Vitasoy, Leo Burnett: Consumers are looking for brands to lead on sustainability
Chatting alongside Vitasoy’s director of marketing & strategy, Nick Bartram on this week’s Mumbrellacast, Leo Burnett’s Melbourne GM, Kate Silver, said that with a general lack of actions from the government on sustainability, consumers are expecting more from brands to enable meaningful actions.
Since winning Vitasoy’s account in 2020, Leo Burnett and the brand have made sustainability a central component in their collaborations. In their first work together, ‘Planet Milk’, which launched in time for Earth Day last year, consumers were invited to opt for plant milk as a homegrown and sustainable alternative. On this, Silver said the brand wanted to start thinking more like a human rather than a business.
Kate Silver
“What we saw with Nick and the team is the ambition to be more, to do things differently, and what really excited us was just the scope of plant-based,” she said.
“From our own research, we saw that not only was there growing consumer expectations around brands, in a vacuum around a lack of government around sustainability, people really look to brands to do more and to enable ways in which they can do their bit for the planet.
“We saw that on the consumer side, but there’s also a lack of leadership in the plant-based category.
“Our approach in how we look at things is through a humankind lens, and that really at the heart is about not necessarily seeing things through a business problem, but really try to understand what the human problem was, that we would ultimately answer for people and create a solution that would not only power the marketing but also power the business side of things.”
Bartram resonated with the sentiment, adding ‘Planet Milk’ was the starting point for building a distinct and “total ecosystem” of messages for Vitasoy, which is solidified by campaign deliverables along the way.
“Naturally whenever we go to market with a new piece of comms, we want to drive a PR component to that; and a key part of that PR component is obviously having something that will get traction out there into the main news stream, so we can drive a little bit more of that organic reach in that space.
“We are having the right proposition, and we are also having the right products for consumers to enter brand Vitasoy, and we are essentially giving them no reason to exit because we try to demonstrate the right behaviours as a business and as a brand.”
Listen to the full conversation with Nick Bartram and Kate Silver below on this week’s Mumbrellacast, where they talk more about Vitasoy’s brand story, sustainability beyond marketing channels and reflections on Publicis’ full-service offering.
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Darcy Song was a reporter at Mumbrella, covering media owners, adtech and social platforms. She left in October 2023.
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