“…Brand Activism will be required reading, not only in business schools and by NGOs and campaigners, but by asset managers, owners, pension funds’ trustees and senior corporate executives worldwide.”
– Hazel Henderson, founder, Ethical Markets
“Kotler and Sarkar convincingly make the case as to why values-driven marketing requires taking the right actions too. Timely, progressive and ground-breaking, their how-to brand activism framework should be the go-to guide for marketers wanting to make a bigger difference with their brands.” – Kevin Lane Keller, E.B. Osborn Professor of Marketing, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth
“Phil (and his colleague Sarkar) is at it again, continuing to up his game. This time he is aiming at helping society and the world in which we live. Corporate and governmental trust is at a crisis. This book is an essential roadmap of steps businesses and their leaders must partake.” – David Reibstein, William Stewart Woodside Professor Professor of Marketing, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Does business have an obligation to step up when government isn't doing its job?
What happens when businesses and their customers don’t share the same values? Or, for that matter, when employees of a company don’t share the same values as their executives? Welcome to the world of Brand Activism.
Companies no longer have a choice. If the gap between a business and its values and its customers or society and his other stakeholders is too large, business will inevitably suffer.
What can be done?
How do brands align their values with the values of their customers, their employees, and society at large? What is needed, now more than ever, is a mindset that views reality from the outside in.
Brand Activism consists of business efforts to promote, impede, or direct social, political, economic, and/or environmental reform or stasis with the desire to promote or impede improvements in society.
This brand activism is a natural evolution beyond the values-driven Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) programs that are, frankly, too slow.
Brand activism is driven by a fundamental concern for the biggest and most urgent problems facing society.
It gives life to what it means to be a “values-driven” company. You can’t be a values-driven company and disregard society – your employees, your customers, the communities you work in, and the world. The proof is in what you do, not what you say.
A warning: we should be clear in saying that activism doesn’t have to be progressive; it can be regressive as well.
The poster-child for regressive activism is Big Tobacco – the tobacco companies that for so many years denied the harm their products did to consumers, even when their own research revealed otherwise. They promoted the “virtues” of smoking in a way that actually hurt consumers. Companies that lobby our politicians for regressive policies are regressive brand activists.
On the progressive activism side, we see more and more companies seeking to have an impact on the biggest societal problems. These companies have a larger purpose than simple profit-seeking, and are increasingly seen as leaders in their industries.
Brand Activism: From Purpose to Action is about how progressive businesses are taking stands to create a better world.
The book includes interviews with leaders from various fields:
- Scott Galloway
- John Elkington
- Raj Sisodia
- John Ehrenreich
- Christopher Davis
- Stephen M. R. Covey
- Hennie Botes
- Stuart L. Hart
- David "Dread" Hinds
- Clark Fox
and
- Philip Kotler
