Let's Celebrate the World's Oceans!

Each year on June 8th, we celebrate World Oceans Day. Established in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the day was officially recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in 2008. From the air we breathe to the food we eat, the ocean plays a vital role. It produces over half of the oxygen on Earth, regulates climate, and supports ecosystems.

More than a date on the calendar, World Oceans Day has grown into a powerful international movement with a call to action!

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

(1) Participate in or organize a beach cleanup.

(2) Reduce plastic waste.

(3) Choose sustainable seafood options.

(4) Learn more about ocean conservation.

(5) Support policies that protect marine habitats.

And now, let's pivot to marketing and check out some brands that have made - and continue to make - a difference in saving our oceans. Join me in celebrating their efforts!

OCEANA: Founded in 2001, Oceana is the largest international advocacy organization dedicated solely to ocean conservation. According to the brand's website, "Oceans face many threats — from overfishing, habitat destruction, oil and plastic pollution, and the killing of threatened species like turtles, whales, and sharks. What does Oceana do? We win science-based policies in important coastal countries that rebuild abundant and biodiverse oceans. With more than 350 victories, Oceana's campaigns are delivering results. A restored, healthy, and abundant ocean can help fight climate change, sustain livelihoods, and feed more than 1 billion people a healthy seafood meal every day, forever. Together, we can save the oceans and help feed the world."

ADIDAS: In 2015, Adidas partnered with Parley for the Oceans with the goal to turn plastic pollution into sportswear. By 2019, Adidas produced 11 million pairs of shoes made with recycled ocean plastic. Currently, more than 40 percent of Adidas' apparel uses recycled polyester.

PATAGONIA: In 1993, Patagonia was the first outdoor clothing manufacturer to transform trash into fleece. Since then, the brand has been a leader in using recyclables such as used soda bottles to create new clothing. Nearly 70 percent of all Patagonia materials are derived from recycled materials.

BUREO: With end-of-life fishing nets, the company produces a material called NetPlus, which it uses in a wide array of products ranging from sunglasses to skateboards. Patagonia took note of Bureo's efforts and invested in the company. Currently, Patagonia is collaborating with Bureo to integrate NetPlus into all of Patagonia's hard goods and textiles. 

UNITED BY BLUE: As the brand's website states, "We believe that businesses not only have the ability to be a part of environmental solutions, but a moral responsibility to address them. For every product purchased, we remove one pound of trash from oceans and waterways. So far, we've removed 5,410,975 pounds of trash from the world's oceans and coastlines."

GIRLFRIEND COLLECTIVE: In 2016, Girlfriend Collective was among the first to make performance activewear from recycled materials. Its LITE collection utilizes recycled fishing nets because, as its website states, "OId water bottles and fishing nets look better on you than they do clogging landfills and polluting oceans."

WATERHAUL: Founded in 2018, Waterhaul is a Cornish social-enterprise that recovers, recycles, and redesigns end-of-life fishing gear and transforms this "waste" into sunglasses. According to the brand's website, "Our rigorous traceability standards mean that we can account for every kilogram of material we recover and recycle. A digital, QR-code enabled system allows our customers to trace their products and view the exact details of the recoveries behind them." And in addition, "Waterhaul transforms plastic waste into products that are built to last, and we are so confident in the durability of our recycled eyewear that we offer a lifetime warranty on all Waterhaul sunglasses frames. We understand that anything can happen on your adventures, so if your frames have been broken beyond repair and are no longer wearable, we will repair or replace them for free, forever."

SELFRIDGES: Open since 1909 and the only store to be named the "Best Department Store in the World" four times, Selfridges is "a landmark destination" that "provides unmissable experiences" at its locations in London, Manchester, and Birmingham. In 2015, Selfridges banned all single-use plastic water bottles. The ocean conservation initiative, part of a partnership with the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Marine Reserves Coalition (MRC), aimed to reduce plastic waste and help facilitate a change in behavior around the use of plastic. Selfridges had previously sold 400,000 single-use plastic water bottles a year in its food halls and restaurants.

And lastly, how will you celebrate today? You might choose to watch an ocean-related movie or read an ocean-related book. Check out some ideas below:

MOVIE IDEAS:

*THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989)

*FINDING NEMO (2003)

*THE PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN (franchise)

*TITANIC (1997)

*CASTAWAY (2000)

*THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972)

*THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER (1990)

*20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1954)

BOOK IDEAS:

*Moby Dick by Herman Melville

"The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway

*The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery

"The Silent World" by Jacques Cousteau

"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne

"War of the Whales: A True Story" by Joshua Horwitz

"The Secret Life of Lobsters" by Trevor Corson

"The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown

To quote Twinkl, "World Oceans Day acts as a reminder that everyone has a role to play in protecting our waters. Whether through education, conservation efforts, or small daily actions, celebrating this day helps raise awareness and drive meaningful change for the future of our oceans."

SHARE THIS: How will YOU celebrate #WorldOceansDay today? Celebrate a brand that promotes plastic recycling, watch a movie about oceans, or read a book with an ocean in the plot. #BrandStorytelling #DebbieLaskeysBlog

Image Credit: Shark Stewards.

Learn how you can become an OCEAN ADVOCATE: 10 Ways You Can Help Save the Oceans:

https://oceana.org/10-ways-you-can-help-save-the-oceans/

Learn more from Oceana's Marine Life Encyclopedia:

https://oceana.org/marine-life/

My Favorite Marketing Terms

While marketing may be a single bullet point in your regular leadership team meeting agenda, how much time does your team actually apply to marketing your products or services? With all the buzz surrounding social media, traditional marketing has taken a back seat, and that’s a shame.

All types of business – whether B2B, B2C, or non-profit – should spend the time and effort to understand all elements that fall within the marketing pie, and one important piece of the marketing pie includes the terms that appear again and again.

While marketing dictionaries exist in print and online, here are my five favorite marketing terms:

BRAND PERSONALITY:
With so many brands in the marketplace and so much noise as a result of social media, now marketers treat brands as if they had personality traits. When brands are given human personality traits, such as, creative, friendly, happy, etc., brands quickly stand apart from the crowd.

UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION (USP):
Years ago, people joked that if they had two minutes in an elevator with Bill Gates, they had to be prepared to articulate their company’s competitive advantage or their personal brand in two minutes or less in what became known as an "elevator pitch." The elevator pitch has gone the way of the Ford Edsel, and in its place, we now have the unique selling proposition. What makes a company unique? Why should a company stand apart from the competition? Why should a company be an industry leader? And for personal brands, for example, what makes Taylor Swift different from other singers?

SOCIAL LISTENING:
Sprout Social has a wonderful definition: "Social listening involves analyzing conversations and trends related to your brand. These include conversations relevant to your company, competitors and industry at large. Insights from these conversations are used to make informed marketing decisions. Social listening is about more than tags and @mentions. Sure, listening involves acting on direct feedback from people. But it also involves reading between the lines."

Here's a breakdown of social listening:
(1) Who is your audience?
(2) What does your audience want?
(3) When is your audience engaging with you?
(4) Where is your audience active and engaged?
(5) Why does your audience talk about you?
(6) How can you better serve your audience?

CALL TO ACTION:
Everyone in a marketing capacity should always sing this tune and provide this reminder. For every campaign, initiative, strategy, you must always have a call to action to attract prospective customers. Here are some examples: Subscribe now. Download this case study today. Complete this survey now. Sign up to receive a free gift today.

KEY PERFORMANCE METRICS (KPMs) (also Key Performance Indicators or KPIs):
This term is so important that it should be on the mind of every business person each and every day. All marketing campaigns must be evaluated to determine the return on investment. How many click-thru’s to your main website or campaign-specific landing pages resulted from emails? How many leads came as a result of tradeshow attendance or telemarketing? How many likes appeared on your Facebook page? How many mentions and retweets appeared on Twitter/X? How many of your videos were uploaded on YouTube? How many sales resulted from your social media activities? Don't implement any marketing campaign without first knowing how you're going to measure it's success.

What are your fave marketing terms? Please chime in and share.


Image Credit: Stuart Miles via FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

To read more:
Glossary of Branding Terms:
https://brandsbyovo.com/glossary-of-branding-terms/

Branding Glossary - How Brands Are Built:
https://howbrandsarebuilt.com/branding-glossary/

The Ultimate Marketing Dictionary of Terms and Definitions
https://coschedule.com/marketing-terms-definitions

The Ultimate A-Z Dictionary of Marketing Terms:
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/inbound-marketing-glossary-list

The Importance of Brand Identity

Over the last 12 years, thanks to social media, I have had the privilege to meet a variety of amazing marketing, leadership, and customer experience experts. One of these experts is Susan Friesen from British Columbia, Canada. We recently had a discussion about marketing, and highlights follow below Susan’s bio.

Susan Friesen is the founder of eVision Media. In her capacity in that role, she recognizes that many business owners waste too much valuable time, money, and energy either hiring the wrong people to do their website and online marketing or trying to do it all themselves...and getting nowhere as a result. When working with clients, she has a proven, personalized, multi-pronged strategy that covers all of the critical aspects that must be done correctly to avoid these costly lessons. Susan can be found online at https://www.eVisionMedia.ca; on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/susan.evisionmedia; on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/eVisionMedia; and on Twitter @eVisionMedia.

QUESTION: In one of your Blog posts, you wrote about brand identity. What do you consider the five most important elements when creating a strong brand identity?

(Read the post here:
https://ezinearticles.com/?Is-Your-Business-Brand-Identity-Memorable-Enough?&id=10433533)

SUSAN FRIESEN: Creating a strong brand identity must first start with understanding and defining what your unique brand identity should be. Without that clarity, it's hard to be consistent with your brand presence and attract your ideal target market.

To help create your unique identity, begin with understanding your ideal target audience. You want to make sure your brand resonates with them.

Next is to get clear on what kind of value you bring to the table. This value will help convince your target audience to spend money on what you are offering.

Then you want to get clear on who your competitors are. Knowing the choices your ideal target audience have helps you better understand what they are facing when determining who to spend their money on.

And to help you be their obvious choice, the next step is to define your USP, your Unique Selling Proposition. That clarity will help you position your brand in a way that is the obvious choice between you and your competitors.

And lastly, develop a brand "voice" where everything said, written, and created should emulate your brand identity.

TWEET THIS: Develop a brand "voice" where everything said, written, and created should emulate your brand identity. -@eVisionMedia #BrandTip #BrandExperience #DebbieLaskeysBlog

QUESTION: In one of your Blog posts, you wrote about calls to action. Why is a CTA so important in marketing materials, email marketing, and on social media?

(Read the post here: https://evisionmedia.ca/secret-to-leads-sales-your-cta/)

SUSAN FRIESEN: In the world of marketing, sometimes we need to get right back to the basics. And when it comes to a call to action, those basics are to tell people what they should do next. What may be obvious to you, is most likely not obvious to them. So we need to lead them to the next step by offering them a prompt on what action they can take. Whether it's to make a purchase, sign up for a free giveaway for lead generation, or schedule an appointment, we need to plant the seed so they will act on the suggestion if they're ready to move forward.

QUESTION: Since March 2020, which brands have stood out by providing excellent customer service during the covid pandemic?
SUSAN FRIESEN:I'm a big proponent of supporting small businesses, so instead of sharing my thoughts on big brands and how they dealt with the pandemic, these businesses were just as impressive:

(1) The Broken Whisk restaurant in Agassiz, BC (https://thebrokenwhisk.com/) went above and beyond in response to their forced shut down. Instead of going home and waiting things out, they knew they needed to serve their clients who still had to eat but were also facing financial challenges. They created a select menu of gourmet meals and sold them for only $5. The orders were taken in advance and picked up on a specific day of the week.

(2) A local grocery store, Save-on-Foods (https://www.saveonfoods.com/), ramped up their home delivery services in a big way. Not only did they adhere to all safety precautions during the pandemic, they also provided a valuable service for those who couldn't (or wouldn’t) leave their house. The drivers we had were kind, courteous, and got to know us as a customer, which was greatly appreciated.

(3) Malary's Fashion in Cloverdale BC (https://malarys.com/) knew her customers would be wary of going clothes shopping but also didn't want to order online, so store owner Yvonne Hogenes created a personalized shopping experience where customers could book an appointment and have the store to themselves while experiencing individual attention for their needs.

I could go on as there are plenty of examples of businesses that stepped up to the plate and went above and beyond to serve their customers in a safe and compassionate way. We at eVision Media offered our clients interest-free extended payment plans to help get them through the crisis but still be able get their online presence updated to accommodate the rush for online sales.

QUESTION: What's your favorite brand, and why?
SUSAN FRIESEN: It's tough to specify just one brand, but I am quite loyal to a Canadian brand, The Bay. They are Canada's oldest brand and continue to grow and evolve to best meet their customer's needs. They always have exactly what I need at affordable prices with exceptional customer service, and you can't go wrong with that!

(Check out The Bay at https://www.thebay.com.)

QUESTION: Many people remember the famous OREO tweet during the 2013 Super Bowl. With that in mind, what's your favorite social media marketing campaign?
SUSAN FRIESEN: Dove has been doing an amazing job in their real beauty body image ad campaigns, and I came across one earlier this year where they put a focus on how selfie edits are done to highlight the dangers of social media.

(Watch it online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2T-Rh838GA.)

QUESTION: What do you think will be the central focus of our marketing discussions a year from now?
SUSAN FRIESEN: I hope it's to continue to focus on the empathetic marketing model. More than ever, consumers are wanting to be heard and understood and not be "sold" at. The more businesses can embrace the model of compassion, kindness, understanding and giving, the better this world will be.

TWEET THIS: More than ever, consumers are wanting to be heard and understood and not be "sold" at. -@eVisionMedia #BrandTip #CX #DebbieLaskeysBlog

My thanks to Susan for sharing her marketing insights and for appearing here on my Blog.

Image Credit: Wordswag app.