Climate quitting is when people quit their job because their employer is not committed enough to environmental and climate protection. This trend mainly affects younger generations, such as Gen Z or millennials.
Employers must take "climate quitting" seriously
The arguments for such a dismissal include - in addition to moral expectations that are disappointed: Employees doubt the future viability of the company and consequently see job security at risk.
With "climate quitting", also known as "conscious quitting", people take a clear stand and state the reasons for their dismissal. This is a clear difference to "quiet quitting" (or "silent quitting"): Here, employees perform less and less quietly and unnoticed and ultimately resign - often due to dissatisfaction, overwork or underperformance.
Climate quitting has an impact on employer branding
The phenomenon of "climate quitting" not only affects employees, but also job seekers. They may rule out a company or brand from the outset because they do not like its environmental and climate protection strategy.
Meanwhile, 60% of job seekers consider environmental protection to be important to very important when choosing their employer (kununu job evaluation portal study, 2023). And more than 40% of Gen Z and millennials have already left a job or are planning to do so because they feel their employer's commitment to environmental and climate protection is too low (study by Deloitte, 2023).
This shows that "climate quitting" is an extremely relevant topic for brands and should definitely be included in employer branding.
How to prevent climate quitting
In addition to a strong commitment to climate protection and clear brand positioning on environmental issues, a brand can do the following:
Under no circumstances should a company engage in bluewashing in employer branding. Instead, an environmental commitment that matches the brand positioning is an advantage in attracting talent and top employees and counteracting climate quitting.
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Consumer goods brands are brands of products for daily and frequent use. That includes especially the so-called fast moving consumer goods or FMCG for short.
Are there examples of consumer goods brands?
The group of consumer goods brands includes for instance personal care products, toothpaste, detergents and foods. Added to those are goods for upmarket needs, such as luxury items like wine and beer. Fuels are also considered consumer goods. One of the most valuable brands in this segment has for many years been Coca-Cola: it has enormous global buying reach (see Best Global Brands Ranking by Interbrand, Results 2018).
The consumer goods industry is facing a number of challenges:
Another problem: Consumers perceive the range of consumer goods as homogeneous and interchangeable. The consumer goods market has the highest rate of perceived brand parity at 70 % (compared with 28 other industries). This is strongest in the case of gasoline (84 %), laundry detergents (81 %) and dairy products (76 %). (See Brand Parity study – it dates from 2009 but is still very much applicable.)
It follows, then, that for a consumer goods brand it does not make sense to try to differentiate solely through its functional benefit. It's brand success depends to a large extent on a focused positioning strategy – with the goal of being clearly recognizable and occupying a strong position in the minds of consumers.
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Is socio-ecological activity becoming more important than profit?
A corporate brand serves to describe an organization as a whole. Its aim is to create a consistent corporate image through the interplay of corporate strategy, business activity, and brand stylistics.
It follows that a change of the corporate brand is only possible by means of a strategy shift and a new business activity, and requires the integration of the highest management levels of the organization. It is irrelevant whether the company is a single brand company (e.g. Apple) or a multi brand company (e.g. Unilever). The employer brand is subjugated to the corporate brand.
The corporate brand – unlike consumer oriented product brands and service brands – addresses all influence and target groups. Internally, the corporate brand embodies a set of values and takes on an orientation function for employees. Their strong identification with the brand values and their brand-conform actions make them important brand ambassadors who convey the company's idea to potential and existing customers.
The group of external stakeholders is significantly more differentiated. A corporate brand communicates at the B2B and at the political level: with suppliers, the financial economy, the media, or also with non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
In times of social uncertainty and overabundance, the corporate brand is gaining importance. Issues of ecological, economic, and social sustainability are usually addressed at the corporate level and represent a vehicle for public trust, regardless of the company's core business. The corporate brand creates added value for often interchangeable products.
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The term corporate consultancy describes firms and service providers who give professional, individualized advice to organizations for the purpose of optimizing their business activities. Most clients are from the private sector, but the number of clients from the non-profit and public sectors is growing.
Corporate consultancies come in very different sizes, structures, and orientations: There are consulting firms with thousands of employees, but also very small companies. Some offer consulting on all aspects of business – from asset management to development of a product line – while others concentrate on a specific area like brand or financial consulting.
What is special about management consulting?
One specific form of corporate consulting is management consulting: Here as well, the advisory function is the focus, though management consultancies often specialize in particular industries or industry competences. This results in better understanding of that industry's typical characteristics and facilitates individualized consulting.
Management consulting, in other words, delves even more deeply into specific topics and can be considered a sub-category of corporate consulting.
What are the tasks of brand consultants? Please read our glossary entry "brand consultant".
In light of the huge numbers of products on the market and the resulting homogeneous product landscape, more and more companies engage in exaggerated marketing measures to try to ensure their products' omnipresence. Customers, however, driven by frequent disappointments and scandals, are developing a critical attitude toward such marketing messages. Enabled by the transparency of the internet, they autonomously select information and check whether a company's communication is truthful.
The new brand currency for customer loyalty, then, is brand authenticity – and in this context credibility. This directly impacts brand attractiveness and brand strength: The more credible the brand, the more customers are willing to remain loyal to the brand and become its advocate (fan). Customers who feel wrongly informed will distance themselves from the brand.
The starting point of credibility is thus the match of company performance and brand communication. Any disparity with regard to this match and untruthful communication of performance quickly evokes an impression of false pretenses (such as greenwashing). Vice versa, customers become disoriented if the communication is not in balance with the performance or the brand values and lags behind them. In both cases, perceptions are distorted, which jeopardizes customer trust.
Credibility and trust can be fostered through:
We are living in a VUCA world – a world shaped by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. In short: This is a time of permanent change. In this world, brands gain essential significance as beacons of stability and trust – both internally for employees, as well as externally: for the market and the consumer.
When brands are stable and agile at the same time, we talk of resilient brands. They are the best crisis protection if they excel in terms of 10 indicators measured in the BrandTrust Resilience Study:
The resilience indicators "social relevance" and "indispensability" are particularly important. The study shows that Miele is the most resilient brand in the B2C technology sector, followed by Samsung and Amazon; in the B2B technology sector, Brose, Dräger, and KUKA take the lead. A clear loser is the brand smart, which has been trying erroneously for years to grow by expanding the brand. But brands only grow through compression – as long as smart cannot own its topic "Mobility in the City" and build business models around it, they will not be able to optimize their resilience.
For a brand to make a strong contribution to crisis protection, top managers need to see the brand as a performance store and use it as an integrative corporate management tool. It is no longer enough to depend on innovation performances, because these are becoming interchangeable more and more quickly – partly due to foreign competition.
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Cult brands have an element of the mysterious, even mystical. Their fans adore them, love them, and consider them irreplaceable. This special attachment of fans leads to more loyalty, identification, and willingness to recommend. Ultimately, it manifests itself in lower price sensitivity and higher margins.
How do you become a cult brand? As with any successful brand, cult brands as well are built on the peak performances. These settle into values, provided they are delivered consistently and at a high quality level. They define the brand's personality.
Cult brands stand out because of their unmistakable, unique brand personality, and they stay true to that personality, no matter what. They do not pursue customers, but use their values and convictions to attract the people who identify with the brand. These people then form a fan community that is loyal and less price sensitive.
Cult brands know exactly what they can do and what they stand for. The focus on the monopoly position they want to occupy in people's perception. Cult brands are unique, express their values at all brand touchpoints, and are instantly recognized by their brand stylistics.
There is no secret formula that makes a brand a cult brand. Ultimately, cult brands like Harley Davidson, MINI, or Levi's are simply very attractive brands who have for many years stuck to the rules of successful brand management more consistently than others.
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Brands that stand for cultural or artistic products and services are called culture brands. They include for instance museums, art collections, opera houses, musicals and vaudeville shows.
Do cultural institutions need a brand?
Counter to some skepticism, brand management makes sense for enterprises marked by artistic freedom, diversity, and an educational role. Examples like the Louvre in Paris or Dresden's Semperoper show how it's done: Strong culture brands bring success. Because they are much more than a superficial commercial idea.
In a cultural enterprise, the brand provides a clear, memorable profile. It stirs emotions, gives orientation, and as an employer brand fosters pride and identification in its employees. Like all brands, culture brands are based on the peak performances of the organization they represent.
Competitive pressure has significantly intensified in the culture scene, because public cultural institutions have to compete with an ever growing private leisure market. At the same time, communities and states are increasingly withdrawing public funding.
Professional brand management is therefore becoming a necessity for cultural enterprises to ensure their continued existence with sustainable income.
The term customer experience describes the total experience a customer has with the brand – from the first touchpoint (for example the web site) to the last touchpoint (for example the contract signing).
The brand must be recognizable and tangible at every single brand touchpoint the customer encounters along the customer journey. Only when the customer has a Wow-experience there will he have a positive customer experience.
The basic idea behind the customer experience: It places the customer and his needs center stage. At the brand touchpoints, his wishes and desires should be not only satisfied, but exceeded. This makes the brand indispensable to him.
For Customer Experience Management, which has to systematically create positive customer experiences along the customer journey, the brand is essential – as a guidepost for all corporate activities and decisions. When the customer experience is considered as a whole and molded in keeping with the brand, satisfied customers become loyal customers – and loyal customers ultimately become fans and brand ambassadors.
Amazon is considered a prime example and synonymous with a positive customer experience. "I would define Amazon by our big ideas, which are customer centricity – putting the customer at the center of everything we do" says Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. The company shows at many touchpoints, such as the simple ordering process, that the customer is its first concern. The brand helps to focus all of the company's thinking and activities on one single mission: Customer centricity.
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The customer journey is an instrument for creating detailed descriptions of individual cycles a customer passes through during the decision process. It is based on a previously defined persona. The term customer journey is commonly abbreviated to "CJ".
The Customer Experience Management of a company uses the customer journey as an essential tool. It helps to better understand the customer. With that knowledge, the company can influence the perception of the brand at the individual brand touchpoints.
A detailed customer journey serves to define the various phases customers pass through (information phase – pre-purchase phase – purchase phase – post-purchase phase). It helps to identify the most important touchpoints and moments of truth. It is important in all of this that the company always thinks from the customer's perspective. Ideally, the customer journey is generated with the help of real customers.
The first step is to define the top touchpoints. This is followed by an analysis to what extent the brand can be experienced at these touchpoints. If this is not the case, there is a chance that the customer could have a negative experience and decide against the brand. If on the other hand the experience is positive, because the brand keeps its promise at that touchpoint, he will ideally decide in favor of the brand and recommend it to others.
The customer journey also helps to determine the brand fit. To do that, the individual touchpoints are examined to see whether they fulfil the brand rules. If not enough of these rules are followed, the brand cannot be experienced, which results in negative experiences. Such touchpoints are called "pain points". This method creates a good overview of the quality of the brand touchpoints, of pain points and "gain points".
The customer journey also considers the customer's emotions during the journey. It finds out what the customer feels and thinks at each of the touchpoints.
Once you have defined the actual customer journey (status quo) and have collected lots of optimization ideas for badly managed touchpoints (pain points), you can show by means of a target customer journey how the brand should come across at the touchpoints in the future.
The customer journey is a must for every brand. It is the only way to make sure that
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