join the conversation.
7. Be interesting or be invisible.
8. If it’s not worth talking about, it’s not worth doing.
9. Make the story of your company a good one.
10. It is more fun to work at a company that people want to talk about.
11. Use the power of word of mouth to make business treat people better.
12. Honest marketing makes more money.

Generalized rules, but good to take to heart. In the social media era, I’ll add that any opportunities you can design for allowing others to share their opinions with you (feedback/dialogue) or others (tell-a-friend tactics), will be especially useful for both passive and active WOM. However, points 7 and 8 will be two of the most important factors in encouraging conversation.

Neat presentation from Spike Jones of Brains on Fire, on the qualities of movements in social media marketing. While Awareness, Interest, and Action are the traditional steps of an engagement process, it’s always good to ask how a continual movement is being built and sustained. In my opinion, the campaign is not dead, but rather represents a tactical sub-process of a movement. However, if the movement seems stale or unrealistic to sociological expectations of user interest and engagement levels, campaigns won’t live up to desired results.

So can Causes be the higher level goal of marketing campaigns at large? It appears many brands that don’t directly or indirectly improve people’s lives or foster nature, are at a loss. The next best thing for these organizations then, is to employ social responsibility and communications programs so as to build personal affinity toward the brand. In some industries like logistics, banking, and retail, fostering happy employee cultures and great customer service will be the best forms of marketing because people relate best to people, not to inert and lifeless brands.

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Here’s some recent stories I wrote in the field that you may enjoy:

• Toyota’s Prius Goes Tweeting in Hybrid Cause Campaign
• Hellmann’s Mayo Canada Takes Up Eating Local Campaign
• Dawn Saves Wildlife with Cause Campaign
• GAP Releases Video Stories on Social Responsibility

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I began following Roland about 3 months back, but only recently found this neat video he produced in a calm voice and which describes some practical tenets of social media marketing and fan engagement. Pretty cool! See Roland’s blog for more info.

There’s a variety of factors that make a brand appealing. The traditional marketing principles are still important, but the last five years have shown us that a shift to humanistic branding and personal engagement is increasingly important for gaining and retaining customers. Some of this might imply trying to create a passion brand. In other ways, it can be conceived as doing a better job of customer service.

In the other realm of design/innovation though, there’s a massive contribution to the brand in terms of desirability, appeal, and when done exceptionally well: evangelism. Some of this is visible, such as function and aesthetics. Other areas though, like interaction design lie under the radar. Both of these are just as important as the marketing functions. They all have to meld together nicely. It can be extremely difficult, especially if this holistic mindset and its benefits are not fully understood and applied, or financial and human resources just aren’t available.

So Erik put together this presentation below that highlights much of this thinking in a very thorough manner, using BMW as the example. A service business can just as easily apply. Enjoy!

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This presentation is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share-alike license

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From AdAge comes this quick story coverage, as quoted from the video description on YouTube:

NEW YORK (YouTube.com) — In an effort to improve the public’s perceptions of its products, the plastics industry will launch a $10 million social media blitz aimed at Millennials. Created by the Apco Worldwide agency for SPI, the industry trade group, the four-year effort is designed to spark viral conversations among Millennials about the many benefits of plastic.