Are You Being Courageous Enough with Your Social Impact?
These companies show you simple ways to close the gap between your product and your purpose.
I believe that social impact is a differentiator with consumers. If all things are equal, or even if your product might be priced a little higher, industry data suggests that consumers are more likely to pick a company that’s doing good in the world over one that isn’t. And there’s also data from the Torrey Project suggesting that companies focusing on social impact are more valuable to investors or the big strategic firms.
These are two very good reasons to ask yourself whether you are acting courageously enough with your social impact mission, or whether you might up the ante, so to speak, in at least one place where many consumers interact with your brand: your website. This is the place, in addition to the front of your packaging, where you can express your missions and social impact as one and the same, setting yourself apart from brands that treat social impact as an add-on or secondary priority.
To illustrate what I’m talking about, let’s look at four ways that several brands use their websites to treat social impact not as an add-on to their brand but as its core.
1. Lead with your mission
Located in Texas, Vital Farms raises chickens and cows and specializes in eggs and dairy products. The first thing you notice when you visit their website is not how good their products are or what their amazing market position might be, but that Vital Farms is “where honest food is made.” Hard to be more direct about what you stand for — not just what you sell — than putting it right in your tagline, is there?
As courageous as Vital Farms is about their mission, the purveyors of coffee and tea Black and Bold is even, well, a bit bolder. The company is a Black-owned brand that donates five percent of its profits to supporting youth nationwide. The mission is right there below the company name, “Speciality coffee for you. Impact for our youth.” At Black and Bold, you cannot buy coffee or tea and NOT support the company’s mission: it’s baked into the price of the product — not as an add-on but as the product itself. Hard to get any bolder than this brew.
2. Tout third-party certifications
Third-party certifications show that you walk the talk. In the case of Vital Farms and Black and Bold, if you scroll down their home pages you’ll learn that both companies are Certified B Corps, which means they have undergone a rigorous process of proving that they value people and planet as well as profit to the B Lab. I’ve successfully taken a company through this process and can attest to its absolute no BS approach to ensuring companies do the right thing!
Vital Farms also includes a copy of its sustainability report for easy review by browsers to their website. Here you learn that the farm practices “conscious capitalism,” a term coined by John Mackey & Raj Sisodia in the book by the same name to describe for-profit businesses that work to ensure the prosperity of all stakeholders, including their workers, suppliers, vendors and local communities, as well as investors. I wrote about my experience studying conscious capitalism with Michael Porter of Harvard here.
3. Be authentic to who you are
One of the great hidden secrets in young brands is that the founders, themselves, are often more interesting than their products! So don’t hide behind your product or brand; get out there and tell your consumer — and show them — who you are. Hustle Clean is a brand with which I am very familiar, having worked with founders Justin Forsett and Wale Forrester as Findaway Adventures entrepreneurs.
Hustle Clean makes a line of personal care products designed for people who like to stay active, much like the founders who both played college football at the University of California at Berkeley. When we meet the founders on the website, we understand why they want to support underserved communities. We learn how the company, which began as an entrepreneurial adventure, quickly became a purpose-driven effort to support underserved youth with “community-driven youth development and social accountability” support, including scholarships, equipment and even live training.
Black-owned, Hustle Clean has even launched a 501c3 organization called Free Play to operationalize their mission more effectively. So the founder’s connection to the passion behind the social impact is so apparent and very important.
4. Don’t separate product and purpose
The line against some corporate social responsibility claims is that there is little direct relationship between product and passion or purpose. Yet there is no inherent reason that this should be the case. As Black and Bold says in its e-commerce language, “Shop your values.” That’s what I love about Vital Farms’ “honest food” and Black and Bold’s name. Hustle Clean may not be quite as obvious but that brand, too, has used the word “hustle” in a very intentional way to mean taking care of work, taking care of play and taking care of yourself and those around you.
I happened to know that Holmes Mouthwatering in northeast Ohio is currently undergoing a rebranding initiative that will further connect the founder’s passion with the applesauce brand on the front page of its website. But you can already see the pieces falling into place when you scroll down this brand’s site.
Founder Ethan Holmes created the Holmes Entrepreneur Initiative for the simple purpose of exposing students to real life experiences of owning and operating a business. The Initiative gives area kids the chance to assist in the production and sale of Holmes products where they develop confidence and wider knowledge of retail, sales, manufacturing, customer service and public speaking.
Take a few moments to browse the websites of these companies. I think you’ll agree that there is something deeper and more palpably cool going on here than routine CSR claims. There’s a connection among product, purpose and person (founder) that tells a story and inspires us so much beyond the transaction itself.
What brands inspire you? Will those brands inspire you to take your commitment to social impact to the next level?
Sincerely,
Rob Craven, scalepassion
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All credit to my ghostwriting partner, Dave Moore, who is instrumental in getting my thoughts out in a coherent manner & into these blogs. Thanks Dave!