Collectively: A Global Digital Media Platform on Sustainability Working Toward a “Planetary Make-Good” -- Michael Kassan

In New York, every week is advertising week. Some weeks, though, loom larger than others. Such was the case with the recently-concluded 2014 Advertising Week -- 268 events examining every conceivable topic of interest to media and marketing executives. You’d be hard put to find a more eclectic gathering.

Where else, for example, could you find a speaker list that has room for industry luminaries such as Maurice Levy, Bob Pittman, Sir Martin Sorrell, Tim Armstrong, Sheryl Sandberg, Dana Anderson, Lorraine Twohill and Toby Byrne -- as well as Jessica Alba, Sugar Ray Leonard, Harvey Weinstein, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Perez Hilton, Andre 3000 and Instagram sensation, The Fat Jew?

What draws these strange bedfellows together? The characteristic curiosity, collegiality and collaboration that have always characterized the media and marketing industries. From Maverick Carter (manager of LeBron James) and I discussing the intricacies of managing talent in today’s digital world to Wenda Harris Millard, Bob Liodice and Randall Rothenberg discussing fraud, bots and piracy with Tom Galvin of the Digital Citizens Alliance, to MediaLink’s two-hour exploration of the Loss of Serendipity (how targeting will affect the content we see and, therefore, the opinions we hold and the actions we take), the entire week was a vivid reminder of how intertwined our professional and personal worlds have become -- as well as how that same heady mix is driving our industry to undertake ambitious efforts to effect massive social change.

The most recent of those efforts, and perhaps the most impressive, was announced last week. It is an initiative sponsored and led by industry leaders to -- there’s really no other way to say this --change the world. In an effort to make sustainable living “the new normal,” a coalition of the world’s biggest companies, media partners and non-profits has launched a global digital media platform on sustainability called Collectively.

Sparked by discussions at the World Economic Forum between Unilever, Coca-Cola, BT Group, Carlsberg and Marks & Spencer about how to inspire and accelerate more sustainable ways of living, the coalition has since welcomed onboard more than twenty other leading multinationals, including AOL, Conde Nast, Facebook, Google, IPG, Microsoft, Nike, Nestle, Omnicom, Pepsico, Salesforce.com, Twitter and WPP. MediaLink is also honored to support such an important and powerful message alongside these global business leaders.

What you notice right away is that Collectively includes among its members companies that usually compete ferociously with each other. Why would they collaborate now? Probably because executives and employees at most, if not all of them, have children who are going to inherit what we leave them. At the very least, we owe them an effort to clean up our mess before we go. A planetary make-good, if you will.

For those of you who have been wondering why Unilever CMO Keith Weed is also the company’s sustainability officer, here’s your answer. Today, there is not nor should there be any distinction between effective marketing communications and responsible corporate citizenship.

Collectively is unique in that it combines the ethos of corporate social responsibility and the pathos of global marketing expertise. It is designed to harness innovative marketing principles that will drive action. The goal is to engage people and enable them to act more sustainably in everyday ways such as buying, investing and sharing an idea they believe in.

Naturally, the hope is that the marketplace for sustainable products and services will grow as a result. That is another way Collectively represents an evolution in business: Its members are not just interested in making their own organizations sustainable, they’re demanding that their consumers do it as well.

The idea of Collectively is in the same spirit of collaboration and curiosity that we saw over and over again at Advertising Week. Brand builders must be students of social change as well as the architects of how these changes come to life.

Michael E. Kassan is Chairman and CEO of MediaLink, LLC, a leading Los Angeles and New YorkCity-based advisory and business development firm that provides critical counsel and direction on issues of marketing, advertising, media, entertainment and digital technology. Michael can be reached at michael@medialinkllc.com

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