To date, many advertising agencies have chosen to respond to the widespread disruption by tightening their belts, laying people off, and regressing to the safe harbor of shallow prose, banal imagery, and gimmicky campaigns. On the environmental and social front, certain elements have gone boilerplate. Reference Monsanto’s latest “sustainable agriculture” campaign:

“Producing More. Conserving More. Improving Farmer’s Lives. That’s Sustainable Agriculture. And That’s What Monsanto is All About.”

Evidence suggests that most people aren’t buying Monsanto’s planetary message. After the campaign launched this past June, hundreds of negative articles circulated the web, such as this one from Grist:

“The Monsanto ads are quite simply false. The premise of the ad is more or less that Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) seeds are going to save the world from environmental catastrophe and human hunger. All while the corporation made more than 11 billion dollars in 2008 amidst a world food crisis….The reality of Monsanto’s seeds and the company’s ethics and commitment to fighting world hunger have nothing to do with producing more or conserving more.”

Despite Monsanto’s recent marketing misstep, the interesting news in advertising isn’t the growing trend toward greenwash. Rather, it’s how fervently certain ad agencies are resistinggreenwash – pulling, sometimes pushing, clients in a more meaningful direction.

World-Changing Agencies

The advertising world is undergoing a considerable transformation. About five years ago, many large agencies began investing in environmental, social and cause-related practices areas to capture what they perceived as a growing niche market and to complement their existing core services. Today more agencies (albeit just the smarter ones) recognize that such moves are limiting. What’s really needed is a sophisticated new worldview that incorporates essential social, cultural and environmental intelligence into the core organizational capacity. World-Changing Agencies possess this worldview, and it shows up in most everything they do.

World-Changing Agencies exist for a purpose: to assist clients in reaching positive social and environmental outcomes, thereby helping to create a better future for all. Through groundbreaking creative work, such agencies offer people new ways of seeing the world, and new ways of defining themselves within that world. That’s what the term “World-Changing,” originally coined by Alex Steffen on his environmental website WorldChanging.com, essentially means.

To fully appreciate the world-changing concept as it relates to advertising, please take a moment to view this ad from Saatchi Pakistan (click on the link below). Here, Saatchi uses an eye-opening blend of imagery, music and fact to address the issues of political, social and cultural prejudice:

Saatchi Pakistan True Blue

Rather than allowing Pakistan to be equated with fear and terror, Saatchi tells another story: “the one you don’t see on the evening news.” The end result? The ad encourages us to reconsider our old perspective, appreciate a new culture, identify with our universal selves and want to call our travel agents.  That’s World-Changing.

The reality is that good agencies are a dime a dozen. But great agencies – the kind that transform the way we see, buy and experience things – are few and far between. The World-Changing Agencies described below deserve credit, because what they do each and every day moves the market and improves people’s lives for the better. Their passion and purpose, their goals and strategies, their mediums and messages, encourage each of us to step back and see the bigger picture.

World-Changing Agencies encourage people to think twice before they buy. Through their work, we can redefine ourselves:

Saatchi S

When it comes to creating campaigns that move people, help shift planetary conditions and make companies money at the same time, Saatchi S is the master. “Imagine a billion people changing how they live, changing the things they buy,” the company says. “Imagine being a part of that.” That’s Saatchi S’s goal, and the company is well on its way toward reaching it. Though an unmatched blend of sustainable insights, spot-on brand strategy, thought-provoking creative (check out the new Prius campaign from Saatchi LA), and global reach, Saatchi S takes its clients to a leaner, cleaner, “bluer” future.

Some people have balked at the company’s decision to work with mega-corporations Wal-Mart, General Mills, Proctor & Gamble and Frito Lay, but Saatchi regards these clients as an important asset. “We work with some of the most influential companies in the world  a because we care about scale,” says Saatchi S CEO Adam Werbach. “Only through their success will we reach our north star goal of supporting one billion people in creating and maintaining their personal sustainability practices.” Werbach, who is indisputably one of the sharpest minds in the sustainability field (see his latest book), carefully placed Saatchi S at the epicenter of a budding trend. “The future is coming fast now,” he says. “The recession has caused every business to open up its business plan – and sustainability is showing up in every one.” Going forward, Werbach predicts that all of Saatchi, not just the ‘S’ division will “go blue.” He and and his worldwide team are working on making this a reality, through a new initiative called True Blue. Further announcements are expected later this year.

Cone

Cone’s original “cause branding” approach has spawned an industry of imitators, but agency founder and chairman Carol Cone welcomes the competition: “Imitation is the highest form of flattery,” she says. For over twenty years Cone has engineered public-private alliances that serve worthy causes, from Avon’s Breast Cancer Crusade to Reebok’s Human Rights Awards, The American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women Movement, PNC Grow Up Great and Western Union Our World, Our Family. While Cone’s signature cause branding programs have raised more than $1.2 billion for worthy crusades, each and every relationship has been built on a foundation that Cone describes as: “Better Business: Greater Good.”

“We never want any of our clients to be the cause du jour,” says Cone. “It’s crucial that everything we do is authentic and sustainable – that we make a real and measurable difference in people’s lives, the social issue and our efforts have a positive impact on the business and the brand.” Blending social justice with business opportunity and personal passion comes naturally to Cone, which is exactly how she got her business of the ground in the 1980’s. “It all started with Rockport. We tried to do traditional marketing, using the usual mediums and messages, but it just didn’t work,” says Cone. “Then we realized the essence of this company’s shoes  –  they were great for walking. So we linked them to walking for health and fitness in authentic and novel ways. They grew from $20 million to $150 on that positioning. And America embraced a new fitness regime.  Sometimes the solutions are right there in front of you, but you have to look through a certain lens to see them.” At present Cone publishes original research and offers a full suite of strategic services including cause branding, corporate responsibility, brand marketing and crisis management to clients including Timberland, Ben & Jerry’s, Starbucks and eBay.

Global Change Network

“Global change is a tall order,” the agency acknowledges. “But our clients are doing just that by addressing poverty, creating energy out of garbage, and empowering women.” Comprised of some of the most passionate and  politically astute communications experts in business, the Global Change Network (GCN) works with organizations and corporations for whom social and environmental issues are core to their identities. Recently GCN has waged such world-changing efforts as encouraging G8 leaders to invest in extreme poverty; promoting recycling by branding waste as a valuable renewable resource; raising awareness of HIV/AIDS as a preventable and treatable disease; and repositioning reproductive rights as a fundamental human right.

“Our mission is to help our clients make positive change – for their companies, communities, and the environment,” says Global Change Network Principal Arlene Fairfield. “We do that by telling stories that combine human insight and creativity with astute policy and political acumen.” What separates GCN from the pack is the team’s unparalleled depth and breadth of expertise – over two decades of experience assembling groundbreaking campaigns for clients including The ONE Campaign, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and Energy Star.  “It’s our understanding of brand value and audience motivation that makes us different,” says Fairfield. “By combining consumer insight and creativity with astute policy and political acumen, we’ve been able to move the needle on some of the most important issues of the day.”

Emotive Brand

This San Francisco start-up was recently founded on a revelation. “Branding efforts that ignore trust and reputation are waste of money,” says company co-founder Tracy Lloyd. “That’s why we’ve pulled together an award-winning team of designers, strategists, and experts on everything from sustainability to social media to help companies build foundations that people can rely on.” Lloyd draws an important distinction between brand and reputation. “Think about it this way, branding is what you tell people to feel about you,” she says. “Reputation is what people actually feel about you.” Emotive Brand’s services, which include a cathartic strategic process called “Reputation Lab” as well as social media, interactive, advertising and corporate communications services, are offered up to clients including UPS, TED, VMware.

“In order to help clients shift their reputations, you need to stop the PR spin cycle and start to advocate behaving in the right ways,” says Lloyd. “Our goal is to help clients face the truth about themselves and then focus strategic and creative efforts on the areas most in need of attention.” Want to put a band aid on that environmental catastrophe and walk away? Then perhaps Emotive is not for you. “If clients are willing to openly work through the rough spots, then stakeholders will most likely be supportive. Proactively engaging people in the right way is a huge strategic advantage,” says Lloyd. “The bottom line is that we’ve got our client’s backs, whether or not they face challenges in the reputation arena.”

Frog Design

“We are fanatical about improving the world,” says Frog Design. “We choreograph cultural change through design. We strive to change minds, touch hearts and move markets.” As one of the world’s leading global innovation firms, Frog Design’s “humanizing solutions” emerge from a globally diverse team of more than 400 designers, technologists, strategists, and analysts from around the world. The company’s multidisciplinary process –  which over the years has grown to include research,  industrial design, digital media design, and brand strategy –  reaches such clients as Disney, GE, HP, Logitech, Microsoft, MTV, Seagate, Yahoo! and others.

“Improving the world is the key motivation for every creative person and should be the main mission of every business,” says Tim Leberecht, vice president of marketing and communications at Frog Design. According to  Leberecht,  “green thinking” is now central to every design project at Frog, and something the firm’s designers think about on a daily basis. “For us, innovation means imagining the ideal and making it real. We consider it to be our responsibility to see ideas through, from insight to market. We’re seeking to find design-driven, unorthodox, and holistic solutions to key challenges of our time – from sustainable mobility to rich communications to human-centric health care.” Recently, Frog teamed up with Intel in order to rethink the future of the traditional cash register. The result? A 70 percent reduction in energy use with just a few repurposed chips. That’s good thinking.

GreenOrder

Stonyfield Farm’s Gary Hirshberg calls them “remarkable, knowledgeable and dedicated.” Office Depot’s Yalmaz Siddiqui considers them “true partners.” GreenOrder offers business strategy, environmental science and policy, and marketing and design services to clients including GE, GM, BP, DuPont, Ralph Lauren and Hines. As with Saatchi S, the general viewpoint is that mega-corporations are our friends, and that such companies should profit from their sustainable endeavors. “GreenOrder helps companies build a culture of environmental innovation that creates long-term competitive advantage and business value,” says GreenOrder associate Ted Grozier. “We don’t believe in going green for green’s sake, nor do we believe companies should limit green initiatives to one-offs like carbon footprinting or marketing, for to do so misses key opportunities to capture value.”

GreenOrder doesn’t really consider itself an “agency,” per se. “We’re more of a management consulting firm,” says Grozier. “First and foremost, we are strategists.” Apparently, the company’s marketing-related services are viewed as more of a side dish. What GreenOrder is most proud of is the broader impact that its strategic offerings have had on the marketplace as a whole. “A decade ago when GreenOrder was founded, sustainability was not part of the corporate discourse,” says Grozier. “Through the efforts of our team and other experts in our growing field, sustainability has now become a path to business value – and a key part of a larger cultural conversation.”

DiMassimo Goldstein

According to the New York Times, the recent ads spun out of DiMassimo Goldstein (DIGO) might be doing to the bottled water industry what antismoking ads did to the tobacco industry back in the 1990’s – causing major headaches. In case you’ve missed the unfolding “Tappening” campaign, the interactive and print ads are designed to encourage consumers to drink tap water whenever possible. They are deliberately outlandish, poking fun at the bottled water industry’s environmentally wasteful and often misleading nature. One poster claims: “Bottled Water Causes Blindness in Puppies.” Another reads: “Bottled Water: 98% Melted Ice Caps. 2% Polar Bear Tears.” All the ads are supported by an informative website,Tappening.com, where people can learn about the hazards of bottled water and what they can potentially do about them.

“We’ve spent these two years using our marketing and public relations abilities to un-sell bottled-water hype,” agency head Mark DiMassimo recently told Brandweek. “But I still see cascading waterfalls on labels that do not list the source of that water.” The agency is on a mission to help reverse the tides, and is using its arsenal of social media, web and advertising tools to do just that. In addition to promoting unbottled water, DIGO also helps organizations like Memorial-Sloan Kettering and ThinkorSwim to reach people with messages that resonate at the deepest levels.

Little Big Brands

In the world that is social and environmental marketing, Little Big Brands has the secret sauce: temperance. “Our work is insightful, inspired, never frivolous,” the company says. This non-frivolous attitude translates marvelously on the company’s blog, which simply reads: “If we have time to blog, then you shouldn’t hire us.” Evidently, LBB (which is what their friends call them) has been busy at work, drumming up eco-friendly packaging and clever advertising for clients including Born Free eggs, Yardley Natural soaps and Vitamin Water.

“It’s really exciting for us when we have the opportunity to work on a project where we can be a true partner, adding value every step of the way,” says Pamela Long, Director of Client Services. One recent LBB project entailed a facelift for Pennsylvania-based brewery, Lionshead. “They asked for a step up in quality, but a step down in cost,” says Long. “We went a step further by bringing substantial environmental savings to the table.” What stands out through most of LBB’s design and advertising solutions, including the Lionshead work, is that less can often be more. While the new Lionshead packaging uses 40 percent less material, it sends a motivating message to consumers about the importance of environmental conservation and recycling. “It would be pompous to suggest that we’re out there doing something that other agencies can’t or don’t,” says Long. “What I would say is we really care about what we do and what our clients do. We may be a little design firm, but we work for some of the largest companies in the world, and by helping them use resources as responsibly as possible, we can really make a positive difference.”

Reference Mark and Nick, two emerging Generation Y change agents who started a London grassroots effort called Project Dirt. Project dirt is an interactive “ecommunity” that serves as a catalyst for Londoners wanting to volunteer in local neighborhood projects, but not knowing where to start. As part of Timberland’s ongoing campaign, the “Earthkeeper Hero” series, the company recently provided Mark and Nick with a forum to show the world that there’s plenty to be optimistic about in the environmental change arena:

Project Dirt – Green Reasons to Be Happy

According to Timberland, Mark and Nick are just one small piece of a widespread recruiting effort. The company is currently “calling all people who do small things for the environment, like recycling, biking instead of driving and using energy-efficient light bulbs.”  Through an international campaign called “Earthkeepers” – which is cleverly targeted towards environmentalists, consumers (Timberland has 30 million of them), employees, suppliers and even competing businesses around the world – the company intends to recruit over one million people through the ‘revolution’, as Timberland CEO Jeff Swartz calls it, of social networking, including Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, as well a strategic partnership with Changents.com and a website, www.earthkeeper.com.

The point of the Earthkeepers campaign is to inspire passionate stakeholders to become their own agents of change in their communities, using Timberland as the primary mechanism. That places Timberland in a unique position, one where the participating community relies on the company’s unique values and strengths, and where the company depends on social networking tools more than ever before.

“At the heart of the Earthkeepers campaign is the idea of becoming a sustainable brand and creating collaborative and value-creating relationships,” Swartz told stakeholders on a Tuesday conference call, facilitated through the JustMeans.com online network. “Earthkeeping demands networking on a level we have never imagined before. If we’re going to transform Timberland from a company that does green to a company that is sustainable, we need to assemble a wider network of citizens, consumers, suppliers, partners, NGOs, even other businesses. We don’t see how any one business, no matter how principled or passionate, can become an Earthkeeping business and brand on its own.”

Swartz defines “Earthkeeping” businesses as those that care about their impact on the environment, and that openly and honestly communicate their efforts in order to better manage that impact. These business, he says, are becoming forces for change in the new social media world order. Through its Earthkeepers campaign, Timberland hopes to not only to interact with a new generation of accomplished environmental heroes, but to also encourage other businesses to become more open, candid and engaged with stakeholders – particularly when it comes to environmental issues. However, Swartz acknowledges that this latter goal is perhaps an overshot.

“I think there are too many CEOs that aren’t going to get this,” says Swartz. “I don’t mean that disrespectfully. It’s just that this conversation of ‘should we or shouldn’t we be transparent?’ is a moot point because in today’s social media climate, every success is getting shared as quickly as every failure. We can pretend like we have a choice about transparency, or we can recognize the fact that almost everything that is being done is being exposed.”

With respect to what Timberland itself has to expose, the company has made significant progress of late. As of 2009, nearly eighty percent of the company’s footwear styles feature recycled content. The Earthkeepers™ product line, which debuted in 2008, contains fully organic and renewable material content, as well as solvent-free adhesives and is designed for reduced climate impact. In the crowded world of consumer retail, Timberland is one of the few businesses that sticks to the guiding principle that what you sell is every bit as important as what you say. After all, how many other pairs of shoes come in a box with a ‘nutritional type label’ about their construction?

Jeff Swartz is a visionary yet grounded CEO leading a family business that has grown into a highly successful global brand since its inception the 1950’s. His pragmatism, accessibility and personal openness are obvious to most who meet him. These traits were evident during last week’s stakeholder call, as well as during the social media interactions facilitated through Timberland’s Earthkeeper campaigns. In both cases, the dialog is kept authentic. Swartz and his team tend to speak off script. If they don’t know the answer to a question, they will say. If they miss something, they will apologize. There’s no rhetoric, no spin. This straightforward attitude melds into corporate philosophy – encouraging the business to face its challenges head-on. You can see this reflected across many of the company’s current initiatives.

For instance, Timberland’s response to the recent Greenpeace campaign to protect the Amazon from deforestation caused by cattle farming (i.e. the leather industry) wasn’t to deny culpability or ignore the problem and walk away. On the contrary, following in Nike’s footsteps in mitigating a potential media disaster, Swartz decided to admit that he didn’t fully appreciate the extent to which Timberland was having a material impact on the Amazon through its supply chain, as suitable ‘traceabilty’ mechanisms in the leather industry were not in place yet. Currently the company is working in collaboration with Greenpeace to settle this issue, and to help improve industry standards. Timberland’s willingness to work in conjunction with Greenpeace demonstrates how candor can help to diffuse difficult situations, and establish leadership positions for the companies involved.

Dozens of similar examples abound. Swartz is presently working on a quest to rid the company of bottled water, and despite backlash from the all-mighty bottled water industry, he presses on. He is also having the roof of Timberland headquarters painted white instead of black, cutting energy costs by an estimated 20 percent. And through Timberland’s Path of Service program, the company is offering its employees paid time off to volunteer on environmental projects across the country.

“These are concrete things that we’re working on, but we can’t simply cobble them together,” says Swartz. “We’ve got to make them a vibrant and integrated network of engaged consumers and stakeholders. We’ve got to get to this goal of becoming a sustainable for-profit business.”

Call us crazy, but it seems like Timberland might be further along than Swartz himself acknowledges.

This article was co-authored with David Connor, a corporate responsibility and sustainability consultant based in Liverpool. E-mail David at david.connor@coethica.com

Bottled water activists point to plastic waste, energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, the environmental effects of water extraction, water privatization issues and a range of social problemsgenerated by the industry. Could such “road blocks” deter long-term growth for corporate bottled water empires? Nestlé thinks not.

According to a 2009 document entitled “The Future of Bottled Water” authored by Nestlé CEO Kim Jeffery, the company’s broad portfolio of bottled water products, including Poland Spring, Perrier, Arrowhead, Deer Park and Zephyrhills, are well-positioned to recover from the present economic slump. “Bottled water is perfect as it is,” the company says. “[There are] limited opportunities to innovate.”

This company is clearly not of a world-changing mindset. Nestlé takes the position that the bottled water industry is unfairly portrayed as a “villain” by environmental activists and an angry public, and that “environmental facts do not support this.” Really, Nestlé?

In a press release and video web site launched last week, Nestlé attempted to express to the public the environmental virtues of bottled water. “Bottled water is actually the most efficient choice of any packaged beverage available to consumers,” the company insists. “Bottled water is a very small user of our water resources…Plastic represents less than one percent of solid waste. While water bottles can be recycled, not all Americans have access to curbside recycling…To sum it all up, bottled water is a healthful choice, can cost less than 20 cents per bottle, and has a lighter environmental impact.”

Of course, not everyone sees things through the corporation’s rose colored lens. Take the 5,400 local citizens of Salida, Colorado who recently banded together in order to fight Nestlé off and protect its local water resources and land. Or what about the residents of McCould, California, who claim their town was torn apart by Nestlé’s operations in the area? Nestlé makes no mention of such stakeholder concerns in its press release or video web site, both which set forth to “set the record straight.”

Nestlé has a public relations problem. The problem isn’t just that Americans around the country are hanging signs in their windows and entryways reading: “Stop Nestlé” or “Nest-Leave.” Nestle’s public relations problem is its sterile, detached response. The company seems to be under the impression that people will read its communications in an isolation chamber, devoid of context, clue, cultural condition, and (yes, Nestlé) fact.

Let’s start with the hard data. According to Food and Water Watch, bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year. That plastic requires up to 47 million gallons of oil annually to produce. And while the plastic used to bottle beverages is of high quality and is demand by recyclers, over 80 percent of plastic bottles end up in land fills. That’s why the Pacific Rim Garbage Patch, the floating vortex of waste that’s twice the size of Texas, is comprised mainly of plastic. It’s also why so many sea creatures die every day from ingesting plastic, and why plastic waste has become one of the chief concerns of our Nation’s top environmental groups.

On the cost side of things, consumers pay a huge markup on a product even though as much as 40 percent of it comes from a tap in the first place. Stakeholder communities also pay. Food and Water Watch says Nestléhas an unfortunate reputation for moving into communities, taking water for next to nothing, selling it for a hefty profit, then leaving the locals to deal with the residual environmental and social externalities, and moving on. “Next!”

None of these issues are substantively addressed in Nestlé’s press release or on its video website. Through bullet points, select interviews and clip art snippets, the company only superficially confronts the environmental impacts of bottled water. Nestlé avoids all controversial content, including details related to ongoing rifts with local communities around the country. The company’s corporate tone of voice, detached message and superficial approach to “issues outreach” demonstrates an indifference to the wider public’s ardent support for environmental reform and social justice. The pitch is all wrong.

Nestlé broke every cardinal rule in social media, stakeholder engagement and transparency with it’s one-sided, “set the record straight” public relations effort. There is no meaningful opportunity to interact with the company, no way to leave a comment. My bet is, the only folks convinced by Nestle’s “bottled water is good” message will be those who manufactured it.