Brand Activations

We help world leading brands “walk the talk” on sustainability by creating shared value for the company, customers and communities.

Brand Activations

We help world leading brands evolve into platforms for positive impact.

What is a Brand Activation?

Third Partners helps marketers and brand owners create authentic impact campaigns rooted in science and data. From one-off initiatives to multi-year programs, brands can play a role in tackling some of the biggest social and environmental challenges of our time. To maximize the positive impact of your brand, you need a plan that stands up to scrutiny and empowers your company to stand by its stated values with confidence. Without sound data and advice, environmental marketing campaigns can (and will) backfire.

We help you design and execute environmental brand activations with technical rigor and creativity. We call it “walking the talk.”

How We Help With Brand Activations

Custom Technical Assistance For Your Next Social Or Environmental Marketing Campaign

Responsibly leverage your brand’s platform with buyers, consumers, suppliers, and other stakeholders with a smart data-driven plan.

Walk the Talk On Critical Global Issues

Develop smart, targeted positions on major global issues like climate change, plastics pollution, and community impact that you can stand behind in your product marketing, advocacy, mission-aligned philanthropy, and corporate communications.

Develop Right-Sized, Resonant Sustainable Marketing Claims

New business models, product and service innovations may appeal to a new generation of environmentally- and socially-conscious buyers; but, they require evidence-based, quantifiable proof of impact in order to develop claims that resonate and stand up in each of your markets.

Strategically Select Sustainability Standards & Certifications

Identify the best independent standards for environmental marketing campaigns rooted in data, insight, authenticity, and return-on-investment.

How Third Partners can help you leverage positive impact as a brand differentiator

1. Identify Strategic Brand Opportunities

By applying the principles of materiality assessment to your products and services, we help you develop an authentic brand voice and appropriate theory of change around contemporary environmental and social issues.

2. Leverage Circularity

We help you study, implement, and quantify the positive impact of strategies that reduce waste by incorporating renewable materials and energy through sustainable product and service innovation.

3. Take Action On Climate Change

Confidently navigate the increasingly complex world of carbon-neutral, “net zero”, and other climate impact campaigns.

4. Brand Communications

We integrate with your marketing team or agency to develop science-based, greenwash-free messaging for public relations, marketing, e-commerce, and sustainability reporting.

Build Brand Equity by Walking the Talk on Sustainability.

Schedule a Consultation

Make Your Brand a Force for Good While Protecting Brand Equity.

Sustainable Marketing Consultant Case Study: Paramount

Paramount, a leading global media company, approached Third Partners for program design, technical assistance, and complex project management support. The challenge: develop a scientifically-rigorous environmental impact program affiliated with the iconic SpongeBob SquarePants brand. The aim was to mobilize Nickelodeon audiences and Paramount consumer product partners to take positive action on the ocean plastic pollution crisis. Third Partners led a planning process to define the mission and vision, developed new internal business tools and workflows, and onboarded multiple new NGO and product partners to help execute. Nickelodeon successfully launched SpongeBob SquarePants Operation Sea Change, a multi-year global impact initiative to protect and restore ocean ecosystems. The program is on-track to clean or divert 5 million pounds of ocean-bound plastic and debris and has earned rave reviews from SpongeBob fans, licensees, and NGO partners worldwide.

Brand Activations FAQ

We monitor global standards in both voluntary and legal sustainable marketing frameworks so that you do not have to. Our consultants have specialized training in the scientific, legal and ethical concerns and guardrails around sustainable product marketing. For over a decade we have helped brands go beyond compliance by developing holistic sustainable marketing campaigns.

First, there is no such thing as a “sustainable product” or an “eco-friendly” product. Making these claims or using this kind of generic terminology will only get your brand in hot water with regulators, competitors, and well-informed consumers. In fact, these terms are generally illegal to use in advertising according to numerous laws and guidelines worldwide. Third Partners provides brands with specific tools and resources to make well-qualified, authentic product claims.

The metrics for marketing campaigns that revolve around social and environmental issues are similar to mainstream marketing campaigns: e.g. conversion rates, cost-to-acquire (CTA), total impressions. Third Partners consultants help brands develop unique metrics that reflect the legitimate net positive environmental or social impact of a campaign. This can include money raised for affiliated non-profit partners, positive actions taken by consumers or employees, changes in consumer sentiment around particular environmental and social issues, and increases in sales of products that have environmentally-beneficial features, such as renewable raw materials.

Third Partners utilizes a variety of technical tools and technologies to measure the impact of positive impact campaigns for brands. These vary based on the specific product or service but may include life cycle assessments (LCA), third party certifications, custom quantitative analysis, data modeling, and analysis of our clients’ internal marketing data.

When brands choose to align with specific environmental and social issues, they must walk the talk. It takes a lifetime to build a reputation, but a reputation can be destroyed in an instant. Third Partners will provide independent, science-based advice in order to pressure test your ideas, or help you develop a new branded impact campaign concept from the ground up. In certain cases, where positive impact cannot be accurately quantified or promoted, we will provide alternative advice including a roadmap to auditing and improving corporate or product-level sustainability practices.

Contact Third Partners to learn how our consulting can empower your sustainable marketing and Brand Activations.

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Additional Action Services

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Product and Service Innovation

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