Marketing Briefing: Why sustainability is ‘not a priority’ for marketers right now

In recent months, major brands like Google and Microsoft recently said they would not hit their carbon goals due to investments in AI. Nike, meanwhile, reportedly significantly reduced the staff responsible for helping the apparel giant hit its carbon reduction goals. Those brands are not alone as marketers and agency execs note that sustainability efforts have seemingly taken a backseat. Anecdotally, there have been noticeably fewer requests from marketers on ways to market sustainability efforts in recent months, according to agency execs, who say that requests had been far more numerous in the late 2010s and early 2020s.

“The inflationary times means shopping with your values are a nice to have, not a need to have,” said Hannah Tabor, group strategy director at Mother New York. “That’s the first thing that goes. Making products or creating commitments requires more money, more time. It makes everything harder. If you can’t mark up the prices or extend your timelines — it’s a business reality that it’s much harder to do it that way.” 

Mo Said, founder and creative director, of ad agency Mojo Supermarket echoed that sentiment: “When business is tough things go away that don’t really matter to the business. Sustainability a few years ago, I think a lot of brands thought that sustainability was gonna improve their brand and it was gonna get people to buy more stuff and in the long term. But what people care about generally changes over time and what is the hottest thing right now might not be the hottest thing next year, right?” 

Aside from inflationary issues for brands and consumers alike, consumers are now focused on the election and multiple wars, among other major issues after dealing with a (still on-going) pandemic.

“It’s not the thing everybody cares about right now so from a brand point of view it’s just less hot” said Said. At the same time, when brands are in a tough spot with their business putting sustainability efforts front and center isn’t going to be their primary focus. “It’s hard to save the world when you’re losing money,” added Said.  

It’s also more challenging than it once was for marketers to tout sustainability efforts in advertising than it was a decade ago. “The scrutiny is higher,” said Tabor. “In 2014, when we were at peak greenwashing, you could say, ‘We’re sustainable’ and everyone would be like, ‘Totally, that sounds great!’ Now people have higher expectations. They’re on TikTok reading the receipts. It’s easier for people to go deep on whether or not these things are actually real. The standard that consumers hold brands to is much higher. At the same time, brands can’t meet that standard without changing their business models.” 

The higher scrutiny as well as the difficulty in truly meeting sustainability efforts are other factors why even if brands are continuing sustainability efforts they may be doing so without touting them in marketing and advertising efforts as they once did. 

“My hypothesis on sustainability is that companies still are going to maintain their sustainability goals and it’s gonna still play a role within how they operate,” said Daryl Giannantonio, head of strategy at VML. “I think where we’re seeing a shift is that it’s not a priority now for marketing.” 

Without being able to link previous sustainability marketing efforts to drive growth as marketers had once hoped, it’s likely that marketers have shifted focus. With business realities as well as the push to drive growth more present than ever for marketers, whatever isn’t helping them to do so gets pushed aside. That’s not to say there won’t be sustainability efforts — some have been preparing for a tipping point this year — but that celebrating efforts publicly will continue to take a backseat.

3 Questions with Meg Strachan, founder, CEO and CMO at Dorsey, a lab-grown jewelry brand

This conversation was lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

There have been headwinds for marketers when it comes to Facebook but you say that’s not the case for you. Why is that?

To date, we have not acquired customers at a loss on Facebook. On the contrary, our first time orders have been very healthy. We have not experienced, over the last couple of years, the same headwinds that I think a lot of businesses have experienced. I would say that the targeting on Facebook for us and the audience size has been what’s made it continue to be successful. 

Substack has been a big focus. Tell us about it.

From an affiliate perspective, Substack really has been where we’ve seen a lot of growth, with our creators too. The dedicated audience and community that a lot of our creator partners have is just more powerful than I believe it is yet known. I hope I’m an early adopter. I feel as a marketer, one of the things that’s really important is to use the tools that come out and understand how they work, understand the back end. 

How is your brand using Substack creators?

I have wanted a space where creators could have a link, an affiliate link, a non-affiliate link that I could go back to and that’s live forever. Well, obviously the publishing world has been doing this for years. That’s what affiliate marketing is based [on]. Creators have had blogs for years. But Substack essentially created a community for creators where your links stay live forever. The bigger piece is that it’s not controlled by an algorithm. It’s really much more valuable to be in someone’s email inbox than it is to be in their feed. It’s much less distracting. — Kimeko McCoy

By the numbers

Marketers have long been vying for Gen Z’s attention (and their dollars). Pinterest, which has been quietly battling for marketshare, pitching itself as a safe haven from the perils of social media, has seen Gen Z become its fastest growing audience, according to a recent report from the platform. See key findings from the report below:

• Gen Z makes up more than 40% of Pinterest’s global user base and Gen Z searches are up 30% year over year on Pinterest.
• 84% of Gen Z weekly Pinterest users say they discover products that fit their taste or style while shopping on Pinterest.
• Compared to other generations on Pinterest, Gen Z is saving more 2.5x more Pins and creating 66% more boards. They are also 7x more likely to purchase a product they previously saved on Pinterest. — Kimeko McCoy

Quote of the week

“Everything slapped an AI logo over everything they do over the last year. In some cases, it really is. In some cases, it’s really not.”

—Tim Lippa, global chief product officer at marketing agency Assembly, when asked about how agencies are vetting AI as everything is now seemingly AI.

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