A real dialogue is more important than marketing for clients

10/18/2017
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Photo: Guilherme Taboada.

In the last few years, companies have seen a true revolution in the way clients consume products and services. There is an increasing demand for fairer trade, greater sustainability, customization and social responsibility. With the purpose of understanding how to combine competitiveness and transparency, businessmen have tried to understand how they may work with all that.

“For many years brands operated far from consumers’ reality. Today there is the Marketing of Causes. Power is in people’s hands and brands have to become partners to deal with the issues people defend, otherwise you are out of the game. 54.2 million Brazilians claim to defend sustainability. The only most pressing issue for them has been fighting corruption,” claimed Mr. Renato Meirelles, Chairman of the Locomotiva Institute.

In order to empower clients and help them expand awareness among purchasers, Project Just offers an online platform that allows researching the reputation of many different fashion industry companies in relation to socio-environmental responsibility. “Based on our research methodology, we use data on brands from different segments and undertake a survey in order to have a sample of consumers’ behavior. For example: 33% want to buy from brands based on the environmental and social impact they generate. Consumers want to see business alignment with those values and want to promote ethical consumption,” claimed Mrs. Jacinta Fitz Gerald, CEO of Project Just.

As regards new businesses and changing times, Mr. Roberto Martini, CEO of Flagcx, claimed that society is reaching a point of no return. “The world will never be less fragmented and we just cannot be like that, because there is always a company coming up and wishing to cut the knot of the network because there the value of the network is. All businesses that work vertically and dominate their areas should be fragmented. We will increasingly look for greater truth, since it is possible to become aware, but it is something that people will be closer to,” he stressed.

For Rony Meisler, owner of company Reserva, brands should establish a true dialogue with their target public, and always look for a purpose, because that is the ingredient of involvement between clients and brands. “We believe in people and collections are created according to the causes we support. We spend very little with marketing actions, since talking to clients is much more important and more deeply involves stakeholders. We operate under transparency. Thus, we deliver a managerial voucher, in which we detail the gross revenue of every item and its net profit, so people can understand the costs of operating a business in Brazil,” stressed Mr. Meisler. “We make sure to work with Brazilian suppliers, that is our priority, because ideologically speaking the best business opportunities are here, we can make good quality products, while generating income and business opportunities in our territory,” he claimed.

The debate was held on October 17, during IAF’S World Fashion Convention, in Rio de Janeiro.

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