 I'm happy to be here with a kindred spirit, Jessica Lohman. Jessica, thanks for joining me. Thank you for having me. Yeah, right. So let me just kind of give folks a quick background, your quick sense of your background and then we'll get going on this conversation about ethical brand marketing. So Jessica has spent some time in the corporate world and then the last almost decade she has been building up her company, ethical brand marketing. You have the great sort of poster thing back there. Jessica, I love it. To help social entrepreneurs create and implement a non-manipulative marketing strategy. So we're going to talk a lot about that. I think my audience will enjoy this conversation. You're also a voice talent, Jessica. And you've narrated documentaries and commercials and even done some characters for like gaming projects. So that's a lot of fun. You've also published a children's fantasy addressing the topic of animal testing. Awesome. So let's get into this conversation about ethical marketing because that's what we're both, that's what we kind of connected on. And I'm just curious, as you coach and teach fellow business owners, what's a marketing mistake that you see them making a lot? Yeah. Yeah. Basically, that's a lot of marketers or we're taught to persuade customers to buy, no matter what. And yeah, the problem I have with that is that when people are persuaded to do something, to me that's manipulation. And then they don't buy anything out of their own free will. It's with the manipulation tactics, they're like being kind of forced to buy something. I mean, forced is a harsh word. But the word persuasion, I don't, yeah. I just think that's not the most ethical way to get somebody to buy something. And even the word to get somebody to buy something, that to me I have a problem with that as well. Yeah, we're so aligned on this because it's like, would you do that to a friend? Or would you do that to somebody you care about? Exactly. Yeah, and I think that's just the biggest myth of marketing. I even read it like in LinkedIn, there was a post. Yeah, our goal as marketers is to persuade somebody to buy and I'm like, no, it's not, it's not. And maybe we could say conventional marketing. That's their goal. Yeah, exactly. So given that you have been thinking about this and working on the ethical marketing for this time, and let's kind of define that, what is your definition of ethical marketing? Yeah, to me, ethical marketing means to help consumers make a more conscious choice. And even if that means don't buy this product or service, because basically we want customers and clients to be loyal. We want to nurture them. We want to help them. It's about them. It's not about us. It's not about us selling, selling, selling. It should be about providing a service or a product that actually helps people. And I remember studying marketing a long time ago in the United States. We learned about the four P's. Remember those? Product placement, promotion, and price. Well, what's missing from that equation? People and, of course, our planet. And so yeah, those are the two most important aspects of marketing, I think, people and the planet. Because if we can't help people, if we're just trying to manipulate them into buying something, we're not going to create a loyal customer base. They're going to get aggravated because maybe they, if they're not in it 100% and say, yes, I want this, or I need this, and they have to be persuaded to buy something, then for an online course, they're not going to finish the course. I've done it a gazillion times. They're not going to finish. They're not going to come back and buy something because they'll get frustrated because they weren't 100% in it to begin with. So what I focus on in my marketing is, I call them the four C's, communication, collaboration, connection, and creativity. And of course, all of that has to do with helping to save our environment, helping to save species, because that's my thing. I try to help clients who are also trying to protect our environment and animals. I help them. And I also work with the SDGs, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. And yeah, it's a different, I wouldn't say it's a different way of marketing, but it's just a different way of approaching people, of talking about your product and service, of connecting with people. And I'd like to see more of that. Yeah, I love it. I definitely want to come back to the four C's. I think that's really neat that you come up with that. And then now you brought in the Sustainable Development Goals, and that's part of your brand and your values and the way you approach marketing is so woven into sustainability, environmental, planetary sustainability. So I'm really curious how you think about that. Like how does traditional or conventional marketing harm the planet? And what's your mission? What's the mission you're on to transform marketing so that it is good for the planet? Kind of talk us through that a bit. Yeah, sure. Basically, like I feel we have formed a society that is focused on cheap and fast products. We have to have it now. We have to have it yesterday. And it has to be as cheap as possible. Like even during COVID, we saw that Amazon employed 100,000 more people just because people felt, oh no, I can't go out. I have to buy something. Let me go shopping online. And people were just buying like crazy after we had a whole year of protesting for our planet on Fridays. It's like all of a sudden, boom, our values had changed or our goals, our ethics seemed to change like immediately once we were in lockdown. But basically, I feel that we have lost our connection to nature. And that has, there's a whole other discussion like about our many layers of ego and how that leaves our lives. And basically we've just become greedy and so privileged and all this technology that we have, we can get things so quickly and so cheaply but at the cost of our environment, at the cost of people, child labor, that's all connected. And even tearing down our rainforest for the production of livestock to feed livestock. So it's not just what we buy to put on our bodies or the technology that we buy, it's also the food that we eat. Everything has some kind of environmental impact. Everything that we produce and a lot, too many companies, the majority of companies are only looking for cheap ways of producing. So they have a very dirty, as I say, a very dirty, supply chain and there are a lot of companies that are coming out over the past 10 years, sustainable companies, I call them ethical brands that are trying to do as much as possible to clean up the supply chains. Well, they start from scratch as, they only use fair trade and sustainably made materials that said, like I said, everything that is produced, nothing's 100% ethical, but they're on the good way, on a good path to make it as sustainable, as ethical as possible. There are some developments that I'm worried about like e-cars for our cities. Yes, they're very clean, but how do you get the batteries, right? So we're digging up, we're mining for lithium and driving away people who, like in Bolivia, there are lithium mines and they don't have enough water. So the farmers, they have to move. The residents have to move and that is just so that we can have cleaner cities. So my ideal solution, which is a bit far-reached, is to completely stop unethical production altogether, like boom, just like shut down these companies. And I know that's a little, that's far-fetched and that's never gonna happen in my lifetime. But I do also envision a world where the governments and the companies and individuals act responsibly and where we have basically found our way back to nature, where we can value nature, because we're all interconnected. And if we destroy our oceans from overfishing, from all this plastic, from bleaching coral reefs, if we destroy our oceans and our rainforests, we're gonna destroy our own species. And it's not gonna happen on our lifetimes, of course, but we're on a good path to achieving that. And that's like really scary. Although we have the resources, we have the money, we have the knowledge, we have the technology to stop it, or to at least curb it and postpone so massive destruction. But like, okay, yeah. I'm totally with you on this, because a lot of people don't know, I actually have a graduate degree in sustainable green business. Yeah, so 2003, 2000, I graduated in 2005 with that degree. And yeah, we were talking, this conversation was happening every day in our culture. It was happening every day in our classes and things like that. And so, and I remember, I remember organizing like a group screening of Inconvenient Truth when it first came out in the theaters, died in 2001, maybe six or something like that. But anyway, and it's really amazing how, since then, the movement has both grown a lot and it has also stalled a lot. I'm like, sure, a lot of people are more aware, there's stuff like B Lab, B Corp. And yet, there is, and then there's like ESG investing, socially responsible investing, that kind of stuff. That's like, and yet, climate is like continuing to change and we haven't really done much in terms of the global situation. And so it is sad and ultimately, well, instead of, you know, it's easy for us to sometimes get into despair that, oh my gosh, this world's going to hell in the handbasket kind of thing, but we can still feel hope if we do what we can, right? It's like, what else can we do except if we change our behavior and inspire others? And you're an example of that, where you are doing it yourself and inspiring others. And so I wanna spend the rest of our short time together talking about the four C's because that is, I think, gonna be useful to all the marketers and the business owners who are watching this as well. So walk us through the four C's again and maybe if you could come up with an example of how you're applying these four C's, if one comes to mind. Yeah, okay, the first one, communication. That is so important. That is like the main thing in marketing, how you communicate, also like how you present and has to be honest, transparent, just mindful of how you communicate. I see all the time like articles on, yeah, how to instill FOMO, the fear of missing out into your marketing strategy, like how do you use it most effectively? I'm like, no, basically. Yeah, I can't believe it's like, how to be evil, how to be consciously evil. It's like, okay. Exactly. And so, communication is very important and how you use it for your own benefit but also for the benefit of others. Everybody, every company, it's okay to make money. You're supposed to make money because if you can't make money, you can't give back, you can't help others, you can't help yourself. But it just has to be a transparent way of communicating even for ethical brands because I see a lot of brands just saying, we donate 2% of our revenue to charity and that's not enough. Like, people wanna know, how do you work with your charity partner? What does that actually mean 2% of your revenue? What has happened with that money? And it's also like, the company gives back but why is the company giving back because of the clients or because of the customers? So it's actually their contribution and you have to let your customers and clients know that how they are contributing to help our society. The next one is connection. And during COVID, there wasn't a lot of connection in real life but I noticed that everybody just embraced this virtual connection because we needed it, we so very needed it. And for me, connection means just finding like-minded people, like just connecting with them in an authentic way and not just, hey, I want you to buy my service or buy my product and otherwise I'm not gonna, I don't care about you. Cause that's, you know, this, yeah. It's also for me, like I look for these connections on LinkedIn or whatever. And I have like my Excel sheet, my spreadsheet that has, okay, people I wanna connect with and it's like kind of like a swipe file that, oh, I see somebody and okay, yeah, I write it down and I have to connect with this person over the next few weeks. And then we have a chat, it's just wonderful. And then we find ways to collaborate. The next seat because, you know, we're a lot of the companies that I work for or the companies that I work with, they're all trying to reach the SDGs, the sustainable development goals. And I don't see enough unification in our world today. We have thousands of organizations working for the same goal, working alone. And that is just so destructive, so inefficient. I just, I'd love to see like everybody working towards climate action, number 13. Hey, why can't we just unite? I mean, I know, you know, just like with companies every organization has their own way of doing things but still the ultimate goal is the same. I see a lot of collaboration, definitely, especially in this space, in this eco space but still not enough. So what I always advise my clients is I actually, I research for them who they should collaborate with and how they should collaborate with them, you know, whether it's with a specific campaign or, you know, just an event or something because I just think we can reach the goals quicker that way and everybody benefits. It's a win-win, like, okay, for sustainable fashion companies, you can set up a fashion show together because your clients or your customers and the other, your collaborative partners, customers, they fit, you know, and no one human being is loyal to one fashion brand. I mean, it's just not possible. So you're gaining also their customer base and vice versa and showing them a way that competitors can collaborate because that was the one thing in the corporate world that I just did not resonate with. It was how this beat the competition and how my bosses actually talked badly about the competition and there was just, there's just so much fear about competition. It makes no sense to me because first of all, you can learn from them and you can collaborate with them and you can work very well with them. I work with my collaborative marketing friends, I call them, you know, all the time, you know, you're a marketer too. It's like we do the same work. Some of it is different and we have our different ways of doing it but we can really work well together. And then the next one, creativity. And that's just fun. That's just a given like, you know, marketing has to be creative and, you know, from design to how you write and, you know, your own style. And so, yeah, that's how I... Thank you so much for sharing that. Yeah, it's definitely paints a more holistic and life-giving vision to what marketing can be instead of the four Ps. And I think it's more modern as well, the way you're thinking about it. And it makes, I feel like the four Ps are probably created in the 1970s or something like that, you know? And like all the textbooks talk about it and then we just haven't updated the textbooks. Well, thank you so much, Jessica, for the work that you do. I wanna just, we'll end this conversation by having you share what kind of services and offerings you provide and to whom, who's your ideal client? Yeah, well, I provide creation of marketing strategy of a non-manipulative marketing strategy and that, yeah, the whole strategy from your branding to, you know, finding out your USP to who you want to connect with. USP just to clarify is unique selling proposition. Right. Yeah, so that's great. What makes you unique and before, like several years ago, it was because we're sustainable. Well, that's not unique anymore. So it has to be, it has to be something else. And so I dive deep into a brand to, yeah, create their strategy and I also offer copywriting. I call it conscious copywriting. I think that's actually how we met and I offer voiceover. So yeah, voice recordings to, you know, to narrate image films or commercials or even telephone messages and stuff like that. And also some implementation of the strategy, not everything, but parts of it and, you know, that I could, yeah, like right now I'm doing some keyword research for a client and for another one, I'm working out the editorial calendar and or, you know, campaigns, event management, stuff like that. And yeah, I work with social entrepreneurs who are trying to reach the sustainable development goals. So, you know, whether you're mostly for, you know, for animal and environment protecting I call them visionary leaders. And but, you know, the STGs, they're also all interconnected. So, yeah, anybody who is really who has a, you know, a clean supply chain. Now, if there's a company who wants to go in that direction and needs help, I also help with that too. Because as long as the will is there, then I'm there to help. Thank you so much, Jessica. Yeah, awesome. Well, I'm gonna have the link to your website below this video and I'm sure people can, and the way I found you, I think I'm Googling conscious copywriting and you're on the first page. So that's awesome. But yeah, the link to your site will be below ethicalbrandmarketing.com. So that's really easy to remember. And yeah, thanks for the work you do and sort of the way you do it, the values that you're kind of instilling in the world. So thanks for everything. And thank you, George, for having me and for also, yeah, being an advocate. Yeah, yeah. For the work you do. Yeah, totally, thank you.