We face a truly unique moment in time both as individuals and businesses, and if we want to build back better then putting kindness on the business agenda is crucial for progressive brands. This is the thinking behind Bloom and Wild’s Thoughtful Marketing Movement. 

To discuss the opportunities and challenges for brands, Charlotte Langley, Brand & Communications Director at Bloom & Wild, was joined by Dr Dimitrios Tsivrikos, a Consumer and Business Psychologist at UCL, and Rachel Aldighieri who is Managing Director at DMA UK  The wide-ranging and thought provoking discussion, chaired by Creativebrief’s Editorial Director Nicola Kemp, underlined that brand’s who take a more compassionate approach to data will reap rewards in terms of sales, loyalty and employee engagement.

The Thoughtful Marketing Movement started back in 2018 when the Bloom & Wild team was running a retro on Mother’s Day. The Customer Delight team shared that some customers had asked to be taken off the mailing list over this time and then be readded. It was just that they found this specific time quite painful.

The idea of opt out was born from truly listening to the consumers. Bloom & Wild sent the first opt out email in 2019. “The response was absolutely massive,” says Langley. “It was really not what we were expecting.” The initiative was shared by grateful customers across social and by directly emailing the team. “It was even mentioned in a debate in Parliament about grief and how as a society we support people who are grieving,” she adds.

Last year the team examined whether they could take this one step further and, as Langley explains, “create a movement that people could be part of.” The Thoughtful Marketing movement now has over 170 member businesses. “It’s really great to see this becoming more and more standard practice.”

Thinking about customer first

“The advent of GDPR meant people had to think of customers more fully,” explains Aldighieri. “What’s important is that it remains the baseline but we go beyond that.” Make sure your customer understands that you’re asking for data to serve them better. “So, it’s all about them,” she adds. “What comes with that is transparency and clarity and that greater understanding of the customer.”

“Trust is the single biggest reason people will share their data with you,” Aldighieri says. The industry is waking up to the importance of ethics in gaining, and more crucially holding, consumer trust.

The shift from Compliance to compassion

The panel discussed the responsibility of brands to continue to drive a shift from compliance to compassion when it comes to data. “We talk about data as people and that has to be the overriding assumption,” Aldighieri explained. “The minute you start referring to data as people you humanise it. You make it something that you are going to use to create more empathy and a much more thoughtful approach.”

The role for brands in creating a sense of psychological safety for consumers also topped the agenda, with the panel noting that the pandemic has made sensitivity increasingly important. “Brands have a responsibility for making sure that, as consumers, we feel safe,” explained Tsivrikos. “What we’ve learnt through lockdown is the important role brands play in our lives in maintaining clarity and to be there in terms of support.”

Urging brands to sign up to the Thoughtful Marketing Movement, Langley reminded the audience of the human cost of the pandemic. She explained:  “There’s been a lot of loss, and it’s easy to forget that as we focus on reopening."

To read more about the Thoughtful Marketing Movement click here.

To sign up for the Thoughtful Marketing Movement click here.