Team Peaceful

Nicole  00:02

Hey, Hey guys, welcome. Welcome to our season finale of marketing for what matters. Season One. Woohoo. So it was, believe it or not, 14 episodes ago, we set out to ask the question, what does it take to market in a way that truly matters? And now here we are at the end of season one, and as we’re wrapping up this season, we want to take a moment to pause and reflect on any insights, challenges, progress that we’ve learned and uncovered, and also look to the future to talk about some fun stuff we have cooking up for season two. So I think we should just get right into it. I will kick it off to one of our fabulous hosts to touch on some insights that resonated with you guys this season. Let’s do it.

Bo Peter  00:55

I’m excited to hear from Fran

Fran  00:59

Okay, well, I guess that’s a call out, so I can go ahead and and go ahead. So, yeah, we’ve definitely, you know, in these conversations, as they’ve come in, they’ve all been unique. They’ve all had unique insights, but we’ve identified some common themes that have held true across all of our guests in the sustainability space. And one of those I wanted to touch on has come up in a few conversations, but particularly with my conversation, in my conversation with Lauren Truslow, who is the CEO of an environmental remediation group and the small women owned business in stem so you can imagine her being having a complete female leadership team is pretty anomalous. And so out of that conversation, you know, we were really talking about the importance of diversity and leadership and and when you know different people are able to be the decision makers and the actors, how new insights can come up, or how, you know, new realizations can happen. And so, you know, she was sharing how, because she’s a woman and because she’s a mother, when she’s thinking about the climate and the environment she wants to make for her employees, she’s really thinking about a holistic perspective of wellness, like, are they having time to spend with their family? Are they able to take time off of work if they need to care for a relative. Are they, you know, feeling fulfilled? Are they feeling like they can go home and have energy to be present in their life? And, you know, whereas I feel like often when we’re thinking about the environment we want to create for employees, it’s around, you know, like efficiency or process and these things that are obviously really important to have a functional business. But I really appreciated how she said, No, the first thing I think about is my employee wellness and my employee well being, and then I go into process. And once, once I know my employees are in a good place, are ready to work, have their needs met, that’s when we can really, you know, get into efficiency, and that’s when we can she’s saying, you know, have even better outcomes, a better employee retention, because the employees feel as if their holistic being is being considered. Um, and so, you know, that was my, my main insight from that conversation. I think what I find is that you know more understanding policies on family leave and medical and pregnancy and child care. You know, if we think about who you know, basically like unpaid work that women have done for centuries in this country, all over the world, these are all like similar like, childcare is like a huge issue, and balancing how to raise kids and work is two full time jobs. I mean, it’s two full time jobs. So that piece, I think it gives you compassion for your employees in a different way. And not that men don’t experience that, because I definitely think they do right, like they do. And being a dad like, you know, gives you compassion, for sure. But I think overall, the women that I see like, there is a visceral response to it. That’s like, I get this. This is important. We need to value this and just much more of an emotional understanding of a whole person, that it’s not just you’re clocking in at work and here, you’re my employee, and this is your these are your roles that you need to complete and check off, but like a more well rounded approach to being a human and taking care of people, is what I would say for the workforce. And I think that’s, you know, the trend I see when I see women CEOs. So it’s, it’s like your employees are whole people. And. Emotionally connecting with them, and it made me, it made me think about a real life experience I had as a consumer at this music festival. So it’s called Floyd fest, and it’s this really famous music festival in Virginia, and the people who run it are are like, I think it’s like a family owned business. But they say, you know, in their marketing, they say, this is a festival for family. This is a festival for Nursing Mothers. This is a festival where women and children and families can come and be safe and held and have all of their needs met. And so, you know, I’m not a mother, and I’m not a I don’t have a family, but I went to this festival and as a consumer, as someone, even though I don’t hold those identities, I experienced so many incredible benefits as a consumer by having that lens where the bathrooms were so clean, there was never long lines. They made sure they were accessible. They had a really central water location that had clean, fresh water, that had multiple spots that everyone could go to, um, the environment just felt safer. You know what I mean? I mean people were partying, people are having fun. It’s a music festival. But also, there’s kids running around. There’s people who are, you know, caring for their family. And even though you would think as like a young person or someone who’s trying to have fun and hang out, that you wouldn’t necessarily want that environment. But I environment. But it actually made everybody feel safer. It made everybody feel like, like it was a, you know, like their needs were met, too. And it just reminds me of, I can’t remember the quote. I’ll have to reference it after, but it came up in a conversation with Lauren too, where, when you center the needs of women and children in society. All of our needs are then met. And I think that’s just such a profound perspective. Because, you know, often we we sort of isolate that or like, you know, we don’t have children. If we don’t identify as a mother, identify as a woman, then none of that’s relevant to us. But you know, we were all children once we all came from mothers. So, you know, it makes sense that we would still be receiving benefits from having that lens. So, yeah, I just, I thought that was, you know, such a like, an amazing and evocative representation of how when we have leadership that has a different perspective, it creates these amazing benefits for all of us that we wouldn’t even necessarily have we wouldn’t have thought of or even thought to center before, and so, yeah, I don’t know if now would be a time for me to discuss how I’m bringing that forward, or what that insight has made Me want to bring to the future of this podcast, or if we should save that for later.

Jason Miller  07:45

Yeah, let’s save that for the how we’re applying this in our personal and professional lives section. And since I’m already chatting, do you mind if I share my insight? Yeah, please. Yes. Okay, so I felt like there’s a theme, and I’m really excited by this theme. It was one of the biggest sort of ahas as we dove into this, you know, sustainability, regenerative thinking journey, which is that this space is highly collaborative, and that goes from a small business like ours all the way to Fortune 100 and those, the scale of that obviously, is very different, and they have different terms for it. But everywhere I went in this space, whether it was a speaking event, a networking event, or even the podcast episodes, there’s just a deeper sense of collaboration than I’ve ever felt in industry which is normally rife with competitive seeking advantages over others. This is like a wide open door landscape for people to people and brands to come together to find solutions that work for all. And this was demonstrated on the fortune 100 level with Nike’s former CSO Chief Sustainability Officer, Noel kinder, who coined the phrase for me I’d never heard of this pre competitive collaboration, which is to say that they’ve got problems that are way bigger than just Nike, right or Nike’s manufacturing. They’ve got problems that are systemic to an entire region, sometimes countries, but also entire regions where their manufacturing is. And so they use this, which probably comes right out of an MBA handbook or something pre competitive collaboration, which is, which is really just a long winded way of saying they go to brands that they would normally compete with for consumers dollars, and say, Let’s collectively read it, innovate on. We’re manufacturing our goods, and let’s sort of like use our collective bargaining power, if you will, to force, you know, manufacturing to consider these things that are important to our company as well as our consumers. And so that was really neat to hear that a Nike is willing to go to a Puma or even a non competitor like Apple, and say, like, how can we link arms on this and and get the change we want to see, to see more renewable energy is to see more recycling and reuse of materials. This came up in your episode Fran with Brianna. I sorry, I don’t remember how to say her last name, but it was sustainable sales strategies, sustainable product sales strategies. And she was just, she again, encouraged that sort of collaborative thinking and working with a little less competitively. Her exact quote was, think more collaborative, collaboratively and a little less competitively. It’s

Brianna  11:02

a complex problem. These are complex issues, and everybody wants a silver bullet or a simple solution to complex issues. I’m telling you, it’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen. We need everyone firing on all cylinders for every solution they want to approach all at the same time. And your solution and your problem that you’re trying to approach is no bigger or better or different or deserves more than somebody else’s like, we need to think more collaboratively about this and a little less competitively about this, right? So like, open it up in whatever you’re doing. So like, say your piece, but then also, like, pause, listen and ask for like, what other people are doing, because it will make you better at what you do. Again, I

Jason Miller  11:39

think that’s illuminates just a very different mindset when it comes to this space. Because sales, you think about product sales and B to B sales, it’s like, extremely, I would say, like, masculine kind of a drive, like, let’s, let’s beat our competition, and let’s beat those records and, you know, all, all the sort of tropes of masculine business practices. And I just even in that sort of hyper aggressive, ambitious space of sales, B to B sales, there’s still this, like, how do we link arms? And this is, this is was also demonstrated really clearly by the entire raison d’etre of Norse Skin Foundation, though your interview with Eric Granholm, where the entire foundation is about creating a circle of brands and companies and entrepreneurs who are out to tackle some of the world’s biggest sustainability problems, and they give platform to each of these and resources to each of these entrepreneurs so that they can achieve success in business, while also keeping their mission of healing the planet, You know, sort of front and center

Erik Granholm  13:01

the mission of of no when is to Yeah, to build thriving impact ecosystems where where global challenges are solved by entrepreneurs at scale, and then making the Yeah, the entrepreneurs and founders have A positive impact on planet and society and people, where the impact unicorn would be by the 1 billion people impacted positively metric in that sense. So

Jason Miller  13:30

I just throughout our interviews, I could name off every single episode where there was some sort of, there was a mention and sort of a leaning into a collaborative, collaborative mindset. Bob Quinn, for instance, my regenerative farming guest, same thing, just a huge, huge community mindset where we’re all in this together. So let’s, let’s, let’s work on the things together and just be as authentic and transparent and non competitive as possible. So there’s my insight…

Fran  14:09

That reminds me, because I feel like we’ve talked a lot about, like, how to motivate people and how to send messaging in a way that’s encouraging and doesn’t feel shameful or doesn’t feel paternalistic. And I feel like that’s kind of a, you know, a way for some positive virtue signaling to be happening, because, like, you know, maybe Nike approaches Puma and says, Hey, you know, there’s this regenerative material that we have, and we can get a lower cost on her. I don’t know, you know, a specific example. And Puma maybe wasn’t even thinking about that, but they’re like, Oh, well, I want to be in the club too. You know, I want to, I want to catch up and be part of this collaboration and and rather than it feeling like something that’s like shame or like you’re saying competition, I feel like that mindset just brings people in, in a way, it is a way that we can communicate the messaging that you know, actually. Makes people want to participate, or makes people excited, or makes people feel like you’re creating something new, you know, as opposed to just saying this is why you’re wrong, or like we have this secret thing that we’re doing that you guys are too ignorant to know about, or something,

Jason Miller  15:14

yes, yes, which I guess connects to what you were saying too, from your conversation with Lauren is like we’re bringing in this sort of feminine energy into business. And it’s a, it’s a, it’s much more prevalent in this space than any other space I’ve participated within. So I think and see it, feel it, go ahead, Nicole,

Nicole  15:36

I am too. I think it’s so funny how all of our insights kind of tie together. Because I think what you mentioned, what you spoke to Jason about, it really is critical. In such a competitive space like marketing, there has to be this removal of competition in order for everyone to work together and come towards this common goal. Like we can’t do it. Companies can’t do it on their own. We can’t do it on their own. We don’t know what we don’t know, and having that collaboration and being able to inspire one another and work together is really the only way that we’re actually going to make any real, sustainable, visible progress. And so being able to kind of wipe down those pillars, or rethink the rethink the way that we go about marketing is is huge, and it’s really cool to see that that’s happening with these giant, giant companies that are hyper focused on numbers and measurable growth and all of that kind of thing. And shareholders. You know that answer to somebody? Yeah, totally. So would you glean?

Bo Peter  16:44

Yeah, I mean, I really am enjoying this conversation also about how corporations play such a huge role in making driving sustainability. And I really am fascinated by these insights about this pre competitive collaboration coming together and finding a way to make sustainability happen in a different way, or at least in a way that works for these companies. And I discussed with by my guest, Gabriel Gordon Harper, about where these motivations for corporations, especially American corporations, comes from. And of course, there’s an aspect of regulatory compliance. A lot of people believe that that’s what’s going to drive a lot of the change that we need. But we also talked, more importantly, about, sure, there’s some intrinsic corporate values around wanting to be more sustainable, but we need to. We all want to see brands walk the talk when it comes to that. We want to see that authenticity, and that’s what really builds trust. And a lot of these corporations, from what we can tell, really want to build that trust, not only with their consumers who they need to sell to, but also with their employees, where we’re seeing companies like Google and a lot of other companies that use data centers are really finding great benefits signaling to their employees and their reputation at large to really engage with this sustainable aspect, because they need to do this to stay authentic to what they’re espousing.

Gabriel Gordon Harper  18:16

One of the main drivers, one of the main motivators for for corporate for large companies to procure renewable energy, especially the data center companies, the big tech companies, is actually employee recruitment. And the reason and retention, and the reason for that is because you have these companies that are making a lot of money, right? You have these highly specialized fields that they need employees to fill. But the tech the talent is highly mobile, so they need to find ways beyond just high pay to recruit and retain this talent who can walk away with the knowledge, the intellectual property of what they’ve built for the first company, right? And especially millennials and Gen Z in large part of its Bucha programmers are very motivated by and survey after survey, very motivated by working for companies where they feel like they’re making a difference. It’s certainly why I’m in the field I’m in, and most of my colleagues are, but also a lot of my friends who have nothing to do with sustainability tools similar, and I know that the surveys said the same thing. So to be able to tell their employees and the world we are a 100% sustainably powered company is a very important factor for these companies in terms of retention and recruitment.

Bo Peter  19:37

And it really ties back to a theme that I think we’ve heard a lot across a lot of our guests, is authenticity and building trust again, and how that is really the foundation of being able to tell a meaningful story. Fran, again, going back to Lauren, all of that, what you shared is that by taking care of the employees, by taking care of the team. They are really able to tell a great story to the wider world about how they are leading with integrity and really caring about not only the people that they work with, but also the environment. And I really just love that we’ve also heard from guests like Bob Quinn about how he showed up as a resource for his customers, and that really just builds long term trust, that makes people want to keep coming back and come back and come back and yeah, this has been my big question for this entire season. Is like, how do we drive consumers to action with positive narratives and not the doom and gloom that we constantly hear about? And from what I understand, it’s not about trying to create that perfect image of doing it all right, but it’s about emphasizing the transparency. We’re here. We want to be here, but Come with us on this journey. We’re really doing our best, and even if our goals aren’t met yet, which is something that Kelsey from Episode Five mentioned, it’s about just moving forward and continuing to work on it, and that authenticity also avoids backlash from greenwashing claims, and it aligns with what customers want in terms of trust, trustworthiness. So it really comes full circle. Walk the Talk, talk the walk, and just be authentic and be honest about it all. Yeah. Bo, that

Nicole  21:19

was one of the insights that came up a lot with Kelsey in Episode Five. I think also Noel and Hannah spoke on this a lot too. But the idea of like, how important it is to avoid greenwashing and embracing that authentic action, I would be so much more impressed with a brand that was honest and upfront and transparent and was like, here’s the reasons why we didn’t, and here’s how we’re gonna fix it, and here fix it, and here’s what we learned, and here’s what other brands should do. Is way, way, way cooler to the folks who are interested because in sustainability and and if those are your main the people that are going to buy from you, you have to create that level of transparency. And I felt so much as a consumer, you know, like greenwashing really is everywhere. It’s so prevalent, and there’s so many companies that are over hyping their eco friendly efforts or making all these broad claims without substance. And I really appreciated when Kelsey spoke to how greenwashing doesn’t just damage the trust, and, you know, of the consumer or of the company, but it really diminishes the entire credibility of the movement as a whole, and it undermines, like, our entire progress towards sustainability. And I thought about that so much as, like, as a consumer, who, you know, I’m still learning to, I’m trying to make conscious choices. And as somebody even like going to the grocery store and stuff when you go there and you’re just overwhelmed by the sheer amount of marketing jargon. And like all these marketing terms, sound great, but the meanings are often super murky. And one thing I really appreciated about kelsey’s episode, and like you mentioned, Bo talking about speaking to be honest about imperfections or shortcomings or areas where maybe you’re falling short challenges that you didn’t foresee, but then came up at a later date, I think, as a consumer and as a person that resonates so much more with me of you know, people understanding and speaking to like we’re all we’re all learning here, and no company has it figured out, and pretending otherwise is what’s going to breed skepticism and lead to distrust, but companies actually coming forward, and even if they’re making the tiniest, most incremental progress forward, that’s still progress. And I think a lot of you know the every man like me who’s at the store or just going around trying to do my best, that’s what’s really going to help build a connection with a company and help really so long lasting trust.

Fran  23:44

Yeah, and I feel like that, to me, is such a paradigm shift in marketing that I really initially noticed on social media, which is, of course, a facet of marketing, but, you know, it used to be so hyper curated and like, we have to present a perfect image, you know, it has to be like, we have to be authorities. We have to, you know, be articulate and and no room for air, no room for the ugly, you know, bruises and scratches under the surface and, and that, of course, is like about control, right? And in a way that’s probably easier for businesses to be hyper controlled, to try to be hyper, curating this image. And so I think it’s a really interesting change that has happened, and to see how companies have to deal with that now, where it’s like the opposite. You know, it’s almost a cessation of control. It’s saying we are going to show you the underbelly. We are going to show you our failures, and we’re going to be authentic, and in authenticity, I do think you have to to be truly authentic. You have to let go of an aspect of control and say, I’m just going to be here and I’m going to be honest and and hopefully that will be met well by society. But I can’t really to be true. I can’t really decide what I want to say, right? Um. Um, and, yeah, it’s just like, it’s so it’s such an interesting way I feel like, you know, and also, we’ve seen that in social media too. So much of how people are over, you know, influencers coming on and looking perfect and having a perfect life and speaking perfectly and having a perfect background, you know, they’re like, this is boring. What’s actually happening? What are real people doing, right? And I think that’s actually probably really good for companies to often sit on this ivory Hill who have to say, I have to learn how to speak to the consumer. I have to actually learn how to get inside their minds. And even if that’s initially for you know, a business purpose, I do feel like that is a way to build empathy and build, you know, this true understanding that then will ripple into the actions that the business takes. Yeah, I do think

Jason Miller  25:47

I was understanding consumer but empathy just as well. You know, like being human as a brand and being relatable to humans as a brand, I think is what you’re getting at too. Yeah,

Nicole  26:00

and I think, I think people are really, really yearning for that more than ever. And so many, you know me and so many people in my community like we don’t need perfection, we don’t want perfection. That’s not what we’re looking for, but we do expect honesty, and I think that humility and authenticity really is going to cut through, and it helps people understand what they can believe and seeing something that’s genuine, even if it’s not, you know, the prettiest, most perfect thing you’ve ever seen that’s like to both point, that’s what’s going to walk the talk, and that’s what’s going to that’s what’s going to really, actually make an impact on people and resonate for sure,

Jason Miller  26:41

yeah, I’ll speak real quickly to some of the most poignant moments in this journey of recording last 14 episodes, like the insights aside just human to human interactions with these guests at the beginning my episode, my first Episode with Tristan and Corey from wakeful state on filmmaking for for making a change. I was nervous of all hell, like, because, like, this is really daunting. I don’t know how to do this. You know, we’re new to the podcast, podcasting and sort of content production for ourselves. And I just, I went into that conversation just like, Hey guys, let’s, can we, like, do a little like holding hands and set an intention for this episode? Because I’m feeling super nervous. And they had this, you know, they were revealed what they were feeling inside. And it was just like, such an opportunity, such a breath of fresh air, where we weren’t Posturing as if we’re like badasses at podcasting and, oh, I’ve done this 1000 times. It’s like, I feel like a tall door here, and I’m glad that you feel some semblance of dorkiness here too, because this is new, and we’re on our green growing edges right now, and let’s move forward. Same thing with I think it was my second episode with Hannah Ewing, the partnerships director from one tree planted. And I was like, I had just done some Doom scrolling on LinkedIn for an hour, and just like, oh my god, the world is falling apart. And you know, there will be no rainforest laugh by the time my kids are in high school, it’s like, and I just brought, I brought that energy into the episode, to the interview session. I’m like, Hey, can I just same thing? Can I, like, just have a comfort like, human to human, like, feeling really shitty right now, and I just feel like there’s no hope, like this is all meaningless, this is all hopeless. And she just like she was, like, trust me, like, as someone who’s like watching, like, my whole job is to watch what’s happening to forests and ecosystems. I feel you, and here’s what I do to help myself, like, get out of that, that energetic rut and get into action and do what we can. So, yeah, I just love that the through line here is that authenticity, being human, as human, as possible, as we can in our businesses and as people operating within our businesses just has a huge ripple effect in how we show up, in executing our job functions, in our in our businesses, performances, honestly. So were there any maybe we could transition to things that we’re applying either in our personal lives or professional lives. Yeah, you had one on the tip of your tongue. As you’re sharing your insight, you want to start?

Fran  29:49

Um, yeah, yeah, I can go ahead. Um, so, yeah, I was thinking, you know, moving forward in thinking about you. What I what from that insight, what’s something that’s important to me that I want to center is, yeah, that diversity and perspective, and I think that we’ve done a really good job this season of speaking to people in a lot of different, you know, obviously in marketing, but in a lot of different sectors, in a lot of different roles in, you know, different identities and things like that, but I still think what I’ve reflected on is, you know, we still live in a society, not to quote Kanye, but you know, we live in a society that is still ran by white supremacist and patriarchal values, and that’s gonna affect who’s in leadership, not that those people don’t deserve to be leaders, or not that they’re not good leaders too. But you know, some people are gonna it’s gonna be easier for them to get that CEO job than other people. And so what I’ve really wanted to think about and bring forward is like, is, yeah, just like, who are we forgetting from this conversation? Because maybe they don’t have access to these spaces, and what is their perspective, and how can we support or like, uplift their voices, promote their access to spaces? You know, view this lens of marketing from a different plane, or from a different perspective. You know, I’m sure all of us like as marketers too, we can have a little bit of detachment from, I don’t know if it’s layperson, but, you know, someone who’s not in marketing experience and so, yeah, I just, I really want to challenge each of us, but particularly myself, to think about where we can seek out stories and leadership and people Who are um, because, I mean, at the end of the day, we do kind of live in a world where, where marketing is probably going to be a part of almost everything that you do, you know, um, and so, yeah, I’m just excited to keep, to keep, kind of like trying To tilt that lens and and be exploring new revelations that you know because of who I am, where I’m from, and my identity, I’m just not accessing,

Jason Miller  32:08

yeah, yeah. I think just emphasizing, another way to look at this frame is that we’re just so put a double like a bold on the what matters part of the show’s title, right? Like, in essence, like, just by putting these people on platform, we are marketing for what matters, right? And so there’s an opportunity here, and we saw that throughout our episodes, like the things we gravitate to, the things that matter to us, the things we gravitated to, to bring on to the show sometimes had zero to do with marketing. There was no marketing discussion because they weren’t marketers. They were just people who are doing something in the world that matters, and we want to give voice to that. So I really, really love that you’re focused on that and encourage you to explore that much deeper in season two, yeah, yeah. So what are you about? What am I excited about?

Fran  33:07

What are you calling into? What are you bringing into Season Two?

Bo Peter  33:17

Oh, geez, this is not what I prepared for

Fran  33:22

our or what’s a takeaway, what’s a practical what’s a practical application, what is like, what’s a reflection that you’ve had that’s making you think differently or act differently, or move through the world a little bit differently, you know, or something that you’re like, oh, I want to explore that more, because that was freaky in a good way.

Bo Peter  33:45

Yeah. I mean, I think an aspect that I’m still, I’m still a little divided on this, this search I’ve been doing throughout the season, which is the the role of storytelling and doing positive storytelling in order to sell, to sell products and to sell the sustainable products that essentially, you know, not necessarily the guests that we spoke to, but there’s a lot of companies out there building sustainability products or eco clothing or what have you. And how did they have to tell their stories? And my conclusion, I think, is that indeed, they do have to tell these positive stories in order to connect with consumers, and in an effort to do that, I think it really matters to understand your audience, identify what matters most them as you were just speaking to Fran like, okay, like, what perspectives do you need to bring in as a community, as a family? Is it just this concern for the future? And how can you, how can you speak to that while also demonstrating tangible results. I think that’s how these kind of companies need to do that, and like we’ve discussed throughout this episode, to just be transparent, and then through doing that through social media or another platform, engage with them, highlight what their role is in the in that story, right? So engage with us. You know, not just buy our products. So Patagonia is the classic example of the anti don’t buy our products. It’s just buy once, keep forever, don’t buy again, right? That’s a great example of that, and we need more of that. But I’m also still asking myself, What is the role for the doom and gloom? And I don’t know if it exists, that role really exists in marketing, but I reflect on things like what Gabriel told me about how some of the reports that came out of dirty data centers and whatnot really drove some of that really important change for corporations to do that internal reflection and go do that outreach and figure out what they need to do to actually satisfy their constituents that they have, for lack of better term, who are involved in what makes their products and services happen. So employees to other stakeholders, maybe even stockholders, at some point. And then finally, I think of a last point. I think about my conversation with Andrew, who’s on the advertising campaign, who really points out again, and it speaks to greenwashing about how many corporations or sponsors exist for sporting events, whether it’s Olympics or the World Cup or any American sporting event, there’s tons of advertisers who are essentially selling more trash, more oil, more stuff. That’s not helping the world as it is. And maybe there does need to be a stop to that, where we either say, as governments or people like, hey, like, we don’t want to buy your products, because that doesn’t reflect the values that I have. And maybe, as governments, also just step in and say, or maybe it doesn’t have to be government. It could be a sports league that says we don’t want you to represent us anymore, right? And so that’s, that’s what I reflect for on, I guess, as for businesses, you know, how can you tell that authentic story? And I think as individuals, how do we refute that and buy into what it can actually make a meaningful difference that matters?

Fran  37:15

yeah. I loved that comparison that Andrew made in his episode, where he was talking about how big oil uses a lot of the same marketing tactics as big tobacco. Did you know to make this terrible, cancerous, destructive thing seem sexy and attractive, right?

Andrew Simms  37:33

I think of the words of a marketing executive Big Tobacco who posed the question, the problem is, how do you sell death, you know, how do you sell a poison that kills so many people a day a year? And the words that he used is that you do it with great open spaces, the mountains, the open places, the lakes coming up to the shore. They do it with healthy young people. They do it with athletes. How could a whiff of, you know, a cigarette be of any harm in such a situation like that.

Fran  38:01

And I think that’s such an interesting point. Bo too, because, you know, I think about that a lot as well, because I personally am fairly motivated by shame, unfortunately, and so the doom and gloom sometimes works for me. You know, it motivates him. Like, I’m like, oh my god, things need to be done right now, but I feel like his example kind of pointed to what you’re talking about. Where, like, if the bad guys, not that I want to say they’re bad, but you know, if the people with different opinions from us are using, like, sexy, positive, desirable images, does doing, you know, just saying, Oh, well, like just doing the negative of that, like, that’s not going to be effective, right as, like, an oppositional force, of, like, oh, well, you know, you’re going to die, or you’re going to be hideous, you’re going to have wrinkly skin, or whatever. And it’s like, well, I’m sexy right now, you know? Like, Well, right now, I’m, I want this cigarette, and I feel good. Or, you know, I feel like it’s, it’s like, difficult, or it’s like, is it fight fire with fire? You know, like, how do you, how do you counter that messaging, when they’re using like, you’re saying, like, more of a positive lens, or like, I don’t know, yeah, yeah, obviously lens.

Bo Peter  39:17

I think it’s a fine line to walk. And I think the distinction that I would make at this point, and I’m happy to be proven wrong, is that there are organizations and characters and NGOs who are best fit for telling the story and holding us accountable, and for marketers who will look in the mirror, and maybe don’t advertise those products that are just inherently not good for the environment, and look to work with aligned organizations where you can tell a positive story, and of course, you know, tell the truth, like, are you using? Making sustainably sourced goods. Are you using Fair Trade labor? Are you really thinking about your supply chain and whatnot as as the examples that Jason gave are, that’s good collaboration for making the supply chain work. And so, yeah, there needs to be different organizations, different players doing different things. And, yeah, I’m curious, and maybe that’s something I learned more about in season two, is and what’s the role for everybody? Totally,

Jason Miller  40:32

right? So, LinkedIn, who will fight you tooth and nail? Who fights everybody on LinkedIn, when they start talking about positive messaging is the most effective way to create change. I think you and I have actually gone back and forth with some some conversation on there, on LinkedIn, so he’d be a wonderful, different sounding board. Just just put up your armor a little bit, because he’s got claws around

Bo Peter  41:02

like I said, I’m here to learn, right? So I’m not saying that I’ve the one answer. And like I said, there’s a rule for driving with the fear. And to Frans point as well, sometimes we need a little bit of shame. I would just caution as a marketer to be careful about which one you use and and, of course, where you apply it.

Jason Miller  41:26

Nicole, how about you? What are you applying from this season?

Nicole  41:30

So I think one of the big takeaways, I had a lot of takeaways, but one for me specifically was so something I think a lot of people don’t know about me is I, in my local community, I run a very small nonprofit, and what we do is we connect local we connect other local nonprofits to volunteers, and we help organize different events where volunteers can actually execute these nonprofits mission. And I think when I think about what we do, a lot of times, I do have a lot of imposter syndrome, or a complex of like, we’re doing something on such a micro level, even in our community, like we just had our our big food drive for Thanksgiving, and we raised enough food to give Thanksgiving dinner for 50 families. And I had this complex even about posting online where I’m like, There’s local organizations who are feeding 1000s of families, like, I’m not feeding our 600,000 person city. And I think when so many of the people were talking about how micro impacts have this domino effect of creating lasting change and starting in your small local community, like, even if you’re just making the tiniest little impact for just 50 little families, that’s gonna have a ripple effect, and us being authentic and transparent about what we’re doing, even on a small scale, that could inspire change. And we don’t have to be Nike, we don’t have to be Puma, we don’t have to be these giant companies in order to make a difference. And it really motivated me to lean into the authenticity and transparency piece in communicating what we’re doing and being proud of that, even if it is on a really, really small scale, right on, just feel yourself inspired by this. Or go ahead, Jam…

Fran  43:21

yeah, I was something, you know, Jim, I think you kind of touched on it earlier, just about how you have, how you’ve received, the guests, how we all have. And that was something that has just been so touching to me. Because, yeah, I’ve been shaken like a leaf, nervous as heck before all these interviews, not wanting to sound ignorant, not wanting to say something wrong. And every person, even people who the people who do work for Nike, are the people who work for these big corporations. I just feel like everybody has come to this conversation with such humility and saying, Hey, I might look like an expert. Maybe you look at me and you think, I know all this stuff. I don’t. I’m figuring this out with you. There’s tons of stuff I don’t know at all, and it’s just been like such a great exhalation, you know, in every conversation, where I really felt nervous and then realized that the people in this space, their ultimate goal really is the mission and the the desire to do good and the desire To make change. And I think when you truly have that as your ultimate goal, it’s so easy for the ego to fall away and for the, you know, the virtue signaling, or, you know, the competition to fall away, because you have this mission that, like we’ve said, you know, is going to require collaboration, you know, is going to require humility. You know, is something that requires much more research and much more investment, and there’s so much that’s not known, and it’s just, it’s so cool how, yeah, it just creates this incredible collaborative environment, and how everyone really wants people to learn and to be excited about sustainability. And to, you know, and to find their place in it, rather than, like you’re saying, to be shut out from it or something.

45:05

Yeah,

Jason Miller  45:08

your dog wants to be a part of the podcast, too. And we’re here for, well, let’s, let’s talk about the the future. We’re running out of time a little bit here in this episode, and we have some really exciting innovations or adjustments we’re going to be making here in season two and and I’ll just walk through a few of those, and you’ll start to see them rolling out in the first episode of season two, season or Episode 16, I guess it’ll be so one, one big adjustment is, is that, as we started getting very intentional about what our brand stands for, we peaceful media rebranded in early 2024, well actually it was like a 10 year process, but the culmination of it was a new website with some new messaging and just a bigger emphasis on healing the planet, which was part of the impetus to launch this podcast. And we knew at that point that we wanted to endeavor to get our B Corp certification, and we behind the scenes, you would have seen our COO Nikki, who will be a participant in season two. I’m just putting that out there now. She started the process right, and ran up against the impenetrable wall of how the hell do small businesses that are don’t have a ton of resources who don’t have a chief sustainability officer go and measure all the things that are required for B Corp, cert. And so we’re we’re going to be get more concerned about this. We’re going to get more intentional, and we’re also going to share our story in season two, and we’re going to bring in some people who specialize in helping small businesses, or any size businesses, business, for that matter, work through how to measure the things that matter for B, Corp, cert, and we want to share that journey with you. It was like one of the hopes that we’d be able to accomplish that in season one, but didn’t have the resources, nor the sort of network around us to be able to support that journey. So watch for that. In season two, we’re also going to feature more of our peaceful media clients who have different and interesting takes, who don’t come from the world of quote, unquote, sustainability, but have interesting takes on how we can shift our mindsets and our just on a human, humanity species level, like, how do we shift our mindset so that we love ourselves, so that we have enough within us to love our neighbors and our all living beings and all living things around us. So I’m excited to just bring a little bit of that influence in from our wonderful portfolio of thought leaders and experts in personal development. I’m also going to bring in more of our peaceful team members. You’re on here, you’ve seen Nicole, you’ve seen Bo you’ve seen Fran who are all members of amazing members of the peaceful media team that you’re just seeing on the tip of the iceberg. And there are so many specialists on our teams who are lovely human beings who have unique ways to help organizations, big or small grow certain aspects of of their marketing and their brand, right? So whether that’s someone who on our team who specializes in building up a YouTube channel for your brand, or building out your social media profiles for your brand, or just thinking about the messaging for your brand, we’re gonna start to incorporate more of their insights so that you can go and watch that episode and start applying that in your in your business or organization. And then fourth is, we’re going to be going, you’re going to notice a little bit of higher production value in certain episodes. Not all. We’re not, we don’t have Joe Rogan, you know, podcast production budgets, or Rich Roll production budgets. But we’re going to do what we can with what we have and try to create a richer experience of the interviews than this sort of digital, you know, hopping on to quote, unquote, zooms, you know, we’re going to try to go on site with organizations where that makes sense. So it’s, I kind of liken it to, it’s a podcast equivalent to touching grass instead of staring at screens. We’re going to be in the field, quote, unquote, with, with the organizations. And lastly, this spawned out of Episode One. One of season two, which is with World forestry Center here in Portland, Oregon, where it during our interview, it became evident that their marketing communications person, their marketing community communications team of one, you know, is, is a really smart brand strategist, really, really smart brand strategist, but doesn’t have like, 10 years of experience in all the different channels of marketing. And so it came too light that there that as a nonprofit, they aren’t using Google grant, which is $10,000 a month of free ad spend in your pay per click advertising channel. And I was like, Oh my gosh, we will do that for you. We will hop in. We’ll do a screen share. We’ll record it. We’ll do a screen share of how you set up your Google grant and set up a campaign for you so that you can start utilizing it. It’s not just a matter of click, click, click, away you go, and now you’re spending $10,000 a month of Google’s money. It’s a little bit more intricate and complicated than that, but it’s something that, when they get that right, that’s a huge influx, a major change in their ability to get people in their doors, in their physical doors there. And when you get people in the physical doors, and they experience what world forestry center stands for, guess what, you start getting more donations these fundraising gets a little bit easier. So we’re going to create these quote, unquote, double click segments where we will highlight something in the main interview as oh, we’re going to double click into that, and you’ll see a little pop up come up in the top little note annotation, or you can click and go watch that segment where we do a screen share with one of our specialists here at peaceful media and go and implement or execute on that idea. So we’ll introduce it in the interview and then pop you can pop over and get the actual practical execution sort of episode alongside it. So those are the big five things come in our way in season two, which makes me super excited for just again. Fran, like bringing more voices, giving platform to more perspectives, diverse perspectives, but also leaning into telling our B Corp story, as well as leaning into making certain aspects of our podcast production hyper practical, so that you can, as a marketer or brand owner entrepreneur, go and start incorporating what we do in the marketing space to elevate your Brand, automate your revenue and bring up your engagement with with the world. So with that, is there anything else I’m missing? Team?

Nicole  52:48

No, we’re no Jason, I think you, I think you covered it. I know we’re at the end of our time. So I just want to from the bottom of my heart, thank you guys, Fran, Bo and Jason, our wonderful hosts, for all your time and energy this season. I also want to thank all of our fabulous guests who have educated us and walked the path with us for 14 episodes. And I also want to thank our listeners who have tuned in, hopefully learned a thing or two. I want to encourage anyone who’s listening to this to share any feedback with us of what you guys want to see in season two. Maybe what resonated with you in season one. So share an episode, join the conversation, and I will look very much to seeing you all very soon for season two.

53:31

Thanks, guys. Don’t

Fran  53:32

forget to subscribe. Jump on the trip. If you haven’t already

53:37

iTunes. You do whatever

Fran  53:41

your podcasts are, stream Well, give

53:45

us a five star review while you’re at it. Yeah, right.

Bo Peter  53:51

Marketing, thank you for being here. Thank

Fran  53:52

you for tuning in to our podcast. Marketing, for what matters. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, Google or Pandora. Love the show. Leave us a review and follow us on social media at peaceful media to stay up to date about new episodes and as always, thank you to this earth for giving us all we’ve ever needed. See you next time.