Development Research Blog
Ethical or Sustainable Subject:
Ethical marketing
Empathy – Deep understanding of customers’ needs
Honesty – Lack of manipulation and exaggeration in promotion
Transparency – Openness business operations used in marketing
Promise keeping – Genuine intention to fulfil the promises given to the customers and society
Sustainability – Commitment to public, environmental and social wellbeing
Consumers expect transparency from retailers so when it’s not received, they will boycott products and services
Ethics and sustainability are key fundamentals of promoting environmentally friendly, consumer products within brands and industries. Sustainability falls under ethical marketing which brands try aim to do so, as I’ve discovered there being five main components of ethical marketing that helps the brand in developing and conveying a good image of themselves publicly. I’ve explored subject of fashion specifically clothing brands and how they use ethical marketing to enhance sustainability.
One of the examples I’ve used is Patagonia which is a clothing brand that focuses on the manufacture of outdoor clothing suitable for cold environments and suitable activities such as hiking and skiing. However, the brands uniqueness and popularity comes from their ethical beliefs and approach which enhances sustainability as they are extremely driven by the idea of reusing and repairing rather than replacing products. Whereas many big brands strive to do the opposite to increase their revenue, this is because profit is the main aspect for many brands however Patagonia’s aim is to build a strong connection with it’s consumers by pledging people to reduce consumption, however this won’t affect the profit aspect of Patagonia as ethical branding will translate into more loyal customers, creating a strong community that will be by their side for a long time. Whereas, big brands sometimes face this problem of ‘transparency’ by not being as open to the customers with their marketing operations causing them to lose trust.
In this case, Patagonia is more than just a brand, it is essentially a campaign promoting against over-consumption of clothes when they can be repaired and reused. Despite not being as popular of a fashion brand like Nike for example, they are defiantly one of the most sustainable fashion brands out there covering strong ethical marketing points as well as being thought leader in social activism and environmental protection that not all brands can say they do. Patagonia in particular covers ethical points of ‘empathy’ and ‘promise keeping’ as the brand is dedicated to tackling the problem it campaigns against creating trust with customers. One of their brand posters demonstrates brands humbleness and identity in tackling unnecessary consumption of clothing, unlike most brands where they push, he audience into consuming their newest products, Patagonia uses the opposite marketing method in demonstrating their campaign telling the customers to ‘To not buy’ their product and instead pointing out ‘reduce, repair, reuse, recycle’ which are the sustainable methods of dealing with unwanted clothing products and only really buying new products when necessary if the clothing item is unrepairable for example.
References:
https://wisepops.com/blog/ethical-marketing
Ethical Branding Is On the Rise and Retailers Need to Pay Attention
www.algofyoutdoors.com. (n.d.). Unconventional Patagonia Marketing Solutions | Algofy Outdoors. [online] Available at: https://www.algofyoutdoors.com/post/unconventional-patagonia-marketing-solutions [Accessed 28 Feb. 2024].
Conceptual design transition planning:
After my research on the topic of sustainability and ethics in fashion, I’ve identified the problem and came up with a solution that I’ve demonstrated through a storyboard of a potential animation. The aim of this animation is to convince consumers to attempt to re-use and repair rather than re-invest into buying a brand-new replacement essentially reducing overconsumption of products which is the message Patagonia demonstrates in their brand marketing.
I took a creative approach to this animation with the use of conceptual transitions that builds the story up as it progresses, I have taken an approach of focusing this animation on one of the world’s most popular fashion brand ‘Nike’, specifically their shoes. The storyboard essentially shows the journey of a pair of Nike trainers with the use of conceptual transitions that essentially portray damaged shoes being repaired and re-used.
The animation starts with a sky of clouds in which the clouds then form into the Nike swoosh, straight after, the two cloudy Nike swoosh forms into the Nike shoes which are now falling through the sky. The weather changes and becomes gloomy as the fresh set of shoes get struck by a lightning. The shoes then fall down from the sky damaged, in the middle of a street with smoke enhancing from them caused by the lightning strike. The smoke then transitions and forms into a shoelace. Then the shoelace drifts off the screen and transitions from the right side of the next shot as the shoelace then forms into a basic illustration motion of a Nike swoosh. The Nike swoosh then rotates and flips, essentially becoming a slide for the shoes as they emerge into water which symbolises of the shoes being washed up as they appear to come out as clean and fresh again, this part of the animation essentially demonstrates the idea of the product being re-used as the final shot states this through typography. The animation ends with the shoes being presented as brand new again after the process of re-use and repair, I’ve used the Nike swoosh as the ‘correct’ tick next to the words of re-use and repair to push the idea visually using the brands conception. I’ve also included ‘re-buy’ as that is still an option for customers however highlighted in red with a cross next to it, implying it’s not a sustainable choice compared to other options.
Developed storyboard:
Before finalising my animation, I have decided to make some changes to the storyline. Firstly, I’ve used original images that I have photographed myself wherever possible however the main visual change was halfway through the animation. I’ve decided to add paper background after the shoelace shot and added a narrative of illustration which is more engaging than the previous idea of a blank, white background. The shoelace forms into a marker pen as the paper background comes into the animation, which foreshadows the idea of the Nike swoosh being illustrated on paper which I’ve drawn myself, this adds more originality to my animation piece. The handrawn swoosh then forms into a realistic swoosh which I’ve created in Illustrator, as it spins and essentially turns into a slide for the shoes to plunge into water as they fall down fresh in the final shot with the relevant message demonstrated through typography.
Teamworking:
Psychometric test results
Before executing the teamworking task, I was asked to fill in a psychometric test in a table form out which based on a theme off an orchestra group which is an example used to demonstrate teamwork which is relevant to this task. The purpose of this psychometric test results is that it determines the overall appropriate role for me whilst working in a group which collectively as a class will help designate each person an appropriate role in a teamworking task.
Flipbook animation:
The teamworking task was to create a simple group flipbook about a caterpillar, collectively as a group we each had to produce a section of the caterpillars journey before connecting everyone’s flipbooks to create one big flipbook animation of the caterpillars journey. The leader of the group was responsible for the first part of the animation as they created an intro with an appropriate working title which introduces the overall animation. I was responsible for the first action of the caterpillar after the introduction segment, in my creation I’ve implemented conceptual transitions, however I tried to keeping my creation simple and effective rather than flooding it with too many actions and transitions. My flipbook animation shows the caterpillar eat an apple that fell infornt of the caterpillar, the caterpillar then forms into a tree in which an apple fall from the tree and as the apple lands it turns back into a caterpillar.
Before creating my flipbook animation, I’ve used some paper to plan out my animation using basic circles and arrows to construct the journey of a caterpillar. This planning gave me a start point before I implemented details such as the tree.
Relevant animation history:
This is an animation piece from ‘Patagonia’ which is a brand that mainly inspired my animation due to what it stands for, it’s a fashion brand that is all about the idea of reducing consumption. The animation and the brand in general focuses greatly on nature as Patagonia in general pushes the importance of nature and sustainability more than their actual brand products which makes them almost a campaign rather than your typical fashion brand. We can clearly see this from the animation as they use illustrations of trees, clouds and the planet. In which I’ve taken a similar approach in my animation with the use of clouds and ocean demonstrating an environmental idea.
This Nike animation demonstrates a journey of brand-new trainers, it uses a cinematic style with a variety of closeup shots. Most importantly, it uses effective conceptual ideas such as the Nike swoosh being presented as a rock whereas in my design I’ve used the clouds as a conceptual narrative for the swoosh in the beginning of my animation. Similar to this animation, I’ve also used the format of the storyline revolving around a specific object being a pair of Nike shoes. In my animation, majority of the shots include pair of Nikes, and the ones that don’t include transitions that reveal the pair of Nikes in the next shot through foreshadowing and conceptual transitions. In this animation we also see the use of shoelaces as they travel through the rocky terrain and become part of the trainers, I’ve had a similar idea for for my animation however I kept it simple and made the shoelace conceptually transition into another object.
This animation focuses on the topic of fashion and sustainability but what stands out for me is the effective use of conceptual transition in this animation despite it being a very different style to my animation. This animation is rich in artistic illustration whereas mine uses raw photography. This animation uses a red string from a twine as the main object that is used throughout the animation in conceptual transitions, for example we see an effective conceptual transition of the red sewing string form into a red river which then transitions and conceptually forms into a red ink trace from a pen, these three completely different actions are smoothly created to produce an effective animation. I attempted to use a similar approach with the journey the pair of Nikes go through combining environment with the product.
Classical animation piece
References:
Info, P. (2020). Ocean Underwater Wallpaper HD. [online] PixelsTalk.net. Available at: https://www.pixelstalk.net/ocean-underwater-wallpaper-hd/
pngimg.com. (n.d.). cloud PNG image image with transparent background. [online] Available at: https://pngimg.com/image/4323.
All the other assets are either photographed or created in illustrator