16655: Publicis Groupe CIO ESG DEIBA+ BS.

 

Campaign reported Publicis Groupe named its first Chief Impact Officer, whose responsibilities include overseeing the White holding company’s ESG commitments—which covers global DEIBA+ plans. In short, the executive works across a wide range of corporate heat shields.

 

The CIO will lead a team whose mission was stated as follows: “Together, they will design and deploy a consistent strategy on impact, with clear and measurable KPIs, to enhance and expand Publicis’ existing initiatives and implement new ones, at the service of its teams and its clients.”

 

Clear and measurable KPIs for DEIBA+ would constitute an unprecedented achievement in Adland—unless the acronym stands for Key Performative Indicators.

 

Publicis Groupe appoints chief impact officer to steer global ESG commitments

 

By Ben Bold

 

Publicis Groupe has named Nannette LaFond-Dufour as its first chief impact officer.

 

Joining from McCann Worldgroup, where she was global chief client officer and its first chief sustainability officer, LaFond-Dufour will report to Publicis Groupe chairman and chief executive Arthur Sadoun.

 

LaFond-Dufour will also join the group’s management committee.

 

In the global role, she becomes responsible for the holding company’s environmental, social and governance commitments. These include UN- and WWF-backed Science Based Targets Initiative climate goals; the holding company’s agency-wide DEI action plans; and initiatives such as the Women’s Forum for the Economy & Society and Working with Cancer, the latter a personal mission for Sadoun.

 

LaFond-Dufour will be based in Paris and lead a centralised team across the group’s global environmental, social and governance community.

 

“Together, they will design and deploy a consistent strategy on impact, with clear and measurable KPIs, to enhance and expand Publicis’ existing initiatives and implement new ones, at the service of its teams and its clients,” the company said.

 

She will work alongside Agathe Bousquet, president of Publicis France and Directoire+ sponsor for ESG.

 

Prior to joining Publicis Groupe, LaFond-Dufour spent a dozen years at McCann Worldgroup, where she acted as president of the L’Oréal Paris beauty team. Before that, she worked at DDB Worldwide as a business director.

 

Sadoun said: “With the Directoire+, we are delighted to welcome Nannette to the group. Thanks to our transformation, we have been outperforming the industry on every business and financial KPI for the past four years.

 

“But we know that for our growth to be truly sustainable, on every front, it also needs to be responsible. That’s why we have also worked to lead the way through our best-in-class ESG initiatives.

 

“With Nannette on board and her proven expertise in delivering impactful change with some of the world’s biggest companies, we are confident we can take our ESG agenda even further, faster, for the good of our people, our clients, and our planet.”

 

Publicis recently shook up its governance structure, merging its supervisory and management boards into a single entity – the Directoire. Then-chief executive and chairman Sadoun of the management board took on the same roles across the combined board.

 

Maurice Lévy, the veteran chair of the supervisory board switched to an honorary role as chairman emeritus as part of the changes.

 

LaFond-Dufour added: “I deeply admire the work that Publicis has done to transform itself, demonstrating both the ability to anticipate the future, and do the hard work required to prepare for it through tangible environmental and societal commitments.

 

“At this moment when evolution is the mandate on every front, I look forward to joining such a visionary, courageous and agile team.”

16602: Happy Meals, Unhappy Environmentalists.

In times where ESG has become a business imperative, TBWA\Buenos Aires thinks it’s cool to create a Mickey D’s commercial that dramatizes the paper-wasting mass production of Happy Meals boxes…? A single recycled symbol cameo in the 1.5-minute video is hardly promoting corporate responsibility. Gotta believe Greenpeace will not smile over this spot.

16237: Will Chief Impact Officers Make An Impact…?

 

Advertising Age published a rambling report on Chief Impact Officers, a role that appears to be an extension of Chief Diversity Officers—covering environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives.

 

Based on the Ad Age piece, the executives have close ties to CMOs and communications teams, supporting MultiCultClassics’ contention that Human Heat Shields are evolving into performative PR pimps—to make an alliterative nod to Sanford Moore’s classic summation.

 

What’s more, it looks like the expanded responsibilities have resulted in the position being held by lots of White men and White women, further diminishing any components faux focused on racial and ethnic equality.

 

Another consideration is the research indicating the average CMO tenure is 40 months, while the typical CDO lasts two years. It ain’t easy to make a meaningful, measurable, and momentous impact in such a short period—especially in Adland, where systemic racism has been raging for generations.

 

Chief Impact Officers Explained—Why Some Companies Are Adding The Position

 

McDonald’s, IBM and Unilever’s Seventh Generation are among the companies embracing the role to raise the profile of environmental, social and governance initiatives

 

By Jade Yan

 

At a recent marketing conference, IBM’s first-ever chief impact officer Justina Nixon-Saintil addressed the fact that companies are reportedly dropping their DEI roles.

 

Companies need to “step up,” Nixon-Saintil said at the Association of National Advertisers' Brands of Impact conference in March. Part of this entails understanding what “real commitments we need to make under the S, like we did for the E,” she said, speaking of ESG, which stands for environmental, social and governance.

 

For companies such as IBM, boosting these efforts includes adding the chief impact officer as a new role—Nixon-Saintil was just appointed to the position in January. She described the role as focused on “leading the strategic initiatives across the business that really focus on having a positive societal impact.”

 

Other brands that have filled the role in the past few years include McDonald’s, cosmetics brand Beautycounter, Unilever’s Seventh Generation and multivitamin brand Ritual.

 

In her role, Nixon-Saintil, who holds a VP title, reports to Jonathan Adashek, IBM’s chief communications officer and senior VP of marketing, who reports to IBM's CEO. “There are three hats I wear at IBM,” Nixon-Saintil said—creating community initiatives related to sustainability and education; leading the company’s response to evolving ESG regulation; and leading a team to communicate and market the corporation’s social impact.

 

A chief impact officer’s job description can vary widely between companies or industries, with responsibilities ranging from sustainability and lobbying to marketing and DEI efforts, said Robb Henzi, senior VP of strategy and head of policy and philanthropy consulting at Omnicom culture consultancy Sparks & Honey.

 

This wide focus means companies run the risk of having the chief impact officer title becoming “a bit of a figurehead role to house a bunch of things that organizations think are important,” he said.

 

The role isn’t limited to brands. IPG-owned agency Weber Shandwick named former McCann Chief Creative Officer Sung Chang as its chief impact officer in 2020, with a focus on creating relationships to help give client campaigns the widest impact.

 

Questions remain about the future of the role. “I think it’s a fad,” said Lisa Mann, chief marketing officer and managing director at executive search firm Raines International Inc. The role seems like a response to criticism around how a company has handled diversity and ESG efforts, or a company’s reaction to “feeling like they’re not getting credit for (existing) work,” she said.

 

“Some companies are trying to use this role to say that they are focusing on ESG, and I don’t think that needs to be done that way,” she said, adding that “what it’s missing is the associated scorecard” that measures the success of the role and accounts for factors such as where its funding comes from.

 

Below, a look at why some companies added the role and how their chief impact officers are approaching the job.

 

Seventh Generation: ‘More weight and more importance’

 

Cleaning products brand Seventh Generation named Ashley Orgain as its first chief impact officer last April. Orgain, previously global director of advocacy and sustainability, described the creation of the role as spurred by “a need to level up a bit more of the social impact side,” rather than just sustainability.

 

While the “scope is somewhat similar” to her previous role, this new title has “more weight and more importance” because it focuses on creating and executing strategy, said Orgain.

 

The position primarily focuses on launching initiatives and lobbying related to Seventh Generation’s eco-friendly brand messaging. Part of this involves marketing the brand’s sustainability efforts, such as an upcoming campaign that focuses “educating, inspiring and activating conscious consumers,” which “will only happen if we have solid communications and a robust plan to tell that story,” said Orgain.

 

“Of all the members on the leadership team, the CMO and I work most closely,” said Orgain. “I’m influencing how he’s prioritizing his goals and objectives this year,” she said, referring to Seventh Generation’s John Moorhead.

 

Because Seventh Generation is a Unilever subsidiary, Orgain wants to see its sustainability solutions “scale(d) within our parent company,” such as “sustainability goals that were inspired by Seventh Generation.”

 

McDonald’s: ‘Position the company right’

 

McDonald’s in August announced that it was hiring former PepsiCo Executive VP of Communications Jon Banner as its global chief impact officer. The role—and the global impact team that it oversees—was created in October 2020, as DEI job postings increased by 55% after the murder of George Floyd and subsequent demonstrations for racial justice. It was previously occupied by Katie Fallon, now executive VP of corporate affairs at Fidelity Investments.

 

“At a time of great global complexity, there is an increasing expectation on companies to play a leading role. We welcome that challenge and are raising our ambitions,” McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a statement in 2020, when the world’s largest restaurant company announced the creation of its impact team. “Our ability to make an impact in the world will be deeply strengthened by bringing together expertise from across our organization to create a function that is focused on purpose and guided by our values.”

 

As head of the global impact team, Banner oversees the company’s communications, government relations and public policy, sustainability and social initiatives and social giving. The team encompasses roles including the president and CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities, a global chief communications officer and a chief sustainability and social impact officer.

 

The team was expanded in April to be “mirrored in markets,” said a representative over email. That includes the addition of a chief impact officer for North America and a senior director impact lead of international developmental licensee markets as well as an international chief impact officer, who has not yet been hired. Banner described his role as “setting the agenda and strategy” as well as working with the senior executive team and the board.

 

“I have to try to spread the love” across various focuses given the role’s broad scope, said Banner. In particular, when he started “we saw some need” on government relations and policy in the EU and the U.S., he said.

 

When it comes to marketing, Banner said that the team is only responsible for campaigns related to “pushing our policy agenda, protecting our business model.” These campaigns have a “much lower budget,” he said. The role also entails “working closely with HR on internal communications,” said Banner, such as how the company handled recent layoffs.

 

“There’s not a lot of chief impact officers around, there are chief corporate affairs officers that have the same duties” such as at Walmart, said Banner. Bringing a team around a chief impact officer made more sense to “position the company right,” he said.

 

“Traditional Corporate Affairs scopes don’t necessarily encompass Sustainability & ESG, Policy and Philanthropy (RMHC) alongside Communications,” a McDonald’s representative said via email. “McDonald’s Global Impact does. The design of the Global Impact function positions us to go from storytelling to story-doing.”

 

Ritual: ‘Larger scope’

 

Multivitamin company Ritual hired Lindsay Dahl in the newly created role of chief impact officer in March 2022. Dahl was previously senior VP of mission at cosmetics brand Beautycounter, which created its own chief impact officer role in August.

 

Although Dahl’s role focuses on sustainability, Katerina Schneider, Ritual’s founder, “knew she wanted the scope to be larger than” chief sustainability officer when creating the position, said Dahl.

 

At Ritual, the role focuses on overseeing sustainability, advocacy and the brand’s traceable supply chain. This has included policy work such as sending a letter to Congress in March about dietary supplement regulations, building the company’s sustainability program around ingredients, packaging and climate change, as well as its certification strategy, including prioritizing where it needs to be certified such as having its products become non-GMO certified, Dahl said.

 

The role includes working with the marketing team every day, said Dahl. “I’m most involved at the beginning and the end of the (marketing) process,” from deciding what story to tell to checking everything is accurate at the end, she said.

 

Her role doesn’t focus on diversity and inclusion, which Dahl attributes to the fact that Ritual already had a DEI team. “We already had the team set up, so the question was, why move it?” she said. She added that “while sustainability work always has an intersection with social justice, my background and training is not in DEI.”

 

Dahl plans to amp up the brand’s lobbying efforts and communications with the new Congress, as well as continue to outline the brand’s traceability initiative for its supply chain.

 

Beautycounter: ‘Embedding our mission’

 

Beautycounter appointed Jen Lee as its first chief impact officer in August to meet growing consumer demand for broader corporate responsibility initiatives. Lee was previously the brand’s senior VP of supply chain.

 

Lee focuses on overseeing product safety, as well as the brand’s sustainability and advocacy initiatives. “When we see sustainability, we think of waste reduction, but I think our consumers demand that we’re looking at general responsibility as a whole,” she said, such as a company’s charitable giving or safety standards, which don’t fall under sustainability.

 

Given the role’s broad scope and her background in manufacturing and supply chains, Lee is focusing on addressing the company’s so-called Scope 3 emissions, which are the greenhouse gases from an organization’s supply chain that are trickier to measure and reduce.

 

“What I think is valuable about my role is I’m sitting on the executive team embedding our mission” throughout the organization, whereas “usually it would be a department inside an executive’s team,” said Lee. This includes being “part of all non-mission activities,” such as financial discussions.

 

Lee works with the CMO on a “rolling” basis, including “continuously briefing our marketing team” about any initiatives or awards her team is working on. This has included publicizing the company’s work on government regulation such as the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act (MoCRA) in December, she said, which intends to give the FDA more authority to regulate cosmetics such as giving it the ability to issue a mandatory recall if it deems a product unsafe.

 

To encourage employee participation beyond the leadership team, she runs a “mission power hour” which provides training for associates on topics such as lobbying, personal sustainability and the company’s carbon net zero goal.

 

Lee noted that the company plans to focus more on social governance including diversity and inclusion, responsible sourcing and continuing its corporate giving strategy.

16230: FYI ESG WTF.

 

Advertising Age published a lengthy report on how ESG—environmental, social, and governance—has increasingly appeared in pitch processes. That is, prospective clients are seeking to implement ESG rating systems to assess White advertising agencies; in turn, White advertising agencies are responding with heat shield initiatives and outright lies to present the illusion of corporate responsibility.

 

All the performative propaganda for DE&I and sustainability covers up a deliberate conservation of systemic racism.

 

In Adland, ESG is BS.

 

ESG And Ad Agency Reviews—How DE&I And Sustainability Are Showing Up In Pitches

 

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) has become a standard part of ad agency reviews but some argue it seems brands are only trying to check a box

 

By Lindsay Rittenhouse

 

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) has become a standard part of ad agency reviews, but it’s unclear whether these efforts are yet leading to any meaningful change as it relates to sustainability and diversity, equity and inclusion, or are more performative.

 

To be sure, clients are increasingly asking ad agencies in reviews to be certified with certain business sustainability firms such as EcoVadis and Sedex, according to one consultant who spoke on the condition of anonymity, as they are not authorized to speak publicly about the reviews they oversee.

 

And when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion—which falls under the social aspect of ESG—more companies are bringing in experts to assess agencies on the makeup of their teams and what commitments they’ve made to improve DE&I internally, the consultant said.

 

But most brands are still at the early stages of these efforts and are unsure how exactly to apply them to their businesses.

 

One agency executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they personally have been a part of creative pitches that brought in an external DE&I consultant and found those consultants weren’t sure what they were supposed to be asking or what their role was supposed to be in the review.

 

Some brands are also only including a few basic questions on sustainability, the consultant said.

 

“I don’t know if it’s clients being progressive or them covering their asses,” the consultant said. “It’s embarrassing. It’s greenwashing; DE&I washing, if that’s a term.”

 

Lauren Tucker, founder and CEO of inclusion management consultancy Do What Matters, which advises top ad shops such as TRG and The Martin Agency, said, unfortunately, “checking boxes is an old trope and continues to take center stage as marketers try to hold their agencies to a higher standard than they maintain themselves.”

 

“The evidence is in the massive number of layoffs of DE&I and ESG teams in the past year,” Tucker said. “Marketers must stop trying to ‘fix’ DEI and ESG with checklists and start living the principles that will make their brands more attractive to consumers and talent who want to see real, authentic change on these issues.”

 

The impact of the tech layoffs specifically on DE&I teams has been widely reported. Twitter and a popular ride-sharing app were among the tech companies that made big cuts to their DE&I divisions, Bloomberg reported.

 

Tucker also argued that new business reviews are not the time to start evaluating agencies on ESG, because shops will too easily “bluff their way through [the] pitch and bedazzle participants in the process.” That work should be done beforehand, she said.

 

“If they are truly committed to what ESG stands for, they should only invite agencies to reviews with a proven track record of proactively expressing ESG in their work for their clients,” Tucker said.

 

Meanwhile, overshadowing ESG initiatives in reviews right now is flexibility and efficiency, said Pat Lafferty, chief operating officer, Acceleration Community of Companies, an ad network. That, of course, is due largely to the shaky economy.

 

“Being able to move things around, whether it’s to delay or change dates for a campaign for various reasons. We have a lot more of that,” he explained.

 

But Lafferty said “ESG has and will continue to be important to clients” and it will rise to the top of the list of priorities again “when economic things dissipate.”

 

Here’s how ESG is showing up in pitches

 

Since the 2020 murder of Geroge Floyd and the subsequent rise in the Black Lives Matter movement, brands and agencies have been called on to prove how they are working to diversify their staffs, which still remain predominantly white and male.

 

That area of ESG remains a priority, even amid the slowing economy, Lafferty said. “First and foremost, clients are making sure our teams are representative of the population they are looking to communicate with,” he said.

 

Marketers have been slower to adopt environmental assessments in new business pitches. But companies, mainly in Europe, have started including such assessments in new business pitches because they realize customers are demanding more transparency there.

 

Consumers are increasingly choosing to buy from brands that are more eco-friendly. And movements such as Clean Creatives, which asks agencies to refuse business from fossil fuel companies and brands not to work with agencies that have contracts with such companies, are starting to take off.

 

“Agencies, like it or not, form part of a global brand’s supply chain,” said Adrienne Little, co-founder, And Rising, a creative ventures firm. “It’s one way global brands can refract risk onto others and away from themselves. Meanwhile, movements like Clean Creatives are severing agency ties with any brand directly involved in fossil fuels. Each is looking outside themselves for solutions. It’s shareholder, not stakeholder thinking. A blame game.”

 

Little said procurement is asking agencies questions such as: “Do you carbon offset? Do you vet production suppliers for environmental standards? Can you confirm your policies regarding recycling?”

 

Potential clients in the experiential space will want to, for example, know that the network’s agencies reuse certain materials in the events they create, ACC’s Lafferty added, “The reusability of things we will be creating for them is a common thing.” 

 

Allbirds, which has begun making its shoes with more eco-friendly and natural materials in its efforts to be greener, said it assesses its potential agency partners equally on expertise, creativity, team synergy and their values.

 

“Sustainability isn’t a corporate buzzword for us, it’s a core value that’s deeply embedded in every part of our business—product design, logistics and, of course, marketing,” Allbirds Chief Brand and Product Officer Kate Ridley said. “Our north star is reversing climate change through better business. So the first filter for any potential partnership, including agencies, is an organization’s approach and commitment to sustainability.”

 

Ridley said, specifically, Allbirds asks agencies to share their past ESG-related projects and experience with purpose-driven clients.

 

“But equally as important, we also want to know what they’ve achieved internally,” Ridley said. “So we’ll ask about their long-term commitments, their achievements to date, and what’s on the horizon for their organization. For us, ESG commitments are table stakes. We appreciate that every business is in a different stage of the journey, and also understand that we’re not perfect, either, but the intent and, importantly, action has to be there.”

 

Some brands are requiring agencies to be certified with certain firms including EcoVadis and Sedex. EcoVadis and Sedex did not return requests for comment about their role in reviews.

 

Greg Taylor, director of business development for WPP’s VMLY&R, said the agency has had to show EcoVadis certification in a few global pitches, typically for brands that are Europe-based.

 

“That’s where we really start to see EcoVadis, is in large global pitches,” Taylor said. “So, at a holding company level, WPP fills out those EcoVadis forms and gets certified. And then we pass [it] along, showing that we are certified through EcoVadis as a sustainable company.”

 

EcoVadis essentially charges companies an annual subscription service to evaluate and provide guidance on sustainability. For a company of WPP’s size of 1,000 or more employees, plans range between $2,199 a year and $9,899 a year, according to pricing information on the firm’s website.

 

EcoVadis’ most affordable “basic” plan includes a carbon scorecard, improvement tools, sustainability how-to guides and an industry risk profile. On the most expensive plan, agencies are assigned a point person to guide the company through steps, including online learning courses.

 

“From a WPP perspective, we respond to their questionnaire annually,” a WPP spokesperson said. “The response process is managed by the sustainability team but with support from other business functions, for example procurement and legal.”

 

WPP’s EcoVadis certification process is handled by a sustainability team, which is focused on internal versus client work. According to its 2022 sustainability report, the team focuses on areas including making progress toward the holding company’s goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions across its supply chain by 2030 and shifting to 100% renewable electricity. While the sustainability team isn’t client-facing, the work it’s doing is being evaluated by clients.

 

As brands are also increasingly being called out for greenwashing and, ahead of the Federal Trade Commission’s updates to its green marketing guidelines, they are looking to their agency partners to advise them on how to talk about their sustainability efforts. So, they need to know their potential agency partners are properly equipped to handle that task.

 

Still, only 4% of ads over the last three years contain sustainability messaging, supported by an 8% in media spend, and the number of ads containing sustainability messaging decreased 47% at the beginning of 2023 from 2022, according to recent research from CreativeX, a creative data platform that works with brands including Nestlé, Heineken and Unilever.

 

U.S. brands are being extra cautious about what they share on their environmental progress before the FTC’s guidelines come in, said Caitlin Hicks, sustainability manager of Nuevo, a sustainability-focused creative agency that’s made green marketing its specialty.

 

Hicks said for now, Nuevo advises clients to be very honest about what they’ve accomplished and what they haven’t, while also being careful about using the word “sustainable” because there is no clear definition for what is a “sustainable product.”

 

“What we always recommend to clients is to be very careful of that word; say instead ‘we’re on a sustainability journey,’” Hicks said.

 

Jim Misener, principal and president of independent brand consultancy 50,000feet, said he’s seeing clients increasingly in industries, including manufacturing and health care, prioritizing sustainability in new business pitches. “ESG-related certifications and reporting methodologies are becoming required and standardized” in those industries, he said.

 

“50,000feet has helped clients shape their ESG narrative at all levels of the organization, from corporate sustainability reports and landing pages to talent acquisition campaigns and video series,” Misener said. “Our partners’ prospective team members, customers and shareholders are asking how each organization is growing its culture of DE&I, helping to protect the planet and giving back to communities.”

 

Whether or not brands are prioritizing ESG as much as they should be right now, ACC’s Lafferty argued eventually they all will have to because customers are demanding it.

 

He said consumers care about how companies do business and who they do business with and “they will find out what you’re doing. So, behaving and showing up authentically and truthfully is going to be the thing that continues to drive brands and their behaviors.”