by Karry Schwettmann

It’s been almost three months that I deep-dived into fashion brand’s recent PR stunts and marketing news to understand the practice of colorwashing in more depth. On this quest, I took a closer look at their messages and activities, their impact reports and behavior on social media. When I had questions, I also sent an email to their customer service in an attempt to clarify and avoid misunderstanding but I didn’t receive any meaningful reply.

Why all this fuss? 

You may have noticed that more and more companies engage in colorwashing. Part of this trend is obvious: information-empowered consumers voice their opinion publicly on social media, there’s a rise in social and environmental awareness and more belief-driven buyers re-shaping consumerism than never before. People vote with their dollars.

Ironically, while brands are under huge pressure to align their products with customers’ expectations, they succumb to colorwashing as a practice that in fact opposes customers’ expectations: that brands help solve societal problems and become a powerful force for change. Colorwashing does the exact opposite! It misleads customers and distracts the organization from changing an extractive business model into a sustainable one. But is it a malign intention? Does it mean brands don’t want to change? Or do they just not know how to do it?

From what I see, it’s mostly the latter. Companies see the need to change but struggle to transform their organizations as fast as consumers have transformed their behavior. But that cannot be an excuse for colorwashing. In fact, I believe actively dis-engaging from colorwashing is a priority because we will get nowhere when we pretend. Let’s not fool ourselves. 

Instead, let’s build a message culture based on transparency, value communication and the transformation. Here are my top 3 questions for brands and consumers to reflect along the decision-making process in creating and buying products respectively. 

Here is my colorwashing check-out.

3 QUESTIONS EVERY BRAND AND
CONSUMER SHOULD REFLECT ON

TRANSPARENCY

WHAT IS A BRAND NOT COMMUNICATING?

When Levi’s says to have “saved more than 3.5 billion liters of water from the finishing process since 2010” but does not disclose how it compares to the amount of water they used in the first place, then that’s a poor message. As a reader, I think 3.5 billion liters is a lot but how should I know if that’s true or more like a drop in the ocean? If their impact is as good as it sounds?

This is the kind of message you spot in many CSR-/impact and sustainability reports. If we don’t find transparency in these reports, where else? What are these reports good for if not to make people really understand? To improve the practice, I advise brands to

• treat an impact report as a chance to communicate transparently and not as a marketing tool

• always put facts and numbers in context for the full picture

• not make pledges for the future if not willing to elaborate the precise steps to get there

• take transparency seriously: if a brand is scared to open up about concrete practices because of “competition”, then it’s obvious that a brand treats sustainability as a competitive advantage (profit) and not as a means to advance environmental or social awareness (purpose)

• also speak about goals and activities that haven’t been successfully accomplished and explain why

All mentioned practices are subject to the question “What is a brand not communicating?” and asking the question as consumers will help uncover the implicit motivations. 

VALUE COMMUNICATION

WHAT ACTUAL DIFFERENCE DOES THE MESSAGE (AND UNDERLYING ACTION) MAKE?

When Kering Fashion Group announces a celebrity joining their sustainability board, New Balance donates 10,000 pairs of running shoes or Timberland pledges to become 100% circular by 2030, then I ask myself how these decisions actually make a difference? What is the tangible, measurable value a company creates?

Consumers and brands, beware of:

• Pledges: pledges are commitments for the future. A pledge is wishful thinking, often “too good to be true”, and not an achievement. As Dora Botta elaborated in an insightful Instagram post, many corporate pledges in the past were not achieved. Pledges do not deserve your attention or applause unless the company is clear how it will hold itself accountable for it. 

• Offsetting: offsetting emissions is a popular measure but it’s not the solution to the problem of emitting greenhouse gases in the first place. Especially offsetting through tree-planting is a doubtful practice for many reasons. “There is a delicate balance between trees’ ability to take in CO2, reducing warming, and their tendency to trap additional heat and thus create warming.” [1]. So next time a tree-planting project/feature/activity is used to offset emission, ask how it helps transform the actual business model.

• Buzzwords: “Sustainability”. “Impact”. “Purpose”. “Transparency”. They’re on everybody’s lips. When such buzzwords are used to market a product, it’s time to question them. Levi’s launched their “most sustainable jeans ever”. How serious can this message be? If we take the concept of sustainability (or other terms) seriously, then we should use the term that describes the concept seriously as well. Only then, a message is valuable. 

TRANSFORMATION

IS THE BRAND IN FOR THE CAMPAIGN OR IS THE BRAND CAMPAIGNING?

A (marketing) campaign is a series of activities to promote and sell a new product or service. It’s limited in time and resources and generally doesn't last longer than a few weeks until a certain level of product awareness has been created. 

Campaigning on the other hand is a series of activities designed to mobilize public concern in order to achieve a social or political goal. This is not done within weeks and it’s targeted at creating systemic change opposed to a short term commercial goal (the campaign). 

Here are three signs of brands genuinely engaging in campaigning:

• The brand is in for the long haul: campaigning is an activity carried on for several months, often years 

• The brand allocates substantial resources in community and movement building

• The brand allows for marketing campaigns being built around the cause. They follow the paradigm that spreading awareness for the cause spreads awareness for the product

• The brand not simply withdraws from campaigning when it realizes it doesn’t have the traction it wishes

Examples include Oatly’s petition to make CO2-labelling law, Patagonia’s support of grassroots movements, The Female Company’s petition to reduce the “Tampon Tax”. All of these activities are subject to months and years of consistent momentum building and campaigning.

OUTLOOK

Colorwashing is a communication problem: it happens when the message does not align with the action targeted at changing the system relevant to causing the problem. Understandably, the challenge is to meet consumer expectations while adapting the business model but I believe it’s possible to do better at both ends at the same time. 

And there are great examples of how brands, agencies and consultants are doing it. The more I research, the more I want to focus my research on that very how. 

I will continue to speak out about colorwashing but I believe that bringing more attention to how companies do it right (opposed to how companies do wrong) will be even more powerful.

Stay tuned!

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Sources:

[1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200521-planting-trees-doesnt-always-help-with-climate-change
[2] https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2020-06/2020%20Edelman%20Trust%20Barometer%20Specl%20Rept%20Brand%20Trust%20in%202020.pdf