Shailja Dube of Institute of Positive Fashion Lead at British Fashion Council, Marketing and Product … [+]
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Marketing Social Impact: How To Get Noticed In 2025
Except for Patagonia, the social impact of brands isn’t getting noticed by consumers. Whenever I ask students or other groups of people which companies they consider to be social impact leaders, they say Patagonia, without exception. Yesterday I was speaking with someone who manages sustainability initiatives in climate-focused organizations and asked her the same question. She couldn’t name a single brand. I think that’s because marketing social impact needs to be done a lot better than it is today.
I wanted to get the best possible opinion about what I believe is a failure on the part of brands, even ones that are genuinely committed to social change, to engage consumers. This led me to a conversion with Richard Edelman, President and CEO of the global public relations consultancy, Edelman. “My general proposition for you is the marketing industry has done a very poor job of communicating the benefit of being in culture,” said Edelman. This problem is important to Edelman and the firm partnered with the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business on first-of-its-kind research, Effective Sustainability Communications: A Best Practice Guide for Brands & Marketers.
I also asked eight marketing experts and thought leaders about what they would advise brands to do differently to increase the value of investments in social impact. What follows is a new playbook for how brands can better engage consumers in initiatives that are intended to sell products and help make the world a better place.
Align with Your Mission
Brands need to align the social impact they want to make on the world with their core mission and ensure it drives every decision, from product design to marketing campaigns. Jennifer Vincent, Head of Communications at Danone believes that the reason companies like Patagonia have done well is that they are choosing environmental initiatives that are very close to their mission. Danone itself has a mission to “bringing health through food to as many people as possible” and Danone North America was recently re-certified as a B Corporation. “Brands that have social good woven into their brand identity rightfully have earned household-name status for their good deeds,” said Emily Tschirhart, Vice President of Social Impact at Jennifer Bett Communications “From caring about customers, about the planet, about humanity, brands like Patagonia, REI, Bombas, and Ben & Jerry’s are our textbook examples of allowing social activism to steer brand and marketing.”
Walk The Talk
“People can tell when social impact initiatives are performative,” said Whitney Bonrud, Director of Marketing and Communications at charity: water. “At charity: water, we’re on a mission to bring clean water to every person on the planet, so we’re laser-focused on building sustainable water programs and ethical marketing campaigns that amplify the real-world impact of our work. By embedding this purpose at the heart of everything we do, we ensure that our mission isn’t just a campaign, but a way of life our brand and our community of supporters can rally behind.” Or as Vincent described it, “Do the work before you can actually feel like you’re in a space to speak about something from an authentic place.”
Target Your Social Impact
Jackie Cooper, Global Chief Brand Officer at Edelman believes that brands need to focus on marketing social impact in ways that are relevant to very specific audiences. She shared the example of a recent Dove campaign called Code My Crown that is targeted at gamers who are Black and celebrates Black hair textures and protective styles in video games. “For that community, 85 percent of Black gamers said they felt better represented, 95 percent say that they saw positive societal impact, and 32 percent said that they would have brand loyalty amongst their community,” said Cooper. Initiatives that are this specific have the potential to resonate and be remembered because they are solving a problem that is directly relevant to a community.
Understand Your Context
“My obsession is to know your context, because too many companies and brands are contextually naive,” said Cooper. “And if they aren’t fully aware of the context in which they’re doing it, then they could blow up.” The national boycott of Bud Lite is a good example. Conservatives who were Bud Lite consumers boycotted the brand in response to a social media promotion the company conducted with Dylan Mulvaney, a trans actress and TikTok personality. For true engagement in social impact initiatives, it’s critical for brands to align themselves with issues that matter to their customers, communities, investors, and founders,” said Tschirhart. “The best way to do this is first understanding what your brand stands for – and just as importantly, what it doesn’t stand for.”
Embed Social Impact In Your Brands
Tensie Whelan, Founding Director of the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business believes that brands will be noticed if they integrate sustainability attributes into all messaging about product attributes. “All the time, not as a campaign,” said Whelan.“You can have campaigns on specific ideas about sustainability, but you would always want to have consistent messages.” It is also important not to assume that messages are clear and understood. “We have research coming out that shows over 80% of consumers are confused by the claims brands make,” said Phillip Haid, Founder and CEO of Public Inc. “So make it super simple and communicate often.”
Connect Corporate ESG With Brand Impact
It’s often the case that corporations have meaningful social and environmental initiatives that are not evident at a brand level. “We rank the strongest in the perception of ESG in the food industry,” said Vincent. “And I think it would only be stronger if consumers actually connected all of the work that we’re doing in the different verticals of our brands.” Tschirhart suggested that showing up at a brand level in ways where consumers actually want to get involved should be done through a combination of customer segmentation, social listening, surveys, and responsiveness to the news cycle. “There is no silver bullet to achieve this, all of these elements should be used for effective engagement.”
Invest In Marketing Social Impact
Haid observed that recall of social impact is limited because these initiatives typically get a fraction of the marketing spend compared to products. “Spend more on impact marketing and recall will go up,” said Haid. It’s also important for brands to be consistent with their investments in communicating social impact. “The brands that are remembered are the ones that stay the course because they understand impact takes time to achieve and are committed to it.”
Know That What Consumers Say and Do Is Different
Jason Feifer, Editor in Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine points out that while surveys show that consumers prioritize companies with social missions, their actions may not align with the research. For example, 2024 statistics show that 94% of Gen Z consumers think companies should address social and environmental issues, 88% of consumers seek information on a company’s CSR initiatives in the consideration of purchase, and over 90% of consumers would switch to more sustainable brands. “Founders have learned this over the past decade,” said Feifer. “Many of them may have led with their mission, either leaning heavily on it in their marketing, comms, or packaging, and weren’t similarly rewarded.” However, even though social impact may be a smaller part of the larger brand picture, it can still deliver a competitive edge. “A social mission can be a great secondary point; it might be the reason that a consumer picks one company instead of its similar competitor,” said Feifer
Prioritize Business Performance
Martin Whittaker, CEO of JUST Capital, believes the only thing that unifies corporate performance is shareholder return and market performance. In my last article for Forbes, The New Mandate For Business: Make A Profit, Solve Social Problems, I suggested that “a business-first approach may encourage more CEOs to help solve social problems in ways that are also good for their companies.” This means it’s important for every company to develop a business case based on prioritizing its stakeholders and then align all impact initiatives with what is most important to each audience. However, it’s also important to remember that even the best business case can’t reliably connect the dots between business performance and social impact. “There’s a lot of work to be done to generate much more meaningful data on what exactly investing in communities or workers means and what the ROI is,” said Whittaker.
A View From The Summit: Patagonia
Patagonia is seen by consumers and marketing experts as the world’s leading impact brand. I wanted to know what Patagonia’s advice would be for brands that are making a social impact but are not known for more than their products.
Vincent Stanley, Director, Patagonia Philosophy, and visiting fellow at the Yale School of Management described two things that characterize Patagonia’s approach from the beginning. First, the company “worked steadily on solving problems in its supply chain, and then went from environmental to social innovations.” Second, Patagonia has “built a culture whose success is dependent on our ability to continue to make further innovations.”
Stanley’s advice to other brands is to “understand that there’s a big difference between just reducing harm, and doing things that advance the positive good. So my advice to entrepreneurs is, if you can do that, that’s the Holy Grail, that’s the North Star.”
When I asked Stanley if there are companies that Patagonia looks up to he mentioned Dr. Bronner’s. “Their B Corp score is like 206 and we are 166.”
(I would add that brands should consider hiring a Director of Philosophy!)
Everyone loves Patagonia, but other brands can do more to help solve social problems, be better at marketing social impact and get noticed for what they are doing to make the world a better place.
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