Thought Leader, Saatchi & Saatchi S CEO Annie Longsworth Shares Secrets

Source: Saatchi & Saatchi S Blog

On March 20th, Saatchi & Saatchi S CEO Annie Longsworth was welcomed on the newly launched Sirius XM Wharton Business Radio segment Dollars and Change. The Wharton Social Impact Initiative (WSII) fuels this project with fresh and compelling insights from powerful thought leaders to educate companies on how to improve their bottom line through creating positive impact. Annie shared sustainability strategy and communication expertise with show hosts Katherine Klein, the Edward H. Bowman professor of management at the Wharton School and the Vice Dean for WSII, and Jacob Gray, the Senior Director for WSII in the excerpted transcription below, revealing ways that companies can capitalize on sustainability as a business opportunity and an invitation to irresistibility.

Katherine: I would love for you to start with telling us what Saatchi & Saatchi S does. What’s your mission and what kind of work do you do for your clients?

Annie: Saatchi & Saatchi S has a mission to make sustainability irresistible. When we talk about irresistibility it makes people stand up a bit because it is not a business term that you hear very often, but one that we think is really important in order to help people understand that sustainability is an opportunity. It’s something that we ultimately think is not only critical for our world and the people in it, but one that creates a new stream of revenue for business and a real way for businesses to show leadership. We think businesses need to and must be in the lead for creating change in our world. We help them do that by looking at how their operations and brands can align to make sustainability a more opt-in opportunity.

Jacob: So is this beyond a communications and marketing firm? It sounds like you’re talking about operational issues, as well.

A: Yes, well Saatchi & Saatchi S is a part of Saatchi & Saatchi, which is a well-known and creative powerhouse from around the world. The specialty services that we provide specifically from the S division include consulting and really helping companies understand what they need to do to walk the walk a little bit more before they start talking the talk when it comes to sustainability.

K: How do you define sustainability?

A: We use four streams when we think about sustainability. This is based on our founder, Adam Werbach, who is pretty well known in the environmental and business community. He was the Sierra Club president at a very young age and he founded a company called Act Now Productions, which was acquired by Saatchi & Saatchi—and that’s how S was born. Adam wrote a book called Strategy for Sustainability in which he defines four streams—social, environmental, cultural, and economic. A lot of people are familiar with people, planet, and profit—the 3 Ps idea. We add cultural into that as a really important piece to the mix because people are so essential to ultimately bringing sustainability to life. We think about this from all four of those streams.

K: When you’re working with your clients are there situations where you talked about the importance of companies walking their talk? Are you finding examples that they’re not, and how do you deal with that if that’s what you discover with your clients?

A: It’s really tricky, isn’t it? Many people are familiar with the term “green washing” in which companies are out over their tips a little bit and talking about things that aren’t really fully true or talk about things that mask something else. We work hard to make sure our clients are not in that situation. We also see another trend called “green muting” which is actually the other direction where there’s a lot of great work being done within an organization but there’s a fear of communicating about it because of maybe being perceived as talking more than they’re walking. Green muting is also a danger when it comes to a business because they’re then not taking advantage of the opportunity of getting recognition for all the work that they have done. We’re trying to find a balance between green washing and green muting and helping our clients understand that communicating the journey is a big piece of this. So if you can say here’s our ambition, it’s going to take us until 2050 to accomplish it, and along the way we will give you progress and let you know how things are going, and by the way we might make mistakes and if we do let’s learn from them and move on. There’s some urgency to this and one of things I think is really cool about sustainability is the level of collaboration among traditional competitors. Nike is a really great example of opening its doors to say we need to solve some of these together which expedites the process.

K: Tell us more about green muting. I’d think your clients would want to—

J: —be as loud as possible, right?

K: “Hey, we’re good! We’re green. Buy more.”

A: There’s a couple of reasons that happen over and over again that we see. One is that a lot of companies say “we’ve been doing this for a long time, it’s just a part of who we are. Why would we go out and beat our chests about it?” I get that. If it feels like something that is heritage and built in you don’t want to suddenly jump on a band wagon although it presents the same risk of not getting the recognition and leadership for it. Others think “what we’re doing isn’t quite good enough” and there’s a fear that if you say we’ve done 10% of something then the question becomes: what about the other 90%? Another example, and not a client of ours, McDonald’s announced its MSC certified fish and a lot of the reaction from the consumers was “well that’s great but what about the beef?” On one hand you say well that’s good, that’s consumers really challenging them to go further and take on a bigger issue. I think it’s really important to pause for a moment and say “wow good for you McDonald’s. That’s progress.” Let’s applaud progress from these companies because if we continue to bash them and say it’s never good enough then there are a lot of people who will give up and say well who cares we’re just not going to do it.

There’s such a large opportunity in sustainability to really put this at the center of your business strategy and actually look at this as a shareholder return idea. You can make money at this. You can create leadership from this and really evolve and innovate a business in a way that says we’re here for the long haul and we recognize the opportunity to make these changes.

K: Like many movements, things are changing. Corporate social responsibility is more old school and we’re evolving to something that is more strategic. How does this play out for you and your company?

A: We talk about ourselves as trying to go from irresistible to irrelevant because eventually we should be out of business. I do hope we put ourselves out of business because businesses just won’t need us anymore. In terms of our four walls, we’re definitely trying to do the things that we counsel our clients on in terms of reducing our energy use and recognizing how we can help others. I work with a really wonderful group of people who are dedicated. This is a lifestyle, not a job. Everyone around me is looking for ways to contribute to society. It’s an enlightening and wonderful place to work.

K: It would be great to know more about the fundamentals of the communications strategy.

A: I think one of the most fundamental ideas when it comes to how do we translate this pretty complicated and awesome science into a consumer benefit is to remember that most of us are trying to keep a job, get food on the table, live a life that’s happy, and if we are asking people to also care about polar bears, melting icecaps, and the world going to hell in a hand basket we’re probably asking more than they can do in a given day. We believe it’s important for companies to make sustainability and the messaging around it really opt-in for people. If you can talk about something that’s healthier, like a makeup that’s better for your skin and has a better outcome, versus, this is a product that is actually going to make the world a better place and if you buy it you will be contributing to that, it t tends to make people feel like they can actually be the hero in the story. They’re doing something that is good for themselves and maybe there is a benefit to someone else, but it doesn’t feel like a burden. We think that’s really important. We take the guilt and negative out of this whole idea of sustainability and allow people to reap the rewards of it which are around health, convenience, being super cool or trendy, or whatever it might be to make it a positive for the person who is buying the product.

Source: Saatchi & Saatchi S Blog — Click here for other articles on the blog.