Advertising & Conscious Capitalism: The Agency Dialogue

Back in May, Sharan Cheema and I attended the IPA’s Advertising & Conscious Capitalism talk in the lovely Picturehouse Central on Shaftesbury Avenue (read what she thought here). The event featured an illustrious panel of speakers from Marks & Spencer, Channel 4 and The Daily Mail, and the main thrust of the agenda was how capitalism as we know it is changing.By changing, I mean becoming kinder, greener and more sustainable. If we keep going the way we are, as the world’s middle class consumer base moves from 1 million to 4 million, said Mike Barry, Director of Sustainable Business for Marks & Spencer, then we will need three planets to sustain ourselves. And I don’t think Mars holds the answer.The business case is therefore ‘existential’. We’re about to enter a ‘4^th industrial revolution’, the speakers affirmed – an era led by the likes of Tesla, Uber and Air BnB. These disruptors are forcing their industries to change – or get left behind. With environmental disaster lurking in the back of the collective mind, companies and consumers are adjusting their production/consumption methods to become better for the planet as a whole. But here’s the magic ingredient – conscious capitalism can actually drive greater profit margins.The Green Giants, as written about by Freya Williams in her book of the same name, are companies that are taking their green strategy and using it to their competitive advantage. They each hold a purpose beyond profit, which shines through in their marketing. Chipotle, for instance, supports local farmers close to its restaurants. Surely that’s a sure fire way to win the support of a local consumer base? For Chipotle the PR is translating into sales. It now rivals Burger King in the hotly contested US fast-food market. Another giant, Unilever, has a strong sustainability plan, which is driving increasing numbers of talented millennials to join up.During the Q&A, attendees of the talk voiced their scepticism of how scalable sustainable initiatives are across all industries and consumer segments. Isn’t being green a choice only afforded to the rich, anyway? What should an agency do tomorrow to turn a client into a Green Giant?I think that much of this conscious thinking can be produced within the agency environment. An agency that is conscious about recycling and the provenance of the products it stocks in the fridge, for example, can instil a greenness within its employees, by at least opening a dialogue about sustainability. If this dialogue exists within the agency, then it will at some point permeate client-agency ideas sessions and work itself into campaigns. When the word gets out, more ‘conscious’ minds will be attracted to the agency’s ranks, and those minds will be able to produce the ideas that will guide an increasingly conscious public in their future purchase decisions.Tom Phelan, Account Executive