the story of timberland earthkeepers and building a sustainable brand
DESCRIPTION
For many years, Timberland has been a firm with social responsibility embedded within its culture, having employee volunteerism programs to plant trees as one example. They just didn't talk about it though. As a response to a steady sales decline in the 2000s, Timberland made many changes - one of which was to reposition itself as the authentic, sustainable, outdoor brand. Listen to Mike Harrison describe the company's history with tree-planting, and the story behind the transformation of the original Earthkeepers boot and the campaign behind it, into a full-line of merchandise AND an advocacy platform for nature conservation. Additionally, stay tuned to the lessons they've learned in championing their causes (hint: don't be too earnest!), along with some pragmatic advice for brand marketers who incorporate sustainability & values into their communications.Learn more about Sustainable Business & Design at: http://sustainablelifemedia.comTRANSCRIPT
The Story of Timberland EarthKeepers
Mike HarrisonTimberland
Building A Sustainable Brand:
The Story Of Earthkeepers
Mike HarrisonChief Brand Officer, Timberland
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Thanks xxxxx, good morning everybody. My topic today is the story of Earthkeepers… but it’s also the story of how an iconic brand lost its way, and then found it again – by putting sustainability at the heart of the brand promise.
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I’ll show how launching this Earthkeeper boot - finally allowed us to connect the “soft,” side of Timberland – our values of social responsibility and sustainability - with the hard-nosed discipline of marketing to consumers And I’ll share what we learned: what worked, what didn’t work, and some of the twists and turns along the way– including how this boot ended up on the feet of
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a former president, a Chinese movie star a Grammy-award-winning musician And, the Secretary General of the oil cartel OPEC
Timberland
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But first, some background At Timberland, the notion of sustainability and social responsibility in general, goes all the way back to 1973. That’s when our founder Sidney Swartz invented the world’s first guaranteed waterproof leather boot Since then, Timberland has grown to become a billion dollar global brand, selling boots, shoes, clothing and accessories through our own stores and others, in 81 countries around the world.
Timberland
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Throughout that time, the values of the founding Swartz family, including Sidney’s son Jeff – who’s our current CEO - , have inspired a culture of social responsibility at the company. In what was traditionally a pretty dirty industry, Timberland has been a pioneer in Cutting out the use of hazardous chemicals, using recycled materials and renewable energy, And, setting standards for transparency with our “green index”, and the “nutrition label” on our shoe boxes that tells people just what goes into making our shoes. Timberland was also one of the first companies to give employees 40 hours of paid time each year for volunteering in their communities– over the years, this has led to more than half a million hours of service and some fantastic projects…
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For example, 10 years ago, Timberland’s Asia team, using their volunteer hours, decided to do something about one of Asia’s biggest environmental problems - the desertification of former grasslands in China– which causes millions of tons of sand to be blown around northeast Asia each year – affecting air quality not just in China but Japan too – So in partnership with a Japanese NGO, they set out to create a “Timberland forest” in the middle of the Horquin desert - which is in inner Mongolia In April this year, they planted the 1 millionth tree - here’s a 3 minute video they made to celebrate the occasion…
TBL share price 2005-08
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But then something bad happened… Urban kids stopped wearing baggy jeans and boots, and started wearing skinny jeans and sneakers, …at the same time we started to run out of new markets to open up Between 2005 and 2008 we lost several hundred million dollars of profitable revenue …and almost three quarters of our market cap… As you can imagine, this led to some soul-searching..– and a few changes in the management team too…. We had to admit we’d been complacent – we’d allowed the Timberland brand to be defined by what others thought we stood for… making fashionable boots etc…. rather than the authentic, sustainable, outdoor brand we knew Timberland to be…
Re-positioning Timberland:
the AuthenticSustainable
Outdoor Brand
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….We decided to re-position all Timberland product around this core promise – urgently, we also resolved to start telling the story to the consumer in the most compelling way we could. It was in this context– that the Earthkeepers initiative was conceived -
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Earthkeepers started out as our first waterproof boot made with recycled car tires in the sole, recycled PET bottles in the linings, leather from certified tanneries and even recycled content in the laces. I’d love to be able to tell you that this came about through extensive consumer testing, and thoughtful planning.. but in reality it was a “hurry up and get something out there by Christmas” effort, that our designers turned around in 6 months in response to a request from our European stores.
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Our stores built impressive displays in the windows…
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And used all kinds of props such as waste tires and soda bottles to showcase the launch And it sold surprisingly well
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are needed to see this picture.
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So in test markets we started to run advertising - like these billboards on I-95… And as Earthkeepers gained momentum we decided to take a bold step and do something Timberland hadn’t done for many years – go on television….. Let me show you the television ad that launched Earthkeepers around the world…
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Online, Earthkeepers gave Timberland its first foray into less familiar territory of social media – Remember all those trees we’d been planting in inner Mongolia without telling anyone? On Facebook we created a really cool application whereby people could plant a virtual tree on their page, invite 5 friends to water it to make it grow, and when it became fully grown we promised to plant a real tree in the desert This was such a hit that after the first million virtual tees had been planted on Facebook, we had to take the application down to allow time for our real tree-planting to catch up. That’s when I discovered the truth of the saying “be careful what you wish for…because you might get it”. Having talked about “building an online community” – we suddenly discovered we had one – and they were up in arms because we were taking away their favorite pastime of planting virtual trees….all hell broke loose on Facebook, we were getting hate mail, petitions were being set up, you name it… Luckily our team was able to quickly set up other tree-planting partnerships in Haiti and Nepal – which made them happy again
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Earthkeepers also became our platform to get involved in advocacy on more controversial issues. Last year, Timberland, along with other US companies like Nike and Levi’s, took a stand in favor of climate legislation. We were invited to take part in events in Copenhagen, and we decided to see if we could turn this into a brand-building event for Earthkeepers We invited consumers to sign our petition “don’t tell us it can’t be done” - which our CEO delivered at Copenhagen – and throughout the 2 week event we ran a press campaign in newspapers across Europe, and in the New York Times
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The campaign was headlined “Walk The Talk” The ad says “while government leaders are debating climate change in Copenhagen, we’re doing something about it…..our Earthkeepers boots use recycled rubber, we’ve cut our emissions by 27%, etc”
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Our Scandinavian team took the idea one step further and hijacked this building in the central square in Copenhagen for the entire conference. We got news coverage on CNBC, Sky News, and Fox – and in many stores we completely sold out of Earthkeepers in the run-up to Christmas.
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As a result of all this effort, in just over two years, Earthkeepers has grown from a single boot sold in 25 stores in Europe – to a full collection of boots, shoes, apparel and accessories sold around the world, with global revenues in excess of $100 million dollars.
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It’s also allowing Timberland - for years a predominantly male brand – who’s approach to women’s product could best be described as “shrink and pink”….. to start designing beautiful, sustainable product that appeals to women. And most importantly, Earthkeepers has given us a voice to talk about sustainability to consumers in ways that they seem to appreciate.
Signs of a turnaround...
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At the same time, our company has started to recover – sales have turned around, profits are up, and…
Signs of a turnaround...
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The stock price has begun the long climb back – this time not based on the whims of fashion, but based on a brand-building model that is sustainable in all senses of the word. Now… am I claiming that Earthkeepers has single-handedly turned the company around? No I’m not,– certainly other products have played a role, and cost reduction certainly helped too Did I choose the beginning and end dates on this graph very carefully so as to maximize the dramatic before-and-after comparison-– of course ! (after all I am a marketing guy) But there is no doubt that Earthkeepers has played a big, big part in Timberland’s recent resurgence, and it’s set to play an even bigger role in the years to come. In fact we think it’s gonna grow to a $400mm business by 2013…fuelled by some exciting product innovations like: Our Earthkeeper 2.0 recyclable boot launching this year Our first compostable boot launching next year And my personal challenge to the design team – a boot that, when you’re done with it, you can plant in your back yard and a tree will grow…stay tuned for more details on that one…
Lessons Learned: What Works
• Authenticity: “inside out” story-telling
• Sustainability as “Gift With Purchase”
• Transparent commercial motives
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What have we learned so far about marketing sustainability – what works? First, at the risk of restating the obvious – authenticity matters. Don’t try this at home if you aren’t lucky enough to work for a company where sustainability has been ingrained for many years. Actions speak louder than words – in the case of Timberland we’d had 30 years of actions and precious few words. Marketing sustainability is about story-telling from the inside out. Second, we find we have to keep reminding ourselves that sadly, most consumers do not go out shopping thinking to themselves “How can I save the world today” They’re first and foremost looking to buy a pair of shoes that will make them look good, and will perform… then, those things being equal, many are open to a brief conversation about doing something for the environment. Sustainability is what Dept Stores call “a gift with purchase” – a piece of added value that sways the purchase decision all other things being equal. There’s nothing wrong with that – indeed in today’s world where anyone with a fax machine and a cousin in China can product a pretty decent pair of shoes – differentiation matters a lot and sustainability is a great differentiator… Thirdly, paradoxically, when talking to the consumer about sustainability, it helps to wear your commercial motives on your sleeve We’ve found that consumers can be quite suspicious about corporations who profess to care about doing good for the sake of it –even if true. So when we lobby for climate legislation, I’ve found it helps to explain that Timberland’s business is mainly winter boots - and if it fails to snow in New England before Thanksgiving I don’t make my budget. Or in China, we now explain that we’re an outdoor brand, our consumers care about the outdoors, so we believe we’ll be more popular with consumers and sell more Earthkeepers if we plant forests rather than destroy them.. If you can articulate how sustainability and sales results are actually linked… –- it’s so much easier to convince not only consumers, but also employees, and even investors to buy into your brand.
What doesn’t work?
• “TMI”
• Being earnest
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What about some things that didn’t work? First, there’s the “too much information” syndrome. Again and again we’ve gone to consumers brimming with enthusiasm about some new “green” material, or some new way we’ve discovered to recycle shoes, or to tell them the exciting news that we’re now carbon neutral! – only to be greeted with a shrug. We’ve learned the hard way that most so-called “light green” consumers really just want to know that by choosing to wear your product instead of someone else’s - they’ve made a small difference - , fewer tires in landfill, less carbon emissions, whatever and second, they do love the idea of planting trees. In a cluttered shopping environment, that’s enough. There is one more lesson which I call “the importance of NOT being Earnest”. It’s really hard to avoid coming across as earnest or preachy on this stuff…. At Timberland we’ve produced volumes of earnest information on our site that attracted very few readers We paid for an Earthkeeper YouTube channel to showcase lots of earnest environmental videos – which very few people watched We’ve run ads with earnest headlines like “tread lightly”, or “what kind of footprint will you leave?” which sank without a trace… On the other hand, consumers do respond to positive, optimistic engagement – like the plant-a-tree app Or even humor, like the ad I showed where the guy gets attacked by nature because he didn’t wear Earthkeepers…. With that, here’s a sneak preview of the newest TV ad for Earthkeepers which will go on air this autumn.
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Finally, I promised to explain you how these four came to be wearing Earthkeeper boots As you can imagine, they don’t exactly fit a typical target consumer profile…
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It started in 2007 when President Clinton invited us to be part of his Clinton Global Initiative, in recognition of Timberland’s role in supporting Citizen Service through our partnership with the City Year volunteer corps.. .
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We set up a booth at the conference and fitted the delegates with Earthkeeper boots –several world leaders got their own pair– including President Clinton who later told me he used them to shovel snow at his Westchester home…
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Li Bing Bing is a famous Chinese actress - who was the Chinese government’s ambassador to Copenhagen –
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she appeared there with Tony Blair and attended a Climate Group lunch – where she heard our CEO Jeff Swartz tell the story of our Horquin desert project – and asked if she could be part of it
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4 months later, she joined us at the Great Wall of China, clad in Earthkeeper boots –
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to help us plant the millionth tree…
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also causing much the excitement in the Chinese press
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Wyclef Jean is the Haitian-American musician whose charity Yele Haiti is our partner for tree-planting in Haiti..
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Wyclef collaborated with us to design and promote special edition Earthkeeper boot - with $2 from every pair going to Haiti – initially for trees but more recently to earthquake victims
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This guy we haven’t met personally – he’s Abdalla Salem El-Badri the secretary general of OPEC.
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He was photographed on stage at Davos last year by the London Times– which noted with some irony that even the man who controls 80% of the world’s oil reserves is, in his own small way, doing his bit to reduce his global footprint…. (and looking good too, I might add). These stories illustrate one more lesson we’ve learned from Earthkeepers. When you set out to build a brand based on the idea of sustainability, you can’t always predict where the path will lead. Sometimes your efforts pay off in ways you couldn’t have imagined – . Sometimes you’ll never be quite sure if they pay off at all.
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade
they know they shall never sit in”
- Ancient Greek Proverb
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There’s an ancient Greek proverb that says “a society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit under” I often think about our Asia team when I read this. . When they started planting trees in a desert in Inner Mongolia, they had no idea that one day Timberland would have 300 stores in China, or that a movie star would plant the millionth tree, or that we would sell lots of Earthkeeper boots as a result. They just knew it was the right thing to do, that it would help strengthen the relationship of Timberland with the community there. And they hoped it would be good, somehow, for the long-term health of our brand. 10 years on , at Timberland, we can say with confidence that putting our values at the heart of the brand is a model for long-term sustainable success But it still requires a little faith at times, and the humility to recognize that true sustainable success will be judged not by us, but by future generations of brand-builders. Thanks and I wish you all success in building your sustainable brand.
Building A Sustainable Brand:
The Story Of Earthkeepers
Mike HarrisonChief Brand Officer, Timberland
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Presentation Notes
Thanks xxxxx, good morning everybody. My topic today is the story of Earthkeepers… but it’s also the story of how an iconic brand lost its way, and then found it again – by putting sustainability at the heart of the brand promise.
