BEYOND CAUSE MARKETING: HOW TO INSTILL CHANGE WITHIN YOUR BUSINESS

Transcript:

Hello and welcome to Yoga Brain video. My name is Meg and I am the Founder and Creative Guide for Yoga Brain. And today I want to talk to you about, “Beyond Cause Marketing: How to Instill Change Within Your Business.” 

Everlane x ACLU

The first company and example that I want to share is Everlane. They are a clothing company that has teamed up with the ACLU to donate a percentage of sales to that organization. I believe they started this campaign in about 2017. And the ACLU is a nonprofit that was founded to defend and preserve individual rights and in this country and by the Constitution in the United States. So they tend to work on pretty high Supreme Court cases especially when it comes to Human Rights, Women's Rights, Immigration Law, and LGBTQ rights. And they created a couple of pieces, really an entire line of clothing, with this 100% human logo and they donated a percentage of sales to the ACLU. And since they started this campaign they raised over a million dollars. So this is obviously a bigger company cause marketing but I think that it's a great example of just simple donation for every product sold. I also really like the branding that they did. 

Ben & Jerry’s 

Next up is Ben & Jerry's. So I'm sure you've heard of Ben & Jerry's. They're the yummy ice cream company out of Vermont. The two Founders have been really well-known activists in th environmental space. They have been very vocal and not shy, especially since 2016, since the election, about their feelings towards the administration. And this is just a screenshot of their Instagram page. And you can see, out of these six posts, three of them have to do with social justice or you know upholding Democracy. The image below is Colin Kaepernick and he's on the image of their ice cream-- so they teamed up with him/partnered with him for this product. They had a very bold statement against white supremacy and what happened at the Capitol and really called on people in Congress and the House of Representatives to impeach the president. And they also had a post about prison reform. So you can take something as simple as ice cream that really has, on the surface, not a lot to do with social justice and any change in that aspect. However, you know, of course, everything will affect you and your community. So I think that it's really imperative that these big corporations use their platform to really speak truth to power and inspire some of the smaller companies to do the same. 

Busboys and Poets

The 3rd example that I have is, Busboys and Poets. And Busboys and Poets is a local DC restaurant it's been around since about 2005. And they've kind of created this environmental space where they're upholding people of color voices and literature. They pay their workers a living wage, everything from their menu, they try to use more locally sourced items and less animal products. So they're really taking a lot of different areas and infusing it with their company. The screenshot is their home page and you can see that they're very bold about talking about the Black Lives Matter movement right on their homepage. And they've never really shied away from talking about race in the United States. So really thinking about all aspects of their brand and up there a restaurant. The owner has done a great job of making sure that his beliefs and his values are really apparent no matter how you're touching this restaurant. 

Nicole Cardoza

Okay, the last example that I want to share is the yoga teacher and Nicole Cardoza. Nicole a teacher I believe out of New York. I don't know her but I was introduced to her when she's had a workshop at Flow Yoga and DC. But she is a yoga teacher but also it says here her work is 100% dedicated to closing the racial and socioeconomic divides in the wellness industry. And so she does that through a couple of ways. She's founded Anti-Racism daily which is a fantastic Instagram page to follow to learn more about dismantling white supremacy. It's also an email that you can get every day. She founded Yoga Foster which donates yoga mats and resources to schools in elementary school so we can really get yoga into education. And you know she just uses her platform in a way that speaks to her values and she doesn't shy away from the difficult conversations that need to be had online. And she also raises money for these important causes that you know she holds close to her heart. 

Your turn 

Okay, so I want to challenge you about a couple of different areas in your business. Start to think about your staff if you got if you got a staff. And who he was in your workspace making sure that it reflects what your values are and if you say that you want to empower women or empower a diverse group of people then make sure that your staff reflects that. Also, make sure your upper management and that you're promoting people based on those does as well. This can be applied to who you work with in terms of vendors, graphic designers, photographers accountants. Even if you're just a one-person show, you're probably working with people on a one-off. So keeping that in mind when you're hiring folks to work with. I do like to hire mostly women in the DC area so that's important to me and in this company. Also, you can consider donating a percentage of sales to a nonprofit that you value and that you want to help. This is a pretty simple way to help the community and raise money for a worthy cause. And then using local vendors kind of how I touched on before but this is more the restaurant that you order from when you're having staff meetings, or when you're having client lunches or getting take out as we're all doing now. But just making sure you're supporting your local restaurants and keeping the money in your community and sharing the wealth really and sharing the good. It's so clear today and now that we really need to make sure that what we believe inside is really reflecting in all aspects of our business. I challenge you to think about that and think about where you can maybe do a little more. 

Alright, that is the end of the presentation. Thank you for watching. Again, my name is Meg and please shoot me an email at megbrackett[at]theyogabrain.com if you have any comments, or questions, some ideas that you’ve seen that you like or suggestions for upcoming topics. Thank you so much, be well!