Tag: branding

sustainability strategic messaging

Integrating Sustainability Into Your Strategic Messaging

Posted on | by Ketner Group

This blog post has been provided by our intern, Katie Stone.

Earth Day is a special day to me. Not only is it a day that celebrates the Earth and its resources, but it is also my parent’s wedding anniversary. Though not intentional, the holiday seems fitting. Growing up, my parents taught me to respect the Earth through evenings spent watching nature documentaries and taking family trips to national parks. Now as an adult, I care deeply about the planet and climate change issues. Likewise, I know I am not the only member of Gen Z to think this way.

According to the 2019 Retail and Sustainability Survey by CGS, 68% of Generation Z shoppers have made an eco-friendly purchase in the past year. The survey also shows that Gen Z ranks ethical business as one of its top factors when making a purchase. Therefore, retailers who aren’t using eco-friendly strategic messaging are going to be abandoned by the up-and-coming generation.

Be Transparent About Sustainability

Before you publicly declare your company an eco-friendly one, do a quick analysis of your company’s current practices. If your company has made, or is currently making some environmental mistakes, get in front of it. Be open and transparent about past mistakes while directing your messaging toward the future. Detail your company’s plans to reduce or eliminate its negative effects on the planet through proactive digital media campaigns. When your company reaches a goal, use social media, press releases and other PR tactics to get your message heard. A strategic approach to eco-friendly branding will strengthen your brand amongst Gen Z and your other target audiences.

Include Sustainability in Your Strategic Messaging

Developing strategic messages will establish your company as a thought leader in sustainability. Spend some time developing key messaging that aligns with the messaging you already have. Test out what works and doesn’t work. Then, work with company spokespeople to get all of your strategic messaging consistent and include it in traditional and digital media.

When you identify the messaging you want to use, it is important that the messaging is laced throughout your brand. One post on social media using #EarthDay isn’t going to cut it anymore. Demonstrating your company’s sustainable initiatives year-round will give your larger Earth Day campaigns more validation.

Flesh Out Your Community Relations Initiatives

Showing is often more important than telling when it comes to environmentally friendly initiatives, as it proves that your company genuinely cares about the environment. Fortunately, there are plenty of possible community relations practices. Here are a few earth friendly community relations ideas to try in your office:

  • Incentivize volunteer work
  • Get your office to participate in #MeatlessMondays
  • Donate time and money to local environmental charities
  • Start a rooftop garden, or sponsor a community garden
  • Encourage carpools and working remote

When your company takes part in community relations activities, make sure you include it in marketing pieces. For example, highlight the activities in a newsletter or write a blog about the experience. Visual content is key, so make sure you get lots of pictures and video. You can use this content on social media and other branding materials.

Find Your Approach to Branding

There are many different approaches that companies can take when branding themselves as sustainable. To sum up, find what works for your brand and run with it. Looking to build out your strategic messaging beyond Earth Day? Send an email to [email protected] – we love to talk branding!

Ice Cream’s Biggest Fan (and our new Intern): Meet Cambria!

Posted on | by Ketner Group | 1 Comment on Ice Cream’s Biggest Fan (and our new Intern): Meet Cambria!

Hello! My name is Cambria Sawyer, and I am thrilled to be joining the Ketner team as their newest intern! And yes, Cambria as in the font, wine, California town, and the heavy-progressive rock band Coheed and Cambria- but I am actually named after an old sailing ship in Rhode Island. My middle name is one of the most commonly chosen for children in China, but I’ll let you guess about that one!

CambriaWords are some of my favorite things on this earth. You can use them for good or evil, express your deepest thoughts and feelings, ask for ice cream (very important use of words), harness them to become closer to someone or push them farther away, motivate people toward life-changing action and a million other things. Words are powerful but also mischievous- it is not always known what effect they will have, and I think that is so dang cool. It’s truly a science to figure out how to best approach communication, and I think that is why I am so drawn to the fields of PR and marketing- they are mysterious and very, very fun.

My first major try at figuring out words came last year when I ran the promotion, marketing and creative aspects of a local non-profit’s 5K. We decided to call it the Record Run (themed around breaking a new world record every year), and broke the world record for the number of pennies collected for charity with over 500,000 pennies. Although it was my greatest challenge yet, I had an absolute blast branding the race, contacting media and strategizing for how to get more runners at the starting line. If you’ve ever wondered what half a million pennies look like, you can check it out here.

During my internship freshman year at the Frank Erwin Events Center, I had the Cambriaopportunity to approach marketing from an entirely different angle. Between holding interviews, analyzing social media response, and blog-writing, the learning curve was steep and also totally awesome. Plus, getting to high-five practically every professional fighter in the UFC was an added bonus.

Of course, there are a few completely non PR-related things that play a considerably large role in my personality, so here you have it:

  • I am six feet tall, but I am an absolute sucker for a pair of high heels.
  • My younger brother has a severe form of Tourette Syndrome. He and I have become ambassadors for the Tourette Association of America to help raise awareness and funding for the disorder. I am also currently writing a book about my family’s journey with Tourette’s (there are just way too many good stories for them to go untold).
  • If you give me ice cream, we are friends.
  • I absolutely love to travel and try new things. If you want to go on an adventure, the answer is almost always yes.
  • I am a drummer- I spent seven years in percussion, and four years playing tenors (55 lbs) on drumline. My next step is to learn steel drums!

Going into my sophomore year at The University of Texas at Austin as a PR major, I could not be more excited about the adventures that await me both on and off-campus. I am so thrilled to have been welcomed here at Ketner Group, and am excited to see what I can learn from such a talented team!

4 Easy Ways to Refresh Your Company’s Branding Without Spending Too Much Money

Posted on | by Ketner Group

Have you ever gone into your closet at the change of a season looking for something to wear to mark the change (it’s finally chilly!)—and left disappointed? After ignoring your fall/winter clothes for the better part of half the year (in Texas), your clothes seem boring, blah and so last season. Well, instead of throwing on a pair of jeans and whatever t-shirt looks good with a scarf, refresh your wardrobe by mixing what you already have up a little.

The same concept is true for your company. A web designer once told me that companies usually spend a lot of time and effort building a website they’re happy with, then leave it stagnant. Then after two years, they’re unhappy with it again. I have worked with clients who are never completely happy with their company messaging and try to do a complete rewrite every year. I get that—the market changes, customer needs change, you find what works, what doesn’t—but there has to be a better and less time-intensive way to refresh a company’s brand without a complete overhaul of your website, collateral, messaging, etc.

1. Blitz your Blog. Reorganize and refresh the design of your blog instead of your entire website. Give your blog’s template a shiny new look—change up your categories, or add more. Putting more internal and external (promotional) focus on an interactive and ever-changing messaging avenue such as your blog will allow your company to respond more quickly to changing trends or hot topic industry news. And you’ll be less likely to grow tired of your website.

2. Create an evolving campaign. Evolving campaigns are brand initiatives that involve a central static idea with variable details/messages that change based on different tradeshows, product launches, customer events or promotions your company is planning. For example, take a look at our Be Spectacled campaign. Our central idea is our monocle man’s Be Spectacled slogan, which challenges our visitors to make their public relations program shine (with us, of course). Currently, we’re focusing our Be Spectacled efforts on NRF 2013, a huge retail technology-industry tradeshow. In the past, we’ve focused the campaign on South by Southwest Interactive. Our Be Spectacled evolving campaign lives in a prominent location on our homepage, and this helps our website stay up-to-date with our changing focus.

3. Quarterly reviews of messaging with sales team. The sales team is a great source of information when it comes to messaging. They’re out in the field every day speaking with prospects and customers, so they are loaded with information about the most common challenges prospects experience and can see first-hand what messaging points resonate with prospects and customers. Sales teams can point to the benefits your company’s services provide that are most important and helpful to customers. Sit down with your sales team every quarter to refresh company messaging. This ensures that it changes little by little instead of in huge chunks—which means less time and effort on the marketing team’s part!

4. Socialize. Social media can be an easy and cost-effective way to give your company a boost in chatter and activity. If your company is not on LinkedIn, Twitter and/or Facebook, yet, then you probably should be (with some exceptions). Brands should be involved with even more—Instagram and Pinterest are a must for brands right now. Ketner Group is even dabbling in some Instagram and Pinterest activities. Already in the social world? Change your social media profile photos and information. Something this little could provide you with a breath of fresh branding and is something your followers may notice.
On that note—follow Ketner Group on our other social pages—Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.