Colloquium in Sustainable Marketing

You gamble, relax, and enjoy yourself. We'll take care of the environment. You may not even realize it, but from your first interaction with a Caesars hotel or casino, the entertainment giant surrounds you with subtle messages about how they are protecting the environment so you don't have to worry about it. Caesars Entertainment's CodeGreen program started organically as an employee initiative. Now, with the help of Saatchi & Saatchi S, it has become an award-winning global sustainability strategy and a core part of their customer engagement and loyalty program. Gwen Migita, Vice President Sustainability & Community Affairs at Caesars Entertainment, Annie Longsworth, CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi S and moderator Tracy Sheerin, Executive Director of the Yale Center for Customer Insights discuss how Caesars developed & implemented CodeGreen, and evidence that advertising sustainable practices can have a positive impact on customer behavior.

Fresh, foamy and deliciously hoppy, craft brews and sustainability seem to go hand-in-hand. Often local and organic, this is one industry where brewers often take an interest in being green and consumers are willing to pay a premium over the mass-produced competition. But, what makes craft beer an industry that is particularly interested in sustainability? Is it a unique target market or something special about beer itself? Please join Jenn Vervier, Director of Sustainability and Strategic Development at New Belgium Brewing and Chris OBrien, author of Fermenting Revolution: How to Drink Beer and Save the World, for a discussion of sustainability motivations, initiatives and messaging in the craft brew industry.

Patagonia has successfully built a brand synonymous with a lifestyle that many people aspire to: a more active, healthier, and greener one. What role does brand identity and marketing play for a business committed to "inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis"? Famously, Patagonia's Cyber Monday "Don't buy this jacket" campaign was a huge success, urging customers not to but what they don't need and to think twice before buying anything. Two of Patagonia's senior executives, Vincent Stanley and Jill Dumain, discuss the tensions between marketing and sustainability, how the public's reactions have influenced the direction of the brand, and the trade-offs Patagonia has addressed throughout this journey.

Can consumers make the world a better place by voting with their dollars? Sustainability marketing aimed at individuals doesn't always translate to the business-to-business marketplace. Today, the largest scale green product choices are being made not in the living rooms of environmentally conscious consumers, but rather in purchasing offices of institutions. Big buyers such as corporations, governments and universities have largely been the ones driving products to become more environmentally sustainable. However, purchasers' requirements and interests vary widely, and retailers and suppliers alike therefore adopt different marketing approaches across audiences and product categories. Retailers serve a critical role in filtering and selecting the right product mix to sell to consumers, using green labels, standards, and catalogues to highlight certain brands and products. Suppliers want their green products to be recognized and featured by retailers. How do retailers and suppliers work together to sell greener products and effectively market them to customers? How do both groups use marketing to nudge big buyers towards more environmentally sustainable products? This event will explore these and other questions with representatives from two top leaders in selling green products: Dell and Office Depot.

Al Iannuzzi, Director in the Worldwide Environment, Health & Safety department and Keith Sutter, Sr. Product Director for Sustainable Brand Marketing will discuss the ins and outs of creating and marketing more sustainable products at Johnson & Johnson. The company's signature Earthwards process sets the bar for developing greener products, but it is not always easy making already successful products and brands greener without altering the customers' experience. This session will discuss the motivations and impacts of the program, as well as the internal decision making processes as J&J implements changes and communicates them to its customers.