Dr Nicholas Ind
Partner, Equilibrium
nind@equilibriumconsulting.com

The Journal of the Medinge Group, vol. 5, no. 1, 2011

WHILE CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IS a widely used and well-understood term, conscientious brands is not. Its origins lie with the Medinge Group, which since 2004 has given its annual Brands with a Conscience awards. The Medinge Group argues that a brand with a conscience has the following attributes.

• It has a visible conscience.
• It apologizes when things go wrong.
• It invests time and energy in relationship building.
• It promotes the value of caring for one another.
• It acknowledges that we are all fundamentally equal.
• It’s visibly accountable for all its actions.
• It takes risks in line with its values.

The attributes were not defined through research, but rather were derived from discussion among members of the Group.
   In thinking about brands as conscientious, one important association to emphasize is that of services dominant logic.¹ Here we can argue that it is the connectedness of consumers and other stakeholders with the brand owner that creates the brand. A brand may be managed by an organization, but its meaning is formed out of the purchase, usage and dialogue that the organization and stakeholders engage in. This view is relational and suggests a model of inseparability between the one who offers and one who consumes. It shifts the idea of brand building from transactions to relationships: ’because a service-centred view is participatory and dynamic, service provision is maximized through an iterative learning process on the part of both the enterprise and the consumer.’² The importance of this change of perspective is not only due to the dominance of service industries in OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries³, but also to a reinterpretation of the process of exchange. Vargo and Lusch argue that everything, whether tangible or intangible, is a service. This distinction also serves to emphasize that increasingly brand owners cede control of their brands to consumers. As people use brands, discuss them with others, form communities of interest and interact online with companies, so the influence of the brand owner diminishes. Now a brand is created in a conversational space where the organization and the individual meet.
   The word conscientious also brings specific associations with it. It is a word that we normally apply to individuals and it suggests attributes such as hard-working, thorough and attentive. It conveys the idea that someone is aware of the needs of those around them. If we connect the word to brand, the implication is that the brand owner is capable of understanding and meeting the needs of diverse stakeholders; of extending sympathy and creating value for all.⁴ As Rorty notes,⁵ the moral imagination, which is essential to an ethical perspective, occurs when people are willing to move beyond the possibilties dictated by precedent and empathize with others. This is a view that is distinct from approaches that stress a narrow focus to creating value and recognizes instead the interconnectedness of all those that touch or are touched by an organization.
   This is becoming increasingly important as the size and influence of organizations and their impact on more aspects of people’s lives grows. Indeed, we can argue that the role of the organization has changed: ‘companies have to recognize their accountability not only to shareholders, but to all audiences and to society as a whole.’⁶ This is a point that Freeman⁷ makes when he writes that the stakeholder view is an ethical requirement for companies and that the linkage of different stakeholders requires a balanced approach. In their 2007 book Freeman, Harrison and Wicks⁸ note that the the primary aspect of corporations is cooperation. They suggest that the business organization should be a vehicle ‘by which stakeholders are engaged in a joint and cooperative enterprise of creating value for each other.’⁹

The attributes of ‘Conscientious Brands’
If we can argue that a conscientious brand is one that is cogniscent of, and tries to meet, the needs of all its stakeholders, what might this mean in terms of attributes? Building on the Medinge list, we would argue that there are three core attributes that are necessary for a brand to be seen as conscientious: a committed and inclusive approach, the ability to think long-term and a willingness to keep promises.
   One important omission from the core attributes however should be noted: altruism, which can be defined as an unselfish regard for the well-being of others. We encounter a problem here of who ‘others’ might be, but if we argue that ‘others’ encompasses stakeholders external to the organization, altruism creates a problem of imbalance. For as well as achieving the well-being of others, brands must be able to deliver well-being for themselves and those inside the organization. Altruism could consign a brand to destructive decisions. In its place we might argue that brands should have a selfish regard for themselves and for the well-being of others.

A committed and inclusive approach
A facet of conscientious brands is that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is not seen as a marketing tool or a department or a process that orbits far away from the corporate sun, but is integrated into the fabric of the organization. The greater the orientation towards a communications-based approach, the stronger the tendency for CSR to be seen as superficial. In fact, telling consumers about CSR through traditional media such as advertising increases the risk of provoking scepticism.¹⁰ However, there are examples such as the Norwegian sportswear brand Stormberg,¹¹ the Dutch Fair Trade pioneer Max Havelaar, the Swiss Bank, Pictet et Cie and the Bangladeshi telecoms operator Grameen Phone, that are stakeholder-focused and make CSR a part of everyday practice.
   For example, Pictet et Cie, which was founded in 1805, has a focus on sustainable development and encourages the maximum investment in sustainable areas for a given risk. The bank manages a Water fund, which was launched in 2000, and has become the world’s largest of its kind, with over €4 billion in assets; and a Clean Energy fund. The company has also establishe the Prix Pictet—the world’s first international prize dedicated to photography and sustainability—mandated to encourage the use and power of photography to communicate vital messages to a global audience. Pictet et Cie understands that business is not somehow separate from the world, but is very much part of it and must demonstrate a broad commitment to stakeholders and to society at large.
   Hewlett-Packard (HP) also exemplifies this in the way it works with other companies, governments and NGOs to improve the health, education and infrastructure in developing markets, because its long-term growth depends on new consumers. Anholt writes of HP and others, that ‘they (big companies) need consumers who are wealthy enough to buy their products, have enough free time to enjoy them, are educated enough to consume advertising messages and evaluate products and brands, and live in countries where there is the liberty to make money and spend it.’¹²

Long-term thinking
Key to the cited examples is the prevalence of long-term thinking, which runs counter to the sometimes short-term view of shareholders. Acting conscientiously means rejecting expediency for principle, temporary advantage for long-term gain. Grameen Phone didn’t look a good business prospect in the late 1990s in a country suffering from high levels of corruption, political uncertainty and poor infrastructure. But new distribution methods were established, low-cost pricing plans introduced and innovative and socially valuable services, such as HealthLine and Community Information Centres, established. Today, Grameen Phone has 23 million subscribers (February 2010) and is the most desired company to work for in Bangladesh.
   At Anglo-Dutch fast moving consumer goods company, Unilever, reducing environmental impacts while improving performance is the core vision and it means taking a longer-term view and tackling short-termism head on. In 2009, CEO, Paul Polman, in an attempt to move the focus away from short-term returns, stopped providing earnings guidance to investors. Seeing his mandate as more concerned with long-term success, he also railed against hedge funds, arguing, ‘they are not people who are there in the long-term interests of the company.’
   One implication of shareholder short-termism might be that it is easier for privately owned companies to act conscientiously. While Freeman et al¹³ argue for the mutual interest of different stakeholders, the power of shareholders in publicly quoted companies whose primary motivation is in above average returns can run into conflict with other stakeholders. In privately owned companies such as Pictet et Cie, Max Havelaar, Stormberg and also US outdoor brand, Patagonia, it is the long-term shared vision of owners and managers that drives decision-making.

Keeping promises
There has been a shift in emphasis in brand-building, from making promises to keeping them;¹⁴ from communication to people. This represents a turning away from traditional advertising and a focus on direct interaction. Indeed, some organizations are moving branding entirely away from communications and towards connecting strategy, culture and a wider stakeholder involvement. They recognize that branding is a process that is too important to be left just to the marketing or communications department. These organizations have understood that brand building is a participative process involving the whole organization and is the responsibility of all employees.¹⁵
   This suggests the importance of widespread employee engagement with the organization’s brand ideology—the set of ideas that define what the organization is, how it does things and what its aspirations are. The better individuals identify and internalize the ideology, the greater the likelihood of its delivery in the experiences that connect the organization and its stakeholders.
   As an example of this consider the software company, Mozilla. This is example of an organization that lives up to its stated mission of promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the web. It is a non-profit organization that grew out of Netscape and is involved in building communities of people that both help create and use their products such as the web browser, Firefox, an email client, Thunderbird, and a global community of innovators, Drumbeat. Mozilla employs a core group of people (around 300) that develop software, manage process and market the products, but since the start of the company, much of the development of products has been due to the enthusiasm and involvement of customers who have become volunteers.
   In the early days of Mozilla, when it was up against a very dominant competitor in the form of Microsoft, there weren’t enough resources internally. As many software developers identified with the ideology of keeping the web open and accessible to all, they gave up their spare time to develop products they themselves would like to use. It was also an opportunity to work with smart people and solve difficult problems. Of course, Mozilla could have closed their doors to these would-be helpers, but it would have shown up that the principle of openness was just a veneer. Asa Dotzler of Mozilla says, ‘by 2004, the majority of the code had been written by Netscape employees, but there were many hundreds of volunteers who played a substantial role in writing code including important features. For instance the first implementation of tabbed browsing was a volunteer written code. Our first implementation of pop-up blocking and session restore when you crash, and lots of other key features were developed by volunteers.’
   By 2010, more than 12,000 free community-generated add-ons had been implemented. Mozilla has encouraged outsiders to help evolve the project. The idea of improving the internet experience for people everywhere led to one volunteer choosing to pioneer disability access because he felt passionately about it, while volunteers around the world seized on the opportunity to preserve the integrity of their languages, by translating content. When Mozilla launches a new version of Firefox, it is delivered in 75-plus languages simultaneously (2010). As long as the initiatives align with the Mozilla ideology, the organization chooses to make it easier for people to do what they wanted with the brand. A similar philosophy has also been adopted for marketing the Mozilla brand whereby a community of marketing professionals and enthusiast consumers helped to construct and implement a marketing campaign, even to the extent of donating money to run a launch campaign for Firefox.

Challenges to the concept
The concept of conscientious brands and the blocks on which it is built can be challenged from different angles. First, the stakeholder perspective has been challenged by Frooman¹⁶ in particular for being too company-centric. While he recognizes the impact of Freeman’s 1984 book, he also judges that in his ‘hub-and-spoke conceptualization, relationships are dyadic, independent of one another, viewed largely from the firm’s vantage point, and defined in terms of actor attributes.’
   Certainly traditional models of organization-stakeholder interaction have emphasized the organization as doing things to, and communicating at, stakeholders. In a more networked world where interactions are fluid and organizations are more porous and transparent, it has become clear that the connections between stakeholders has become more complex and the locus of control has shifted away from the organization. This has become evident during uprisings in North Africa and riots in the UK (2011) as brands such as Facebook, Blackberry, Vodafone and Twitter have been used to facilitate civil unrest. As a consequence, these brands have been criticized by governments. Yet the point should be made here that it is citizens who are defining how these brands are used (whether it be for good or for bad) in ways that were never conceived of by the brand owners.
   Alternatively, Martin¹⁷ (2010) is critical of much management thinking because it lacks a sufficient customer orientation. He describes the stages of modern capitalism, from Berle and Means’ The Modern Corporation and Private Property,¹⁸ which signified the emergence of managerial capitalism to Jensen and Meckling’s Theory of the Firm,¹⁹ which signified a shift to shareholder capitalism. Jensen and Meckling’s emphasis on maximizing shareholder value has since become a standard of modern management and argues quite explicitly for the pre-eminence of the shareholder. Martin’s critique is that the focus on shareholders hasn’t done anything for shareholder returns: ‘there’s no sign that shareholders benefited more when their interests were put first and foremost.’ Shareholder capitalism has also made organizations dysfunctional, in that it also downplays the interdependence of their audiences. As several studies have shown, involved and engaged employees are important contributors to customer satisfaction which in turn leads to enhanced performance.²⁰ Similarly, having a positive reputation among influential people and organizations helps a business to achieve its broader goals. Where we might diverge from Martin is in his solution to shareholder capitalism. His argument is that the new orientation should be customer capitalism and he cites two key examples of organizations who have exemplary long-term performance and live up to their rhetoric: Johnson & Johnson and P&G. They are interesting choices and they certainly give prominence in their corporate statements to consumers, but the important thing is that they stress the intertwining of stakeholders. Johnson & Johnson’s credo is both long-lived and well known and connects doctors, nurses, patients, parents, children, communities and stockholders. P&G’s Principles state: ‘We will provide branded products and services of superior quality and value that improve the lives of the world’s consumers. As a result consumers will reward us with leadership sales, profit and value creation, allowing our people, our shareholders and the communities in which we live and work to prosper.’

A new approach
’Corporate brands are hugely influential on society and can either be part of the problem in fuelling excessive and high-impact consumption or part of the solution in driving consumers towards sustainable living.’
—Dax Lovegrove, Head of Business & Industry Relations, WWF UK

The central problem for the concept of conscientious brands is that one of the requirements for the organization is encouraging consumption, while a conscientious brand should be aiming to limit or shift consumption to ensure it is sustainable. As the philosopher Slavoj Zizek observes, you only have freedom to the extent that you make the right choices, which means: ‘you are free to do anything, as long as it involves shopping.’²¹
   Yet, there are some signs of resistance to the Zizek view in the emergence of the idea of voluntary simplicity. ‘Voluntary simplifiers’ describes a category of people who have made the conscious decision to reduce their consumption levels and find meaning through reducing their spend on products and services and spending more time on activities that generate meaning for them. This group is anti-consumerist and ideologically motivated.²² The size of this audience is difficult to estimate, but it is suggested that in the US there are some 60 million people who fit into the category.²³ These are still consuming individuals, but they are, in their eyes at least, consuming responsibly within self-defined boundaries. Kozinets has argued persuasively in his analysis of the Burning Man Festival that it is impossible to escape the market²⁴—except temporarily. Consumerism is all pervasive. Yet the emergence of voluntary simplifiers demonstrates that the ‘less is more’ mantra has a significant number of adherents.

Conclusion
Branding is changing. It is moving away from a focus on products and consumers to a services-dominant logic that weighs up and tries to balance the needs to all stakeholders in an increasingly transparent and fluid dialogue. What’s important for marketers and brand owners is to see this change not as a threat but as an enormous opportunity for brands to make a positive difference to the world. Brands can respond to the stated desire of consumers and citizens to live responsibly (even if there is a gap between stated intent and actions)²⁵ by using the tools of branding to change people’s behaviour so that it becomes more sustainable. This extends the role of brand owners beyond simply marketing products to helping people become more ethical. As Devinney, Auger and Eckhardt²⁶ argue, ethically oriented consumption requires consumers to become knowledgeable participants so that they can become more socially conscious in their purchasing and consumption. This will require organizations to move beyond their tendency to short-termism and their overt orientation on shareholder returns. Instead there will be a requirement to focus on the real needs of people and to engage with them in a services-dominant approach that recognizes the importance of participation and dialogue.

Notes
   1. S. L. Vargo and R. F. Lusch: ‘Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing’, Journal of Marketing, vol. 68, no. 1, 2004, pp. 1-17.
   2. Ibid., at p. 12.
   3. Thirty-four countries that are members of the forum that is committed to democracy and the market economy.
   4. D. Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature. London: Penguin 1969.
   5. R. Rorty: ‘Is Philosophy Relevant to Applied Ethics?’ Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 16, no. 3, 2006, pp. 369-380.
   6. N. Ind (ed.): Beyond Branding: How the New Values of Transparency and Integrity Are Changing the World of Brands. London: Kogan Page 2003.
   7. R. E. Freeman: Strategic Management: a Stakeholder Approach. Boston: Pitman 1984.
   8. R. E. Freeman, J. S. Harrison and A. C. Wick: Managing for Stakeholders: Survival, Reputation and Success. New Haven: Yale University Press 2007.
   9. Ibid., at p. 6.
   10. A. M. Sjovall and A. C. Talk: ‘From Actions to Impressions: Cognitive Attribution Theory and the Formation of Corporate Reputation’, Corporate Reputation Review, vol. 7, no. 3, 2004, pp. 269-81.
   11. L. E. Olsen and A. Peretz: ‘Conscientious Brand Criteria: a Framework and a Case Example from the Clothing Industry’, Journal of Brand Management vol. 18, no. 9, 2011, pp. 639-49.
   12. S. Anholt: Brand New Justice: the Upside of Global Branding. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann 2003, at p. 160.
   13. R. E. Freeman, J. S. Harrison and A. C. Wick, op. cit.
   14. R. J. Brodie, M. S. Glyn, and V. Little: ‘The service brand and the service-dominant logic: missing fundamental premise or theneed for stronger theory?’ Marketing Theory, vol. 6, no. 3, 2009, pp. 363-79.
   15. N. Ind and M. Schultz: ‘Brand Building, Beyond Marketing’, Strategy & Business, July 2010.
   16. J. Frooman: ‘Stakeholder Influence Strategies’, Academy of Management Review, vol. 24, no. 2, 1999, pp. 191-205.
   17. R. Martin: ‘The Age of Customer Capitalism’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 88, nos. 1-2, 2010, pp. 58-65.
   18. A. Berle and G. Means: The Modern Corporation and Private Property. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers 1932.
   19. M. Jensen and W. Meckling: ‘Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behaviour, Agency Costs, and Ownership Structure’, Journal of Financial Economics, vol. 3, no. 4, 1976, pp. 305-60.
   20. A. Rucci, S. Kirn and R. Quinn: ‘The Employee-Customer-Profits Chain at Sears’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 76, no. 1, 1998, pp. 82-97; M. G. Patterson, M. A. West, R. Lawthom and S. Nickell: Impact of People Management Practices on Business Performance. London: the Institute of Personnel and Development 1997; D. Maister: Practice What You Preach: What Managers Must Do to Create a High Performance Culture. New York: Free Press 2001.
   21. S. Böhm and C. de Cock: ‘Liberalist Fantasies: Zizek and the Impossibility of the Open Society’, Organization, vol. 14, no. 6, 2007, pp. 815-36; S. Zizek: Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. London: Profile Books 2008.
   22. F. M. Belz and K. Peattie: Sustainability Marketing: A Global Perspective. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons 2009; C. J. Oates, S. McDonald, P. Alevizou, K. Hwang and W. Young: ‘Marketing Sustainability: Use of Information Sources and Degrees of Voluntary Simplicity’, Journal of Marketing Communication, vol. 14, no. 5, 2008, pp. 351-65.
   23. J. A. Sandlin, and C. S. Walther: ‘Complicated Simplicity: Moral Identity Formation and Social Movement Learning in the Voluntary Simplicity Movement’, Adult Education Quarterly, vol. 59, 2009, pp. 298-317.
   24. R. V. Kozinets: ‘Can Consumers Escape the Market? Emancipatory Illuminations from Burning Man’, The Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 29, no. 1, 2002, pp. 20-38.
   25. Young et al. notes an estimated 30 per cent of consumers indicate concern about environmental issues but only around 5 per cent translate this concern into action. W. Young, K. Hwang, S. McDonald and C. J. Oates: ‘Sustainable Consumption: Green Consumer Behaviour When Purchasing Products’, Sustainable Development Journal, vol. 18, no. 1, 2010, pp. 20-31.
   26. T. Devinney, P. Auger and G. M. Eckhardt: ‘Values vs. Value’, Strategy & Business, no. 62, spring 2011.

2011 Brands with a Conscience winners

Aquamarine Power/UK
www.aquamarinepower.com
Aquamarine Power’s Oyster tidal energy technology produces electricity from the ocean waves. A demonstration-scale installation has been successfully deployed in Orkney, Scotland, proof that this alternative energy strategy could create sustainable zero-emission electricity, heralding the eventual progression away from dependence on fossil fuels.

BBC World News–Newsweek for World Challenge/UK
www.theworldchallenge.co.uk
Now in its sixth year, World Challenge is a global competition aimed at finding projects or small businesses from around the world that have shown enterprise and innovation at a grass roots’ level. World Challenge is about championing and rewarding projects and businesses which really make a difference. In making this award, the Medinge Group wishes to acknowledge a channel of mainstream media for using their power and influence to help those under-appreciated organizations in need.

Caja Navarra/Spain
www.cajanavarra.es/en/home.htm
This not-for-profit Pamplona-based bank loaned €3·3 billion and had a net profit of €200 million in 2008. Customers decide the social causes to which profits shall be allocated. There is a policy of complete transparency and exemplary peer-to-peer lending; and bank staff are encouraged to do voluntary work. In an era where banks are regarded with scepticism and disdain, Caja Navarra stands as a model for conscience-driven financial institutions.

Masdar City/UAE
www.masdarcity.ae/en/index.aspx
The world’s first zero-carbon city, designed to be powered by the sun and free of cars and skyscrapers. Projected to accommodate 50,000 people, at least 1,000 businesses and a university. Now under construction, it is being designed by British architects Foster and Partners, funded by the ruler of Abu Dhabi, HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Medinge’s Simon Nicholls remarked, ‘If it works, it will combine 21st-century engineering with traditional desert architecture to deliver safety, health and happiness.’

2011 Colin Morley Award

TED/USA
www.ted.com
TED’s simple credo of ‘ideas worth sharing’ is a concept absolutely core to the philosophy of the Medinge Group. This non-profit organization believes that sharing compelling ideas is the way to change the world. They have created a simple but powerful mechanism for doing it: an 18-minute filmed talk shared for free on the web, an elegant demonstration of the positive power of internet-borne social media which exists in tandem with regular international seminars.

2011 Brands with a Conscience committee
Chairman: Sergei Mitrofánov
Committee: Enric Bernal, Thomas Gad, Sicco van Gelder, Ava Hakim, Pierre d’Huy, Nicholas Ind, Tim Kitchin, Sascha Lötscher, Philippe Mihailovich, Johnnie Moore, Stanley Moss, Simon Nicholls, Simon Paterson, Dmitry Petrov, Tony Quinlan, Anette Rosencreutz, Yousef Tuqan Tuqan, Erika Uffindell, Jack Yan

THE EMERGENCE of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been both rapid and significant. Twenty years ago it was a subject of marginal interest to businesses, but now every organization of any size has a policy on CSR. The growth of CSR is a reflection of the continuing (although sometimes resisted) move to a stakeholder view of capitalism. Some well established businesses had long practiced this philosophy based on an understanding of the inter-connectedness of all their stakeholders; that social well-being, engaged employees, satisfied customers and suitably rewarded investors were inextricably linked. However, for many, CSR has been seen as more utilitarian: a sticking plaster that could heal a company’s reputation and improve its appeal. The challenge here is that in such organizations, CSR is a peripheral activity rather than core to business thinking.

Getting to the core
Organizations often see CSR as a tool to improve the legislative climate, enhance media attitudes and inspire current and potential employees. As a consequence, business television and newspapers are awash with advertising that makes claims for the social virtues and long-term perspectives of corporate brands. Yet most of the activities, while laudable in themselves, remain superficial. Scratch the surface and you find that CSR does not run very deep. When it comes to facing up to dilemmas about doing the right or the expedient thing, there is a temptation to take the easier option and satisfy the short-term needs of shareholders.
   Lorna Tilbian, Executive Director of the London-based bank Numis stresses that reputation-building is about being principled and having a long-term perspective—both of which are subject to pressures. She says, ‘Short-termism influences the managers of the company to cut corners to keep performing on a quarterly basis. The only test that really matters is the test of time.’
   For a business to really commit to CSR, it has to be truly integrated into strategic thinking. This seems to be easier for organizations which are not publicly owned. For example, the privately owned, outdoor sports clothing business, Patagonia, has a long-term perspective and a mission statement that says, ‘to use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.’ The ideal implied here has led the company to move out of businesses that it believes are environmentally damaging, to provide customers with a lifetime guarantee (on the basis it’s better to keep the product you have rather than buy a new one), to provide full traceability on all its products, to develop new materials that are recycled and recyclable and to support actively environmental causes. At Patagonia environmentalism is not an add-on—it permeates everything the company does and says.
   When the whole organization (and its customers) is engaged in adhering to a principle, then it creates a focus for decision-making and moves idea about CSR to the core. At Patagonia there is no CSR department as such, although there are individuals specifically concerned with looking at CSR based issues, rather every person from the receptionist (who developed a frisbee from recycled materials) to the designers (who are driven by environmentalism) delivers on the mission day-in, day-out. It’s part of the reason that Fortune magazine labelled Patagonia the coolest company on the planet.
   Similarly, the Dutch financial services’ group, Rabobank, which has 60,000 employees and 9·6 million customers, has long adhered to policies that are designed to connect it to all its stakeholders. This is not surprising given that it is a cooperative bank that is owned by its members. The continuous dialogue the bank enjoys with its customers and other stakeholders helps ensure it delivers on broader social needs as well as meeting its performance goals. As a symbol of this closeness and the integration of its audiences, anyone who is approved by the bank can visit its new headquarters and wander freely throughout the building.
   Both Rabobank and Patagonia are adept at balancing and integrating different stakeholder needs, but you have to search harder for publicly quoted businesses that deliver on this score. The requirement to deliver ever-increasing returns to shareholders tends to hinder a full-blooded commitment to CSR. We might, for example, look at the Norwegian oil company, Statoil, and its approach to extracting oil from the sands of Northern Alberta in Canada (a contentious issue) and argue that they have been socially responsible in consulting with communities and using sound extraction methods, but we could also counter that true social responsibility would argue against being there in the first place and avoiding the environmental damage.
   One business that has been trying to tackle the dilemma of competing interests, head-on, is Unilever. Last year, CEO Paul Polman stopped providing earnings guidance to investors, in an attempt to move the focus away from short-term returns. Seeing his mandate as more concerned with long term success, he also railed against hedge funds, when he said, ‘They would sell their grandmother if they could make money. They are not people who are there in the long-term interests of the company.’
   Unilever has been integrating its approach to sustainability across its brand portfolio, focusing on renewable resources (such that all the palm oil it sources will be from renewable supplies by 2015) and thinking about the implications not only of the act of purchase but also the use of product.
   Unilever has 400 brands that are used 2 billion times a day around the planet, with about 70 per cent of the greenhouse gas imprint occurring during use. Encouraging sensible and environmentally responsible use of products, therefore, can have a big impact. As Santiago Gowland, VP of Brand & Global Corporate Responsibility, argues, ‘Marketers, with their expertise in innovation and behaviour change, can, and should, be making a significant contribution towards societal goals by enabling consumers to make more conscious choices and encouraging people to adopt conscientious consumption habits.’

Conscientious brands
At the Medinge Group, our annual awards, known as Brands with a Conscience tries to uncover and reward organizations that have integrated corporate responsibility into the core of their thinking: brands such as One Water, that exist to give all their profits away to water projects in Africa, the Swiss private bank, Pictet et Cie that demonstrates a long term perspective and a commitment to environmentalism and Merci, the Paris-based lifestyle retailer whose very existence is based on the idea of improving the lives of people in Madagascar. These brands are all genuinely people-focused and reap benefits in terms of highly motivated employees, committed customers and supportive communities. The interesting challenge is to see whether more businesses (especially larger organizations that can have a significant impact) can fully integrate CSR and become truly conscientious.

Summary: In January 2011, the Medinge Group’s annual Brands with a Conscience (BWAC) awards will be announced for their eighth consecutive year. The awards, created by a Stockholm-based international think-tank on branding, single out exceptional organizations and individuals for distinction in humanistic branding. What does this term represent? What are the awards, how were they created, how are they decided, who has won in the past and how can they be viewed in retrospect? This paper assesses the BWAC initiative, its evolution and possible significance.

OVER THE PAST 20 YEARS, we have lived through a generation of disillusion with organizations and the brands they represent. Criticized in works like No Logo by Naomi Klein, corporations were handed blame for all of the world’s ills, and brands demonized as sinister and insidious forces bent on the destruction of society. There has even been the suggestion that brands contribute to an irreconcilable east–west divide. A great dialogue grew out of these accusations, challenging the idea that financial gain was the only driver for defining an organization’s success or merit. It was out of this dialogue that the Medinge Group was founded in 2000, when a group of interdisciplinary brand professionals came together to debate, foster and articulate ideas of what they called humanistic branding. The group asserted that brands had the potential to do well by doing good, that ethical behaviour needed to become a cornerstone of corporate governance. The group’s annual Brands with a Conscience awards were created out of this extended conversation. Over a period of seven consecutive years (2004–10) companies large and small, known and invisible, young and old, drawn from all categories, have been singled out for distinction as recipients of Brands with a Conscience awards. There is no monetary prize attached to the awards, though winners are permitted to use the BWAC logo in their own communications. But an array of categories, sizes and nationalities can be seen, even in a short list of names drawn from past winners: Grameen Phone, BP, IKEA, Toyota Prius, Sanrio, Pictet et Cie., Slow Food Movement, Innocent, Happy Computers, Alibaba, architect Paolo Soleri, Virgin Fuels.
   The Medinge Group initiated the BWAC awards concept in 2003, intending to recognize brands whose conduct demonstrated humanistic values, and to call attention to or to encourage them. The first nominations were made via group-wide emails. Lively internet-borne debate followed. In making their nominations, members were asked to evaluate from brands’:

• reputation and self-representation;
• history;
• direct experience a member might have with the brand nominated;
• media presence of the brand;
• and an assessment of the organization’s expressed values of sustainability.

   Over the years the system of nominations and judging has evolved into a formalized automated process which today employs on-line nominating and voting, while preserving the collegial internal debate in the run-up to the final balloting. The voting is a closed process, and only members of the group may nominate, discuss and vote.
   From August until October, Medinge Group members post their nominations. Members carry out their own due diligence to support their nominations. Once the nominations are posted debate begins among the membership. Medinge members consider six elemental criteria on any nomination:

• leadership: how committed is management to brand and its cause? Does the leadership team live out the values of the brand?;
• authenticity: how well articulated is the brand visually and experientially? How evident is its ethical programme, and the degree to which it is sincere?;
• humanity: how evident are the human implications of the brand? How motivated is the brand’s humanity? How visible is the brand’s conscience?;
• community: how heavily does the brand invest in relationship-building? How deep an advocate is the brand for "caring for one another"?;
• accountability: is the brand visibly accountable for its actions? Does the brand apologize when things go wrong?;
• belief: does the brand take risks in line with its beliefs? Does the brand acknowledge that we are all equal?

   Following the nomination and debate phase, around November 1, a ballot is sent to all members of the think-tank and voting occurs. Members are also given the opportunity to abstain. There are normally 40 to 50 nominees and only seven or eight winners. The first week in December BWAC winners are announced to the membership. In the first week of January the winners are made public through a PR campaign. In the first week of February the Brands with a Conscience certificates are presented at a ceremony during the annual Medinge Group meeting in Paris. In 2006 the group added a unique category commendation, the Colin Morley Award, recognizing exceptional achievement by an individual or non-governmental organization. Colin, a member of the Medinge Group, died in the London Underground bombings on July 7, 2005. The award commemorates his visionary work in humanistic branding. So far the winners of the Colin Morley Award have been Shakespeare’s Globe, Star Schools, Paul Newman and Muna Abusulayman.
   Though the awards are granted by a group of 20 international brand professionals—mostly white, mostly European and mostly male—the variety of BWAC winners over the years has shown a commendable range in size, visibility, location, and segmentation. A small collective in rural Nepal was named in the same list as a huge British multinational petroleum company in 2006. A tea producer in Sri Lanka appeared as a winner in the same year as an American carpet manufacturer. The BWAC awards tend to contextualize historically what the climate of business was at the time they are given. 2009’s awards had several winners focused on issues of water. Twenty ten’s awards lauded two financial institutions in an era of criticism against that segment of business. The same year both an Indian and a Chinese company appeared in the winners’ list, acknowledging the world’s largest emerging markets. The Brands with a Conscience awards are extended not only to acknowledge results, but may be given for the promise they carry, with attention paid to the potential for change they can influence. Virgin Fuels was encouraged in 2007 for their innovative model on alternative energy. Fetzer Vineyards received an award in 2008 in recognition of their sustainable wine-making programmes. BP was lauded for their green reidentification and renewables’ policy in 2006. Yet in some instances the award has been granted in spite of other mitigating factors, such as in the case of IKEA, who were recognized in 2007 for their strong anti-corruption stance in Russia, while no mention was made of their promotion of consumerism or destruction of forests in the manufacture of their products.
   In any altruistic endeavour there is bound to be blowback, and the Brands with a Conscience awards are no exception. Medinge’s 2006 award to Toyota Prius did not anticipate the massive recall of this particular model in 2010, nor the Chairman’s public apology for subjecting its customers to such a massive safety issue; the brand is still in recovery. BP has been a succession of bad-news stories which demonstrate how it has gone nowhere near ‘Beyond Petroleum’. In the year following Whole Foods’ BWAC award it was revealed that the chairman had been manipulating his own stock price and savaging his competition with pseudonymous weblog posts. Virgin Fuels never came close to its own promises on green policy. Kiva was forced to admit that it could not verify disposition of funds dispersed in microlending as it represented on its website. Freeplay Energy introduced a line of visionary alternative energy products but showed catastrophic financial management.
   The Brands with a Conscience awards have also showcased brands whose humanistic qualities endure. Grameen Phone’s founder, Mohammed Younis received a Nobel Prize in 2009 for his innovative work in microfinance for developing economies. Holland’s Chocolonely stands as a brilliant and inventive example of ethical branding, which brought to the forefront issues of slavery and the production of chocolate. Innocent continues to make the world a better place through its recycling initiatives and its abiding relationships with local producers. Happy Computers is consistently named as one of the top workplaces in the UK, with its solid values and productive community work a testament to humanistic vision. Patagonia remains a brand true to its stated values in a conflicted market-place. The American actor–philanthropist Paul Newman posthumously retains his distinction as the most generous man on earth on a per-capita basis, having given away over $240 million to worthy causes during his lifetime.
   Today the speed of information factors in the creation and destruction of brands. A reputation can be built over a century and ruined overnight. The yearly interval for naming these awards could be a fail-safe for their validity. It is the hope of the Brands with a Conscience initiative that organizations which understand humanistic and ethical principles will thrive, and that these annual awards can celebrate their potential and urge their emulation. The Medinge Group’s work continues, questioning the way that brands are built, what they stand for, how they affect the world we live in. Until humans achieve perfection and the world transforms into a utopia the Brands with a Conscience awards will retain a unique relevance.

Special thanks to Patrick Harris, Nicholas Ind, Ian Ryder and Jack Yan for invaluable help in the preparation of this article.

Alibaba Group/China
Co-op Bank/UK
Marks & Spencer/UK
Merci/France
Pictet et Cie./Switzerland
SAP/Germany
Selco Solar Pvt. Ltd./India

The Colin Morley Award is given to:

Muna Abu Sulayman/Saudi Arabia

Detailed descriptions and web links follow:

Alibaba Group
www.alibaba.com
A young Asian brand built on the idea that it must exist as an experience to elevate their own or other people’s level of happiness. Jack Ma founded Alibaba in his cramped apartment with 17 colleagues. A decade later, Alibaba Group is the largest ecommerce company in China, with 15,000 employees and more than 100 million users. It also has a B2B unit with a community of more than 42 million registered users from more than 240 countries and regions. This year Alibaba will unveil partnership plans for Grameen China, a project to significantly increase access to micro-credit for poverty alleviation in Sichuan and Inner Mongolia. (Medinge named Grameen Telecom a Brand with a Conscience in 2005, and its parent Grameen Bank was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2008.) Employing the Grameen Bank microcredit model, the group hopes to impact more than 72,000 lives in its first five years.
   Ava Hakim, IBM exec and member of the Medinge Group, remarked that Alibaba is a business ‘built on trust, one which respects intellectual property rights and will remove sites which infringe upon the rights of others.’ She also was impressed by the six core values named, which they have successfully applied to their business.

Co-op Bank
www.co-operativebank.co.uk/servlet/Satellite/1193206375355,CFSweb/Page/Bank
The Co-op, founded in 1872, from its origins has focused on serving local communities. Today the Co-op is the only UK clearing bank to publish an ethical statement. Medinge director Patrick Harris lauded the brand, noting that ‘since 1992 Co-op has been building its ethical stance by asking its membership to vote on issues such as animal welfare, human rights and ecological impact.’ It claims to have turned away over £900 million in loans to businesses not in keeping with the Co-op Ethical Policy. The commitment to improve their food business’ ethical and environmental performance is in line with expectations arrived at in consultation with 100,000 members. Co-Op was double-nominated this year, for both its banking and food businesses.

Marks & Spencer
plana.marksandspencer.com
In her nomination, Medinge director Erika Uffindell emphasized the focused approach to climate change, waste and sustainability that Marks & Spencer have adopted. With their Plan A campaign, the company established 100 commitments to achieve in five years, clear targets for their business, actionable by people across the group. Uffindell finds the brand very accessible and involving: they have engaged 17,231 customers in making pledges to support climate change and a commitment to sustainability.

Merci
www.merci-merci.com
Merci is a 1500 m² shop for fashion and home furniture based in Paris, France. All sales profits are destined for women and children in Madagascar. The store sells new or artist-reworked donated goods and has had a huge impact. Some goods are sent directly to Madagascar. Merci’s website is especially minimal and modest, yet effectively states the store’s mission. In his nomination, Medinge’s Philippe Mihailovich expressed the hope that Merci’s actions influence others to follow.

Pictet et Cie.
www.pictet.com
This Swiss-based private bank started in 1805. Medinge director Nicholas Ind cited two significant aspects of the brand.
   First, its focus on sustainable development and the redirection of funds in this direction by encouraging the maximum investment in sustainable areas for a given risk: the bank’s management of a water fund, launched in 2000, which has become the world’s largest of its kind, with over €4 billion in assets; and a Clean Energy fund. The second aspect is the Prix Pictet—the world’s first international prize dedicated to photography and sustainability—mandated to encourage the use and power of photography to communicate vital messages to a global audience. This year’s theme is Earth.

SAP
www.sap.com/about/SAP-sustainability
Today, many B2Bs are silently doing a fantastic job to adapt to our global challenges. Medinge’s chairman Thomas Gad nominated Germany’s SAP, a software company whom he admires because ‘they actually help other companies to create usable metrics in their CSR and sustainability.’ Over the past 10 years, SAP has been recognized by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for upholding ethical, environmental, social, and governance values in products and services.

Selco Solar Pvt. Ltd.
www.selco-india.com/index.html
Medinge CEO Stanley Moss described Selco as an interesting small business, 14 years old, who supply solar power solutions, mostly in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. They rely on microfinance loans, employ 140 people, and have done around 100,000 installations of small to large size. They are partially funded by Grameen. Moss was impressed by their cradle-to-grave attitude about product, longevity in the marketplace after a tough start-up, good work on the individual level, private ownership, and the understanding of need for innovation.

The 2010 Colin Morley Award to Muna Abusulayman
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muna_Abu-Sulayman
Simon Nicholls, a member of Medinge, nominated Muna Abu Sulayman, who receives 2010’s Colin Morley Award, for excellence by an individual or NGO, acknowledging their contribution to the betterment of society through sustainable, socially responsible and humanistic behaviour. In giving this award, the Medinge Group recognizes Muna’s outstanding work in educational development, poverty alleviation and strategic philanthropy; as Executive Director of the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation, developing and implementing operations for humanitarian assistance across the globe; her role as the first woman in Saudi Arabia to be appointed by the United Nations Development Programme as a Goodwill Ambassador; and for exceptional reporting as co-host on popular MBC-TV social programme Kalam Nawaem, in particular her advocacy of rights for women. As a public and media personality, she speaks about issues relating to Arab society, media, building bridges of understanding between east and west. Since 1997, Ms Abu Sulayman has served as lecturer on American literature at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia. She frequently appears as a panelist at the Davos World Economic Forum, Jewish Economic Forum, C-100 of the World Economic Forum, Brookings Institute Conferences and other venues.

   Patrick Harris, a Medinge director, added, ‘In the list of 2010 Brands with a Conscience winners, we can see a clear focus on commerce and finance. This is no accident. Instead, this is a sign of the world’s markets responding to the need for responsible and inter-generational business activities.’
   Regarding his nomination of Co-op Bank, Harris said, ‘The UK’s Co-operative Bank is a prime example of a highly principled business within a traditional competitive landscape. The Co-op are being recognized by Medinge for their values-led business focus and for the impact that they bring to a beleaguered sector.’
   Jack Yan, a director of Medinge said, ‘Again, the Medinge Group’s international influence has resulted in a global list of winners, all of which practise our ideals of humanistic branding. I’m thrilled we’ve recognized our first Chinese and Saudi Arabian winners this year.
   ‘In particular, Selco Solar of India shows a commitment to green energy that is very poignant in the 2010s. Just because fuel prices have dropped from their 2008 highs does not mean that the energy crisis is over, a fact the Medinge Group recognizes.’
   Medinge Group member Ava Maria Hakim commented, ‘The message to the world—and Alibaba’s 100 million users—is that China’s Alibaba Group has set a global brand and business benchmark that goes beyond corporate social responsibility to building an integrity-based business driven by long-term vision. Alibaba Group is a Brand with a Conscience of the future.
   Erika Uffindell, a director of Medinge, commented, ‘Marks & Spencer is a great example of an organization living by its beliefs. M&S has been recognized by Medinge for creating the innovative Plan A—an initiative that involves customers and partners in their ambition to help combat climate change and reduce waste. Plan A focuses on five key areas: climate change, waste, sustainable raw materials, health and being a flair partner. Marks & Spencer’s ability to involve their stakeholders in such a simple and accessible way has been reflected in their significant achievements to date.’
   Nicholas Ind, a founding director of Medinge stated, ‘This year, the Medinge Group’s Brands with a Conscience awards shows impressive diversity and reflects the commitment that brand owners are demonstrating around the globe to building organizations that meet the needs of all parts of society. The 2010 winners come from the UK, China, India, Switzerland, Germany, France and Saudi Arabia.’

Special thanks to Medinge’s 2010 BWAC nominating committee
Paulina Borsook
Thomas Gad
Ava Hakim
Patrick Harris
Pierre d’Huy
Nicholas Ind
Philippe Mihailovich
Sergei Mitrofanov
Stanley Moss, chairman
Simon Nicholls
Anette Rosencreutz
Erika Uffindell
Jack Yan

Translated from the French by Stanley Moss
DiGanZi
info@diganzi.com

The Journal of the Medinge Group, vol. 3, no. 1, 2009

AA Often the criticism gets levelled that specialists in strategy try to manipulate the public by using brands. This article proposes to demonstrate that the accusation makes no sense. Not for moral reasons, but for reasons semiologic. Any sorcerer’s apprentice in branding who uses such manipulative techniques to mislead their interlocutors will inevitably find themselves challenged by the question, ‘Who’s kidding who?’*

BB For the past decade the Medinge Group (see www.medinge.org) has brought together brand experts from around the world to ponder questions such as this one. Though their mother tongues are different, their business is the same: to advise customers and help build a patient approach, a complex of signs and signals which correctly represent the organisation in question. This structure of thought is dynamic, even organic. It unfolds gradually over a period of years. The client grows older, changes along with its mark, like it or not. The brand always influences, an iteration of the concept of cognitive dissonance, described in the annals of psychology by Leon Festinger around 1957. This conceit states simply that everyone in the presence of mutually incompatible knowledge experiences a state of unpleasant tension. Once we reach the discernable point of discomfort we consult our knowledge of strategies to restore cognitive balance. One such strategy to reduce cognitive dissonance is called the process of rationalization. This is precisely what occurs when an approach to branding is overambitious, and seeks to be better than it truly is. To rationalize the difference between what is said and what really happens, the change proposed will itself need to undergo change. Being unable to move, the piano is reconciled to the piano stool. It is the classic challenge of corporate brand-building. The nuclear heart of branding must be handled with care, while its imperfections—intentional or not—will be naturally smoothed by time. Its speech may be opposed by journalists, shareholders, employees, if the words are not followed by facts. That is the beauty of branding: brutalized, used like an instrument, it turns against its creator.

CC A fake brand rings false. A fake brand acts like a truth serum. During the exchanges at our seminars, we were able among professionals to share our discomfort in instances where brand fakery revealed itself. Our experience validates this—the Nokia brand for Thomas Gad, the Orange brand for Patrick Harris, to mention only the most prestigious—are great branding stories because they endeavoured to build honest brands, sincere brands.

DD The only redemption for branding is this sincerity, or at least the application of a large dose of good faith. The client, whether a company, a city, a theater, needs to speak to its public. But the signs do not know they cannot lie. The result of a manipulative approach to branding is ultimately an unmasking. It’s the responsibility of Medinge’s specialists to announce unequivocal reality to their clients: we do not brand dishonestly. You can’t play with signs and escape the consequences.

EE Naming is betrayal
‘To name things badly adds misery to the world,’ Albert Camus said, and the same holds true for badly named brands. The modern understanding of the word branding originates from the archaic word brand, the red-hot iron employed to mark ownership of cattle. Naming memorializes the key moment of the birth of an entity. Badly named, or worse—something deceptively named—dooms an entity to failure. A bad name creates a fake identity. A bad name self-mutilates the brand. A brand is an indelible marking. Thus a small brand which wants to achieve the stature of a great brand, but bears such a name, will never say more than that. Far from succeeding in impersonating a major brand, its name reveals nothing more than ‘I-am-a-small-brand-that-wants-to-be-seen-as-a-big-brand. A frog who wants to be as big as an ox.’

FF Let us observe two examples of badly-named brands which have since disappeared. Boo.com was the name chosen by three Swedes, Ernst Malmsten, Kajsa Leander and Patrik Heddelin, in 1999. This start-up distribution company spent $135 million in eighteen months, before filing for bankruptcy. A bad name is like a bad casting in metal. It constitutes an incoherent and schizophrenic identity which subverts any hint of success or stability at its base. Boo is an onomotæpia, a sound used to scare, startle or take by surprise. This brand development launched itself at the dawn of the internet, and sought to establish a relationship of trust with future customers. A second example concerns the failure of a French bank launched in 2001, which called itself Nabab, a subsidiary of Société Générale. It demonstrated that in matters of money, little comfort could be taken from renaming a financial institution in an altered tone.

GG All schools of psychoanalysis devote a good deal of thought to the nature and question of hidden identities. Freud, Jung and Lacan continually return to discussion on the literal or subliminal significance of names. The act of naming signals an intention. With branding, the name is never manipulated. To name is to inevitably translate, and often to betray that which was not meant to be discovered.

HH The choice of typography and its associated symbols occurs in the natural order of design, that is subsequently, arriving at a set of mnemonic keys. It is most often tested in the final moments of engagement, but as validated by Malcolm Gladwell in his book entitled Blink, the client recognizes the signal in an instant. The brand adviser waits until the client exclaims, without too much justification, ‘Yes, that’s certainly us.’ Again, no conspiracy possible, just a clear feeling of identification.

II To this we add the notorious practice of determining an entity’s values. The difficulty falls much more in the direction of laziness, of a certain unanimity in the temptation to lie. Most of the time our role is to encourage the customer into selecting specific values the brand will express. The risk is the adoption of a bunch of hollow words, an accusation generally leveled at competitors whose catch phrases are often engraved on slabs of marble in the lobbies of US companies. A list of values, seemingly endless, not binding, and demonstrating concerns mainly designed to show others who we believe we are. This is the key: branding requires disclosure. To make an effective brand you must agree to deliver.

JJ Branding compared to a mobile by Alexander Calder
Branding is an exact science, but neither truth nor lie can figure in it. The slightest false move is clearly visible. Thomas Gad analyses this phenomenon in his book entitled 4-D Branding, with a scheme that employs analysis of four dimensions. He describes branding as an unstable balance, living between four poles and connected by two perpendicular axes. One axis shows the functional dimension relative to the spiritual dimension; the other shows the social dimension relative to the mental dimension. A complementary visualization would be to consider branding like a mobile by Calder, consisting of a series of branches, all linked. If any of these branches is modified, the entire mobile as a whole is affected. All these branches will be fully aligned over time with the identity of the whole (‘the brand’). This metaphor describes a mobile’s resilient architecture, one which is much like a well-researched brand’s. It absorbs the movements of its ecosystem in a dynamic manner, then invariably returns to its original position.

KK Sign language requires the skill of a bomb disposal expert. Anyone who cheats will sooner or later step on the very landmine he has placed. It doesn’t happen in a dramatic revelation like, ‘It’s a scandal that company isn’t what it claims to be, and their whole approach to branding is complicit in the deception!’ Rather, perception recognises a form of systemic failure. The principle of dynamic branding affects the entire company. A sincere and consistent branding programme directs the marketing strategy, inspires innovation, unites staff, while it reassures the President and Executive Committee. Nothing escapes the brand. The risk from an attempted manipulation is that no positive contributions are carried out. The active principle of branding no longer works and the client is at worst the victim of an unreliable, poorly designed and inadequate campaign.

LL A brand is both a reflection of the present and a promise for the future. From that dichotomy comes the misunderstanding, causing stakeholders to believe either that the reflection is not sufficiently accurate or that the promise will never be fulfilled. A good brand settles itself perfectly equidistant from the two ideas. An overdone descriptive fixed to the present prevents the brand from evolving. Investing too deeply in the promise, a pretentious outburst is betrayed, a weakness created. The brand consultant needs to be vigilant with such fine-tuning, free from obscure intentions in the practice of his profession, instead attentively gardening, with brand solutions elegantly arrived at, built over long years to achieve a sincere likeness. It is beautiful and appetizing brand identities like these which the Medinge Group has chosen to honour since 2004 with their annual Brands with a Conscience award.

* Here Pierre d’Huy employs the French expression ‘l’arroseur arrosé’, literally, ‘the sprinkler sprinkled’. He originally indicated this would be the article title, but has since retitled the essay, ‘Nul ne peut se jouer avec les signes’, literally, ‘Nobody can play with the signs’.

Ragbag

Ekomarine

One Water

Chhatra Sagar

Chhatra Sagar—an eco-resort in Rajasthan (India)
Ekomarine—environmentally responsible paint (Sweden)
Kiva—microfinance lending (USA)
One—enlightened bottled water (UK)
Ragbag—Fair-Traded fashion accessories from recyclable materials (the Netherlands)
TOMS shoes—developing nations’ shoe distribution (USA)

2009 Colin Morley Award
   The third Colin Morley Award for a non-governmental organization is given to the American actor and philanthropist Paul Newman in posthumous recognition for an exemplary life of truth-telling and generosity.

   Announcing the 2009 Brands with a Conscience, Stanley Moss, CEO of the Medinge Group and chairman of the initiative, remarked, ‘This year’s Brands with a Conscience winners are all superior brands who exemplify environmentally responsible conduct and community involvement. Three of these winners have a direct interest in water-related issues. And Medinge’s selection of Paul Newman for the Colin Morley NGO award acknowledges a hero whose humanistic beliefs accompanied authentic, compassionate action.’
   Thomas Gad, Director and Chairman of the Medinge Group commented, ‘The 2009 Brands with a Conscience awards show a sensational variety, and not only geographically; we have award winners from all corners of the world, in a variety of business categories. Everything from eco-resorts, environmentally responsible boat paint, microfinance lending, enlightened bottled water, fair-traded fashion accessories from recyclable materials and shoe distribution for developing nations. Once again, for 2009 we honour a person with our Colin Morley NGO award: Paul Newman—a legend not only as an brilliant actor, but also as a business and a brand doing good for the world.’
   Ian Ryder, a director of the group added, ‘Every year we seem to say that the quality of entrants to the BWAC Awards increases, but the truth is that this year was absolutely outstanding. In every category, from all corners of the globe, each and every one of the finalists would have made worthy winners. All of which says that those who won came from a very select group, and they embody all that is best in our tough test of brand sustainability and conscience.’
   ‘Each of the Brands with a Conscience winners display awareness, responsibility and action. Sustainability here is not limited to a temporary green perspective, but is celebrated as a life-long dedication to future generations,’ said Patrick Harris, a Medinge director. ‘One Water is a wonderful example of a humanitarian focus, founded on an elegant concept. It is a complete solution, harnessing a commercial opportunity to serve communities in need, utilizing the natural energy of children. Pure genius.’
   ‘This year’s nominees have been the most amazing yet,’ agreed Jack Yan, Director. ‘We received more nominees than ever, and competition was incredibly strong. The bar was set very high, and it was one of the most difficult decision-making process I have been through since the Awards’ inception. There was greater advocacy among the Medinge Group’s members this year, showing what passions these brands generated. In the end, our winners are organizations that admirably forward the Group’s agenda in humanistic branding.’
   The 2009 Brands with a Conscience awards will be presented at a private ceremony held at the Management Institute of Paris on February 5, 2009.

The winners in detail
Chhatra Sagar
http://www.chhatrasagar.com/ABOUT.HTM
   Chhatra Sagar is an eco-friendly tent camp in Rajasthan, India, a lifetime project by direct descendants of the Maharajah of Jodhpur. Established in 2001, this small resort overlooks 365 protected acres, where over 200 varieties of wildlife have returned to the habitat. The sustainability quotient is optimal—all locally sourced food, furnished by indigenous craft, employs 30 local families, sponsors teachers, provides medicine, classroom furniture and brings specialized educators who address subjects ranging from family planning to recycling to soil conservation. The family’s personal involvement and constant presence reinforce the commitment.

Ekomarine
http://ekomarine.se/en.html
   For boating-intensive parts of the world like USA, Australia, UK and Scandinavia, the foul painting of boat hulls is a serious and not-ecological business. Sweden-based Ekomarine’s researchers created the Neptune Formula, a naturally-based vegetable-protein alternative, with the added benefit of improving performance by reducing hull friction.

Kiva
http://www.kiva.org
   Kiva is microfinance with a peer-to-peer platform. Lends modest amounts direct to developing world entrepreneurs. A brilliant combination of technology and humanity, which connects people through lending for the alleviation of poverty. Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, rallies 10,000 bloggers to promote good causes, and upturned the innovation of Zopa’s direct lending model, applying it to philanthropy. A branded giving process in an economic and powerful way, never preachy and never sentimental.

One Water
http://www.onedifference.org/uk/water/
   One sells bottled water in the UK and gives away 100 per cent of all of its profits to water projects in Africa. Profits are used to install PlayPumps, effectively, children’s roundabouts that, when played on, pump water to a storage cistern. Active since May 2005, One water is aligned with the Millennium Development Goals of getting clean water to 1 billion people who do not have access to it and helping the 2 billion people who die each year from water-related diseases.

rag-bag
http://www.ragbag.eu
   rag-bag produces fashionable and colourful bags and wallets made entirely from waste plastics (bags, sheets, etc.) collected by rag pickers from garbage tips in India, Cameroon and Brazil. They are paid a fair price for these waste products and they are trained to manufacture the products. The bags are sold online and in fashionable and fair trade outlets in Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK and the USA. Rag pickers earn a better income and learn valuable skills, while waste is reused to create new, valuable and practical products. rag-bag sets a high example for social, economic and environmental sustainability.

TOMS Shoes
http://www.tomsshoes.com
   For each pair of shoes you buy from this LA-based company, TOMS will donate a pair to needy children in developing nations. Once a year the company does a hands-on ‘shoe drop’ into communities, and customers participate. The shoes are comfy like slippers, and customers effectively vote with their feet. The website is very transparent, and the thousands of shoes distributed are a more direct good deed than throwing money at a cause.

Paul Newman (Colin Morley Award)
http://www.newmansown.com
   Paul Newman set up a company in 1982 to make marinades, sauces and dressings from natural ingredients. All the profits and royalties reverted to Newman, who, from the business’s inception, gave away every cent to charitable causes. In particular the money supports Hole in the Wall Camps, which bring together children with serious and terminal illnesses for a free summer-camp experience. Paul Newman disdained fame, opposed the star–celebrity system, and gave over $250 million to these causes in his own lifetime (in per capita terms the most generous individual on earth). Newman’s life’s work reminds us that an individual can act unselfishly and humanistically, according to his own values and make a real contribution to a better world.

Images
Images for this release may be downloaded from <http://jyanet.com/090101pr0.htm>.

2009 Medinge Brands with a Conscience Committee
Thomas Gad
Sicco van Gelder
Ava Maria Hakim
Patrick Harris
Pierre d’Huy
Nicholas Ind
Tim Kitchin
Sergei Mitrofanov
Stanley Moss, chairman
Johnnie Moore
Luke Nicholson
Simon Nicholls
Simon Paterson
Anette Rosencreutz
Ian Ryder
Erika Uffindell
Jack Yan

About the Medinge Group
Founded in 2002, the Medinge Group first published a brand manifesto of eight statements encapsulating a vision of healthy brands for the future. In 2003, the group authored a collection of essays entitled Beyond Branding, which explored the ways in which brands could add value within alternative business and social models. In 2004, the group established the annual Brands with a Conscience list to recognize organizations who epitomize humanistic behaviour; in 2006, Medinge added a special category of recognition named in honour of its late colleague Colin Morley, which acknowledges excellence by an NGO, in keeping with Colin’s humanistic vision. The Medinge Group maintains an online, automated speakers’ and experts’ bureau accessible through its web site, www.medinge.org. In 2007 Medinge launched an online resource, The Journal of the Medinge Group, a digital anthology of papers and articles written by Medinge members.

Branding New Kinds of Places: the Example of Experience Retail Centres
by Malcolm Allan
The author, a town planner and place and destination brand practitioner, discusses the challenges of creating place brand strategies for completely new types of urban development using the example of the emergence of places that combine retail, leisure, entertainment, sports, cultural and heritage facilities to a greater extent than has been seen hitherto.

How to Improve the Chances of Successfully Developing and Implementing a Place Brand Strategy
by Sicco van Gelder
This paper tries to answer critical questions by describing the criteria and factors that contribute to successful place branding. By assessing the place, the players and the plans they make, it is possible to predict the likely success of a place branding initiative.

An Introduction to Storytelling in Employee Branding
by Tony Quinlan
The real power and opportunity for using stories in organizations is in listening to stories, helping others to create their own authentic stories and making sense of the stories told.

Issues and Challenges of Developing and Managing Brand Strategy in a Not-for-profit (Chartered) Body
by Ian Ryder
The rules are different for chartered bodies. Not the fundamentals of brand strategy, clearly, but the processes and procedures of development and execution, as the author reveals.

Mythology, Leaders and Leadership
by Tony Quinlan
The author challenges the myths of leadership definitions, and puts forward research on leadership that works, requiring the support of legends, communication and role-modelling.

The Next Wave of Sustainability Hits Swedish Brands
by Thomas Gad and Stanley Moss
This article introduces the argument that Swedish brands have moved beyond other countries’ positions on sustainability.

A Participative Approach to Brand-Building
by Nicholas Ind
The argument of this paper is a simple one: creating value for customers is an organization-wide responsibility. The author reconsiders the market orientation papers of Narver and Slater and Kohli and Jaworski and introduces the concept of Participatory Market Orientation.

Saving Detroit, by Not Making the Same Old Mistakes
by Jack Yan
Detroit has not ever used a brand orientation in its automakers’ marketing strategies, and it talks of trimming brands and numbers to allow it to compete. The author believes in being more focused on brands and not losing economies of scale, and building more of what consumers want. The tools are there, such as consumer-targeted blogs, but manufacturers need to use them.

We the People
by Patrick Harris
This paper considers the importance of employees in the process of building customer experience. It states that internal investment is rewarded with consistent, quality customer exchanges. Brand values are presented as the currency to measure the worth of exchanges between organizations and their customers. The paper concludes by presenting a case study of the mobile operator, Orange, during the period 1994–2003.

About the Medinge Group
Founded in 2002, the Medinge Group first published a brand manifesto of eight statements encapsulating a vision of healthy brands for the future. In 2003, the group authored a collection of essays entitled Beyond Branding, which explored the ways in which brands could add value within alternative business and social models. In 2004, the group established the annual Brands with a Conscience list to recognize organizations who epitomize humanistic behaviour; in 2006, Medinge added a special category of recognition named in honour of its late colleague Colin Morley, which acknowledges excellence by an NGO, in keeping with Colin’s humanistic vision. The Medinge Group maintains an online, automated speakers’ and experts’ bureau accessible through its web site, www.medinge.org. In 2007 Medinge launched an online resource, The Journal of the Medinge Group, a digital anthology of papers and articles written by Medinge members.

Aveda
Chocolonely
Hennes & Mauritz
Happy Computers
International Watch Co.
Pret a Manger
Dame Anita Roddick

and the 2008 Colin Morley Award for a non-governmental organization is given to Star School.

   Announcing the 2008 Brands with a Conscience, Stanley Moss, CEO of the Medinge Group and chairman of the initiative, called them ‘solid indications of the trend towards humanistic branding—this year’s list shows a renewed interest in ethical conduct, accountability and outcome. The 2008 winners remind us that at their essence, brands are for people.’
   ‘Branding has a huge role to play in creating a better and more sustainable world,’ remarked Thomas Gad, Chairman of the Medinge Group. ‘There already exist alternative technologies and products with less damaging impact on the environment, climate and people’s lives. But new green products and alternatives need to become attractive in the minds of people, in spite of their sometimes being more expensive and different. That is why the Medinge Group’s annual Brands With a Conscience Award is more relevant and important than ever. Branding can become a true-flag bearer for a better world.’
   ‘For the last four years, the Medinge Group has named Brands with a Conscience, forerunners to the social responsibility curve, long before the mass media came to champion their causes. This year’s mixture of companies again represents those leading the way, including some who pushed the humanist agenda for years without recognition.
   ‘In particular, we posthumously award a BWAC to Dame Anita Roddick for her lifelong contribution to fighting injustices. This is a recognition that Dame Anita had successfully developed her name into a brand with a reputation, one which had an immediate resonance to many. Star School’s recognition as our Colin Morley Award winner for 2008 is fitting: this is the sort of organization we think Colin himself would have endorsed for its work in combating HIV and Aids in Zululand, by targeting 40,000 high school students,’ said Jack Yan, a founder and director of the Medinge Group.
   Ian Ryder, a founding member and director of the Medinge Group, commented, ‘Each year since we began these awards, the whole world has become increasingly concerned about planetary sustainability. World leaders are meeting in Bali as we issue this year’s winners list. Some of our featured brands have been concerned for years about issues like these. They have actually demonstrated their commitment and not just talked about it. The standard just keeps getting better.’
   Patrick Harris, a director of the Medinge Group, added, ‘Medinge’s Brands with a Conscience winners are not peripheral, fad-based organizations. They are thriving, successful, humanity-centric entities. They are market-forming and world-changing. Together, they are a glimpse of the future of brands. Today’s Brands with a Conscience are embracing an era of generational thinking. They perform the ultimate recycling effort, that of discarding the current disposable, short-sighted generation of thought and replacing it with one of longevity and humanity at its core.’
   ‘The continued shift away from “branding-as-persuasion-to-buy” to “branding-as-how-we-improve-the-world”—with authentic, human considerations at the core of the organization—really gathers pace,’ observed Tony Quinlan, a Medinge member. ‘This year’s award winners effectively counter the ridiculousness of the profit-above-all approach which too many organizations take. Congratulations to such a diverse group, working in diverse sectors—all deserving of our praise and gratitude.’

The winners in detail
Aveda
www.aveda.com
An impressive sustainability-committed body and hair care brand. Its mission positions Aveda as a catalyst for awareness and change at all levels. The company gave its original endorsement to the Valdez Principles (later the CERES Principles) in 1989. Individual responsibility is core to Aveda’s culture. The company regards its employees as change agents with the power to change the course of human civilization.

Chocolonely
www.chocolonely.com
Tony Chocolonely produces 100 per cent slave-free chocolate. Most chocolate is harvested under slave conditions (often by children) in west Africa. Dutch journalist Teun van der Keuken set out to make chocolate products that are certified slave-free. As he has shown in his TV programmes, that is not easy. He even went so far as to start a court case against himself (which he lost), as a consumer of slave chocolate, to shame chocolate producers.

Hennes & Mauritz
www.hm.com
Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) has taken a leading position in crucial issues and earned acclaim for it internationally. The company operates in 28 countries and has more than 60,000 employees all working to the same philosophy. Alongside commercial success, this company demonstrates solid principles of entrepreneurship and a strong sustainability credentials, all the more difficult in a business where unnecessary over-consumption, cost-shaving, and issues of ethical production will be the inevitable accusations. H&M has grown into one of the most demanding fashion producers in the world, and today stands as a benchmark of standards for the industry.

Happy Computers
www.happy.co.uk
Happy is a training company, that makes learning about IT an enjoyable and helps companies create great workplaces. Ethics are at the core of the business, with every new employee introduced to this through the company’s Corporate Scruples game at their induction. Happy has sent trainers to Uganda, Nigeria and Cambodia to, pro bono, to support the creation of local sustainable training centres. In London they provide support to a range of local charities, employ a deaf trainer to deliver IT training in British Sign Language and have been carbon-offsetting since 1991 (long before the term was in use).
   Although only employing 50 people, Happy has previously been rated the best company in the UK for customer service (Management Today, 2003), the best small business in terms of positive impact on society (Business in the Community, 2006) and the second-best place to work for (Financial Times, 2007).

International Watch Company
www.iwc.com
Since 1868, a brand of the utmost integrity, dedicated to the manufacture of quality timepieces. A beacon for the watchmaking craft, which offers three- to four-year apprenticeships in the discipline. Creates limited quantities. Number of employees in 1869: 196; number of employees in 2006: 390. Pursues a strong social and ecological policy as part of its CSR initiatives, and in partnership with adventurer and environmentalist David de Rothschild (Adventure Ecology). With structural measures and alternative energies, IWC is cutting its carbon dioxide emissions by at least 50 per cent. Certified as climate-neutral business, at the same time a driving force behind the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, a global organization whose aim is to open up new prospects in life for underprivileged children.

Pret a Manger
www.pret.com
Good food with organic (where possible), non-GM ingredients. Leftovers to homeless. First coffee for free each day—in every shop—to remind of the importance of the customer. Several charities supported, also a foundation, a great working environment to all staff. The company is not too bothered about profits. On its website, it states that someday, it hopes to earn 9 per cent profit, but hasn’t yet.

Dame Anita Roddick
www.anitaroddick.com
Dame Anita Roddick showed admirable leadership not only in the Body Shop but as an advocate for Fair Trade, the environment, corporate social responsibility, free speech and other causes through her personal work. Much of this can be found at anitaroddick.com, which was updated personally until her passing. All of this reflects a personal brand that is consistent and honed, supported by causes, many of which are compatible with the Medinge Group’s own aims. Anita Roddick believed in living her own personal brand as much as for her audiences, including the media, and had few detractors, something which cannot be said for many other high-profile types.

The Colin Morley Award for excellence by an NGO: Star School starschool.brimstone.net/document.asp?levelid=180
Star School works with 40,000 high school students in HIV–Aids-stricken Zululand, South Africa. This schools-based intervention encourages learners to build their future through informed decision-making. The group works within existing structures—in this case, the school system. The NGO is financed by the Swedish entrepreneur Dan Olofsson, endorsed by the South African government. Star Schools are now spreading out on the African continent. The project was launched in 2005, and has since been rolled out to 40 schools in the Umkhanyakude district of Kwa-Zulu Natal.

Images
Images for this release may be downloaded from <http://jya.net/080103pr0.htm>.

2007 BWAC Committee
Thanks to:
Malcolm Allan
Paulina Borsook
Thomas Gad
Sicco van Gelder
Ava Hakim
Patrick Harris
Pierre d’Huy
Nicholas Ind
Tim Kitchin
Johnnie Moore
Stanley Moss (chairman)
Simon Paterson
Tony Quinlan
Anette Rosencreutz
Ian Ryder
Erika Uffindell
Jack Yan
Ton Zijlstra

About the Medinge Group
Founded in 2002, the Medinge Group first published a brand manifesto of eight statements encapsulating a vision of healthy brands for the future. In 2003, the group authored a collection of essays entitled Beyond Branding, which explored the ways in which brands could add value within alternative business and social models. In 2004, the group established the annual Brands with a Conscience list to recognize organizations who epitomize humanistic behaviour; in 2006, Medinge added a special category of recognition named in honour of its late colleague Colin Morley, which acknowledges excellence by an NGO, in keeping with Colin’s humanistic vision. The Medinge Group maintains an online, automated speakers’ and experts’ bureau accessible through its web site, www.medinge.org. In 2007 Medinge launched an online resource, The Journal of the Medinge Group, a digital anthology of papers and articles written by Medinge members.