Desirability to Sustainability: The Opportunity for Brand and Design

Notes from Sustainable Brands Conference 2008
Attended as "Expert in Residence" for Sustainable Life Media
June 2-5, 2008
See Original Article


Given the inextricable link between building a strong product and building a strong brand, you’d think making the green design/green marketing connection would be a snap. (Surprise: It isn’t.) Attendees at the workshop Desirability to Sustainability: the Opportunity for Brand and Design, led by IDEO’s Steve Bishop and Ted Howes, learned some practical strategies for designing for sustainability.

Consider a can of Gillette shaving foam, as one workshop group was asked to do. The participants, which included a marketing consultant and a member of Disney Consumer Products, came up with a range of ideas, such as changing packaging to be not only biodegradable but refillable, shifting to organic and super-concentrated formulations, and applying Cradle to Cradle principles for managing product lifecycle impacts. They also tackled retooling the product’s marketing message for a prospective re-launch.

Although many workshop participants had no problem jumping into the redesign process, the frequently asked question eventually arose: What do you mean by sustainable? And in response, the frequent answer: Each company must decide the scope and parameters to be incorporated into its design thinking.

Proper consideration must be given to the way consumers perceive product changes. One participant voiced the concern of the potential to design sales right out of the product. Changes that affect perceived value would need to be navigated. There would be no escaping the implications to the brand.

Does this product need to exist? - the lesser-asked but even more important question - addresses the more substantial challenges for consumer products companies that are seeking to make the shift to sustainability. A whole category assessment and product rationalization process eventually will need to be undertaken by companies committed to long haul sustainability re-positioning -- RVN Consulting calls this Sustainability Transformation.

When considering design, rather then thinking about brand in terms of logos, taglines, advertising/ marketing, and numbers, IDEO invites clients to think about:

• Relationship between brand and customer. Bank of America’s Keep the Change program was provided as an example. The new service that helps customers save, also has the side benefit of improved customer retention.
• Conversation with the customer and Empathy to their experience. Potential Shimano customers with fond youthful memories of riding bikes found today’s shops and the complexity of equipment overwhelming. Becoming empathetic to this experience led Shimano to develop concept bikes, change the retail experience, develop a community around biking, and begin advocating bike paths and new engagement work around increasing bike riding in general.
• Story Telling. What story does the product tell for the company and the customer? Adobe had already made significant strides in greening. After considering eliminating packaging all together, the company instead opted to work with existing recycled materials and redesign for flat shipping to achieve transportation efficiencies to packaging facilities. Keeping the packaging supported the need of independent designer customers' to share a brand and credibility "story" by displaying product packaging on office shelves and displays.

Responding to the New Sustainability Marketplace

An audience member asked whether is it better to develop new sustainable brands versus change existing brands to be more sustainable? And although the question was not explored in significant depth in IDEO’s workshop, the danger of making brand claims that are not backed up is definitely a consideration of many companies going down the sustainability path. With activists and consumer groups targeting green washing, many companies are being very careful not to overly promote their greening initiatives.

Ted Howes expressed the perception of a green bubble similar to tech and the potential for consumer fatigue from the difficulty in navigating all the information associated with the green product marketing place. Consumers want to make choices that they can make readily.

Workshop participants were reminded of the challenge of shifting to sustainability. We’re dealing with a systemic problem, everything is attached to everything else and companies are not always sure where to start. But there is an opportunity to shift from a one way dialog to two way dialog with customers. Smart Meters were provided as an example of a product redesign that empowers customers in relationship to their energy use.

IDEO is using something similar to interactive design technique that involves developing specific customer personas and designing according to detailed first hand understanding about these model demographic profiles. Conducting in-person interviews with customers in their natural context allows themes and opportunity areas to be identified.

In the workshop, participants reviewed photos that were taken by our model customer and considered how our shave foam could be redesigned as a sustainable product offering for this customer.

Integration of Intuition

The intuitive nature of this sort of technique was questioned by one participant posing the change management question of how to explain these new types of techniques to our colleagues and companies. The answer: use both data driven and qualitative techniques as appropriate in different contexts. Qualitative and explorative techniques can be used to drill down into detail that can’t be explained by hard data.

A representative from EcoBags reflected on the importance of engaging suppliers as an extended part of the company allowing the company to stay in tune with customers’ entire experience. It was suggested that quantitative analysis is best for optimizing existing products and service offerings while qualitative is more effective for identification of new ideas.

A representative from UPS commented that he wished the company did more intuitive work, explaining the trap of size. Unless a new idea is going to generate 100x millions of revenues and 10x millions of profit it does not get much play - its just not big enough for a risk averse company like UPS to pursue. For UPS new products and services that are adjacencies to existing products are easier new ideas to push through.

Sustainability Redesign: Putting People Back into the Equation

Although the question was posed: "is there even a green customer?" the discussion will have to be saved for later. Instead we addressed another comment: "design for sustainability - could mean anything." IDEO’s perspective is that sustainability requires an expanded scope that puts people back into the equation.

Three facets to be considered in design are personal, social, and environmental impact of the product or service. Steven Bishop took on the audacious task of demonstrating use of a Nettypot (a traditional Indian nose irrigation technique) to explain in detail.

1. Personal Impact speaks to how the product aligns with personal values. The Nettypot makes the user feel good and aligns with his values of natural healing. Steve could avoid using the pile of drug store remedies presented as the typical alternative.


2. Social Impact speaks to the social benefits derived from the design. Using the Nettypot has the potential to reduce hospital visits. The stats were given that of 180 visits to emergency room, 108 are not urgent resulting in unnecessarily clogged emergency rooms.


3. Environmental Impact of the Nettypot is particularly compelling in today’s context, where the properties of both over the counter and prescription drugs are increasingly showing up in our rivers and streams.

Addressing the new sustainability marketplace is both a demand and supply challenge. IDEO suggests we respond and motivate demand by connecting with people and addressing desirability, values, and brand. On the supply side think about energy intensity, green material, and supply chain.

• Increase the positive experience for the customer.
• Consider the design but also consider communications.
• Communicate the value of the offer and provide education so that the customer can evangelize themselves.
• Make the change desirable as opposed to a sacrifice. The example of the Cool Biz campaign in Japan worked to reduce personal body temperature by eliminating men’s ties, a fashion change that was fun and contemporary.

Although lifestyle assessment can be an extremely valuable exercise the cost and complexity can be significant, and customers don’t necessarily read Sustainability Reports. Companies must help people take the journey by providing support and motivation for behavior change --Edmund’s competition for best hybrid performance was provided as an example. Wal-Mart's PSP has been well recognized as a behavior change program for employees.

The workshop concluded with the last part of the group work, a brainstorming on how we might help our target customer persona take on new positive behaviors related to our shaving foam redesign. Were there green design failures our customer was experiencing and how could these be addressed. Personal insight into target customers was reverted back to as the ultimate cornerstone of a solid methodology for new design.

Revi Schlesinger heads RVN Consulting, a network of experts aligning to support the success of large-scale corporate sustainability integration initiatives. Continue the conversation at www.ReviSchlesinger.com/blog.html