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Slow Advertising and the Role of the Marketer for Sustainable Marketing

Updated: Apr 6

Photo by Tobi on Unsplash
Photo by Tobi on Unsplash

In his book for Greener Marketing, John Grant often mentioned the role of marketers, especially advertisers, in today’s consumption culture, and how we should use our influential power well (Grant, 2020). In his book, he mentioned many strategies that we would focus on later in every chapter, but now, I would like to give another example from Gabriel Ajuoro, the Creative Director, and many Cannes Lions winners for the Havas Lynx advertising agency.


MINDFULNESS IN ADVERTISING

The first thing that he mentioned in his Podcast of WGSN was the mindfulness of your message to the customer. He mentioned in his previous Podcast talk for WGSN about Slow Advertising and how brands should adjust their Brand Voice in different ways to reach their global audiences. First of all, he brought the long-lasting debate for international marketing to the table with globalization versus localization. His opinion is to focus more and more on local tastes to speak to customers' hearts with their minds

More intentional with time, money, and content. To target different consumers in different countries, they need to get more data to shoot at the same time. Brand building: How your brand will be shown to the customer, what it will look like, your brand voice, and your message, and that takes time. That’s why slow advertising, as he mentioned, could be the answer for the future. Doing more research before creating the campaign, talking to the right audience with the right message. Creating a more customer-centric experience and emotions.

Marketers and especially advertisers know that we must create some emotions in our advertisements. But he mentions that we must use our power for good to bring people to action. Or as Ajuoro stated ``We need to influence culture in a way where we`re going to make good for people. Adding more transparency to everything we create helps us realize if what we are creating could be toxic for people.

This debate is mentioned many times among marketing authors. John Grant, one of the leading sustainable marketing authors, mentioned this in the Greener Marketing book many times.


Greener Marketing
Greener Marketing

GENERATIVE MODEL

The difference between doing things right and doing the right things. My beloved example of his was the Example of bees vs. wasps. While Bees generate honey, they never use the exploitative model. Helping the flowers with their incredibly efficient communication models, they collect pollen very efficiently for their own use, but also, behaving in a generative way, they look after the next generation of flowers too. Next year's flowers will be looked after by this year’s bees, and this model helps to grow the whole environment, not only their own share but the whole pie. Today, many businesses follow this approach, as the theory of Michael Porter's Shared Value.                                           

They do not only focus on financial growth but also on how they help their environment and how their suppliers grow with them to grow the pie and be generative.  He also mentioned that some industries also the advertising and cosmetic industries waspish industries that take the biggest share of the pie, competing harshly without thinking about their surroundings. But even in these industries, generative models can be used like the Body Shop example in the 80s or the LUSH company. Generative Business Model.


BEING NET GOOD

Today, many companies try to minimize their carbon footprint or try to source more ethically. According to John Gran, these are all the things that belong to the NOT BAD section. Strategies or actions that you must do in any way. But beyond this, if you like to create additional value, this belongs to the NET GOOD section. Only a few companies belong to that section. In his book, he gave examples of IKEA for trying to be one of the NET GOOD companies with a lot of projects, from Forest protection to inclusivity in the organization, bringing sustainability to the core of their design project. Ajuoro also created a campaign for IKEA Brussels and brought creative marketing thinking, design, sustainability, and consumer creation together in one project


IKEA MuplosH Campaign
IKEA MuplosH Campaign

Another example is the LUSH company and how it initiated different projects around the globe to protect species and support their raw material supply by protecting the environment. Here, we can see the real implications of Shared Value. Although the company has some financial problems because of BREXIT, its sustainability approach has been taken as an example by many companies.


BRAND ACTIVISM

We call this brand activism. This approach was brought into the academic marketing world by Philip Kotler and Sarkar in 2018 with their famous book Brand Activism from Purpose to Action, and followed by many different Authors like Du Toit, etc. But this term became popular in the late 20th century through the action of different brands like Benetton with its controversial advertising campaign, which stands out for racial discrimination, fighting against AIDS, etc. Also, Body Shop founder Anita Roddick did with her company, which raised attention for heavy chemical use in the cosmetics sector, not investing money into advertising and packaging but into product quality (ethical, sustainable, high quality, natural).

Here, her approach was not exploiting the rain forest, gender stereotypes, and not exploiting the customers because they put the money in the products. It is not the sustainable departments or social campaigns that you have to change the core of your business and make it ethical. In the latest refill campaign, we can see a nice example of it



Being more Transparent in the core business and doing good with everything you create is mentioned by Ajuoro and John Green. John Green also has another name for this in his book as Net Good.

One of the best examples brought by Araujo as his agency Havas for their client Ananse, a leading chemical company that develops high tech coatings and sealants for consumer products, was finding an innovative way to fight malaria by inventing a new repellent, as children's play is presented as ``Safe Collection. `` With that, they used their marketing power to fight a disease in the Amazon.



Another company which was taken a social activism approach is Burger King with its latest advertisement.

Araujo also mentioned the latest Burger King ad in Brazil, which encouraged people to vote and highlighted the social importance of public participation. In return for proof of their votes and stubs, they received free fries or onion rings.

Burger King Voting Campaign
Burger King Voting Campaign

We hope that more businesses will take the slow approach and especially be NET GOOD in their business models. Like the Co-Founder of Body Shop, Anita Rodrick claims:

``Social and environmental dimensions are woven into the fabric of the company itself. They are neither first nor last among our objectives, but an ongoing part of everything we do." - Dame Anita Roddick




References:

Araujo Gabriel, WGSN Podcast .``What 12 year old can teach to Creative Industry``, Retrieved February 26, 2025, from <https://open.spotify.com/episode/2g6P1SqOrUM07Qnmg7mmQd?si=dfd00f7583984995>

Body Shop Sustainability Commitments. Retrieved February 26, 2025, from <https://global.thebodyshop.com/en-au/about-us/brand-values/sustainability/sustainability-commitments/a/a00063>

Burger King Campaign Brazil. Retrieved February 26, 2025, from <https://video.adsoftheworld.com/yz1xl7ezfhn282i2bk076b7w1owd.mp4>

Grant, John, 2020. ``Greener Marketing`` John Wiley & Sons, United Kingdom.

Grant, John. WASP vs Bee. Retrieved February 25, 2025, from < https://youtu.be/EG3Ac0NI-8U>

Du Toit, C., 2016. ``Brand Activism Inc. The Rise of  Corporate Influence, UBMM Publishing.

Kotler, P., Sarkar, C., 2018. ``Brand Activism From Purpose to Action``, DEA BITE PRESS; 2. Edition (4 November 2018).

LUSH sustainability report. Retrieved February 25, 2025, from https://youtu.be/TJ5T083zJic

Porter, Michael E., and Kramer, Mark R. 2011. "Creating Shared Value." Harvard Business Review 89, nos. 1-2 (January–February 2011): 62–77.

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