Inspiring Sustainability Behavior Change With Sarah Snudden (MC of We Better Behave!)

Matt Salem 

Hi, everyone. I’m your host Matt Salem. You have tuned in to another episode of Our Best Behavior. A podcast brought to you by Behaviorally winner of the 2020 Market Research Podcast Award. Behaviorally formerly, PRS helps brands improve shopper and consumer experiences by defining and diagnosing the behaviors that drive shopper growth. Each month we produce a podcast to share industry insights on trending topics designed to help you make better shopper marketing decisions.

Today, we are lucky to be joined by Sarah Snudden, Insights Lead for Brand and Innovation at Tea Forté, who will also be our fabulous emcee for the upcoming We Better Behave! the event was brought to you by Behaviorally as well as other industry leaders. Sarah, so great to have you with us today.

 

Sarah Snudden 

Super excited to be here, man.

 

Matt Salem 

Awesome, awesome. Tell me a little bit about yourself. Tell the audience a little bit about yourself, please.

 

Sarah Snudden 

Yeah, um, well, I’m originally from Wisconsin via California to Vermont. And I think my roots in this idea of sustainability really come from my family upbringing. I had a dad who is a biologist. So, I was the kid who got to grow up around the biology department. And then I had the mom, who is the super enthusiastic second-grade science teacher. And so, it was kind of like living in this house where curiosity was really well enabled. And I’d come home from school, and my mom would be thinking of ways to get kids to ask the big questions about what was happening in the environment. And, you know, I’d come in, and she’d be like, Hey, I’m writing a song about landfills, you know, and she’d be like, what are some words that rhyme with sewer, you know, and we just go, there was always kind of this exercise at that happened to each summer where there’d be a miniature spider terrariums. And each of you knows, a set of wine glasses, it threw the neighbors off a bit, but I think getting that natural world, you know, into and connecting with students, she’d find the best spider and then bring it into the classroom and read Charlotte’s Web to the second graders. And I mean, basically, it was like growing up with Miss Frizzle as your mom. Except for I got Miss Frizzle’s hair.

 

Matt Salem 

I love it. I love it. And now I know from our personal conversation, while your 10-year-old is already looking into being more sustainable. So, with that, I guess we let the cat out of the bag a little bit. But, you know, we mentioned that you’re going to be hosting, We Better Behave! and We Better Behave! is an event that’s focused on sustainability. And, you know, we were very glad to have you. And I think you’ve alluded a bit to what interested you in joining this event in the first place, but perhaps a bit more of an industry and professional perspective.

 

Sarah Snudden 

Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s interesting, right? Sustainability. And the challenge of trying to think in a bigger picture, longer-term way, is a behavior change. And I think with that, for me, thinking about what motivates people to change behavior and how you build awareness, it’s, it’s a lot like building a brand. But in this case, it’s more of a purpose. And I hope more brands can embrace that purpose as we go.

 

Matt Salem 

Yeah, I like those analogies and parallels and in thinking along those lines, and about insights and the impact that insights can have on sustainability. When I say insights, of course, I’m referring to the world that we live in every day here at Behaviorally uncovering consumer insights primarily through behavior, but through a variety of means, including just speaking with consumers and understanding what they have to tell us.

Where do you see that crossroads of sustainability and insights? Because, for me, it’s very interesting. I’ve seen sustainability over the years be more so a tiebreaker, if you will, in consumers’ minds, right? And perhaps that’s beginning to shift more and more toward being a factor of greater importance. But many times, when speaking with consumers, it seems that if you have two offerings that are essentially the same, same benefits, same functionality. If one can offer a sustainable perspective, then that would lead to it being a tiebreaker.

But it’s not that you could be sustainable at the expense of a particular benefit or at the expense of functionality. So, when we think about insights and sustainability and what you’ve heard over the years, tell me a bit about the crossroads, if you will.

 

Sarah Snudden 

Sure. Um, I think that, first and foremost, behavior change is hard. It’s hard for people in every form, and there’s times when you know something is better for you and better for the planet. Like, I can see the exercise bike from where I’m sitting, and I can’t exactly tell you the last time I wrote it. It hasn’t gotten full clothes rack yet. But when I think about the challenge of sustainability, I try to think about it in the way I would a problem I might be trying to solve for a brand.

I think about where are the behaviors that are closest in where I might be able to get some leverage? Where could I potentially bundle something in that gets it closer to the world I’m trying to move to? And how can I inspire those bigger changes, or think about the real emotional wraparound, that has to be also in place, because I think, so many products and services are essentially the same if you’re, you know, kind of appreciating them, you know, without their branding, or, you know, in a way that you didn’t know what was what. I think the harnessing the emotional power is, is really key in the sustainability space.

And I think that really when I step back and think about what drives behavior change, or decisions, for so long in the industry, we were all about rational benefits. And I remember having the conversation with ad agencies even ten years ago, where there would be like, well, is this product and emotional benefit or rational benefit? And I’m like. It’s not an order question. You’ve got to have that emotional benefit there. And I feel like one of the best things we can do right now, as we think about sustainability, is really trying to connect the emotional piece in an empowering way.

It’s super hard because I think there’s you can see the parts that are scary or that sort of, you know, look like they’re looming on the horizon in a way that that’s really problematic, but making people feel empowered by those small choices to get the ball rolling in the right direction.

 

Matt Salem 

Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense to me. I love the idea of the importance of it being visceral, right? There has to be the emotional component. It can’t be either-or, I wonder, you know, do you have any examples from your past lives, if you will, in research, where you saw a success, where a brand was able to tap into that visceral aspect of sustainability and communicate that to shoppers?

 

Sarah Snudden 

Yeah, one of the things, one of the areas that are really something I care about, but it’s hard to hit exactly the right balance is fair trade. And I’ve done a lot of work in the coffee space, thinking about how you bring that benefit to life because there’s, there’s kind of a continuum of people who drink coffee that, you know, there’s sort of the, I just need to check this box and get my energy and move on with my day. And then there’s people who engage more with the taste of coffee. And then there’s the people who really, you know, like what happens in wine, get more to a. I understand where beans come from. And I know that there are certain attributes or a sense of terroir that, you know, comes from certain regions that I want to experience.

And as we think about fair trade, one of the examples that I think did a good job of bringing that to life in a way that was compelling for buyers was Green Mountain Coffee’s work to really champion what was happening. That brand has really great bones in the triple bottom line. And it was kind of one of those tensions as you watched a brand take off of like, this coffee brand that was initially the originator of airports and convenience stores and ways that we’re really thinking about getting coffee to people, innovatively, that suddenly was trapped in plastic and trying to kind of get back to that roots of really these important relationships with growers that they’ve maintained for years and years.

 

Matt Salem 

I love that example. Particularly as someone who drinks coffee drinks per day, I am very much a morning espresso shot, followed by three cups later, Green Mountain, so happens at Green Mountain.

 

Sarah Snudden 

All right. Do you know which variety?

 

Matt Salem 

The French Vanilla for sure, at the behest of those that stopped the coffee here, I probably do a box myself at the office every week, which would be twenty-four capsules, and I think I actually get the thirties, but I digress. I love my coffee.

 

Sarah Snudden 

Thank you. Thank you for your coffee drinking. No, no, it is really important. But then you think about the other side, you know, sort of it was fascinating to be at a company like that, that truly, you know, had some of the really great a lot of good Vermont based thinkers. You know you have Ben and Jerry. You had Jeffrey Hollender at seventh generation, who I also got to work with. And I think part of the challenge is that mix of sort of these really good, you know, core structures that people have in place that they feel viscerally about making a difference and then just The reality of what happens in marketplace shelf.

You know where all of a sudden, you might be the one that looks a little less flashy. And you know, I think the attention that I found more challenging was. You look at the world of products that go into plastic bottles, and you know, I’m a big fan of old school bars of soap. But when you look at like hand soap as an example, a lot of it’s gone into these plastic bottles. And gosh, there’s barely anything simpler than the packaging, for you know, a good old bar soap. It’s some paper.

 

Matt Salem 

Yup yup. Just a cardboard box.

 

Sarah Snudden 

But you know, even companies that really are after that bigger piece of the sustainability, you know, that we’re in early and often for that goal. Sometimes they still have to in order to compete. They find themselves in this tension of like, put it in the plastic bottle.

 

Matt Salem 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there’s true tension there. So, I guess switching gears a bit and thinking about We Better Behave! Bigger picture. There’s a lot on the agenda. It’s an exciting agenda. I know you have the pleasure of hosting and introducing quite the variety of speakers that are going to be present. Are there any that you’re particularly interested in seeing? Is there any one presentation you may have earmarked as this is one that I’m going to really, really need to pay attention to?

 

Sarah Snudden 

I’m honestly excited about the one about fashion because I think I feel that reality so acutely. I’m about ready to move houses, and I look into my closet, and I was like, I don’t even know what sparks joy. I can’t answer Marie Kondo’s question. It’s like, I know what I’m wearing every day. And it’s a pretty set rotation. I think that that thinking about fast fashion, and what that all means is, just seems like a really fun topic. I’m curious about the Plastic Bank presentation. I think, as a kid who well still feels like a kid at heart. I think one of the bigger disappointments that my mom, who’s no longer around, would have is, I think she’s so passionately pushed recycling. But there’s that leap of faith about where does it all really go? And I am almost happy she wasn’t around to find out. It wasn’t quite where we thought sometimes.

 

Matt Salem 

What do you hope to walk away with from this event in terms of nuggets, you know, learning some aha’s, if you will,

 

Sarah Snudden 

I’m really hoping for more ideas about behavior change. I’m a big fan of the literature on behavioral economics. And that reality that’s so hard of getting people to, you know, it’s easier to get someone to make a short-term quicker decision than it is for them to get to the longer term. And so, any ideas about how we drive, lasting behavior change, and those bigger picture changes makes me very excited. But I also think sustainability, such a great connection point in terms of the work we have to do in terms of what we actually consume, but also thinking about the human component. When I did the work on coffee. I feel like what resonated most for people without getting too heavy, was really empathizing with someone, as a farmer, as a producer, as someone who has a family and thinking about ways where we can extend sustainability to think about not just the earth, but the humans there feels like something really powerful there in terms of how we kind of seed empathy to kind of help get beyond just the, we have to make better dirt for the earth or air for the earth or water for the earth. But really think about the human side as well.

 

Matt Salem 

Yeah, like that. I was having an interesting conversation earlier today about sustainability and about, essentially, the intersection of the lifecycle of products versus the consumer, meaning, a lot of times, sustainability is thought about by the consumer as the endpoint, right? Like, do I put it in the recycling bin? And am I helping to be sustainable, but there’s really so much more that happens in terms of what leads to the product getting to your house?

And there’s ways that sustainability can be impacted when you think about the product lifecycle from a manufacturing perspective if you will. So, as we think toward the future of sustainability, having a positive impact on our planet, what’s your thoughts on brands, going further, and communicating with shoppers?

How is sustainability really coming into play in that bigger picture product lifecycle? Because I guess the conversation, I was having earlier was a bit about education, right? Like we need To educate our consumers, it’s not just getting them to put the recyclable product in the recycle bin; it’s helping them understand that there’s other ways products can be environmentally friendly.

And if we can communicate that to them, we may go further, you know, they may make better choices. So, wondering, I think about that in terms of the future of sustainability.

 

Sarah Snudden 

Yeah, I mean, honestly, as someone who’s worked on a lot of different products, you know, and some of them were more disposable, and some of them were more lasting. One of the things that was really eye-opening for me was thinking about how even big products can, you know, like, think about a glass, bottle of Clorox bleach, there were ways that they could take some water out and concentrate the bleach and make it have a bit more of a benefit and pull that amount of plastic down. So, you’re shipping less water. You’re shipping less plastic.

And, you know, I think as someone who then got to Seventh Generation, and showed up right at the time, that we were working with Walmart to approach this new ability, and really getting that sense of scale that a blink of Walmart’s eye because they’re so so big makes up a really big difference in in the totals, you know, when you add up all the little, little pieces, and we got some consumer feedback, you know, at the time we were doing it about whether Walmart was the right fit. But as we were thinking about the mission and how to inspire people to think out through sevens generations of their lineage in line, what that could mean. And it’s such a balancing act.

One of the things that I wonder a lot about in culture right now is I feel like there’s gotten to be such a black and white shoutiness of sides. And I feel like we can’t lose track of those small and gradual changes like change needs to happen fast. I get the urgency and how acutely change is needed. But it’s such a balancing act. You know, progress comes in different shapes and sizes. And I think, again, as I said, it really was eye-opening to me how little changes made by big companies can really make a big difference.

 

Matt Salem 

Absolutely. So, Sarah, hopefully, we’ve piqued people’s interest, and they will run to the internet to log in and register for We Better Behave! at WeBetterBehave.live. If we think about reasons to register, aside from the conversation here today, and obviously wanting to each do our part to help the planet and improve and increase sustainability efforts. What’s the reason that you would think people would want to join, We Better Behave?

 

Sarah Snudden 

I think for me, what I really appreciate events about events like this is the ability to collaborate with people who are also trying to figure it out. And people who take the behavioral action of registering and joining the conversation. I think, when I think about analogous examples, my insights innovation community is so important to me because there’s a lot of people who aren’t just interested in having that direct connection to people who are interested and trying to make the changes that I want to make. I feel like it always recharges my batteries and gives me good momentum to kind of keep on keeping on and working for things that, as we said, aren’t always the instant gratification wins.

 

Matt Salem 

Absolutely. Love that it’s like we can each do our part. And by joining, we’re doing our part, and just by putting our minds together, we’re helping the greater cause. So, I do love that and, and with that, there will also be a charitable donation made for every single person that registers for the event. So just more reason to join and do your part to help. Sarah, really, really thankful to have you here today with us on the podcast. It was a great conversation. I can’t wait for We Better Behave! and to have you lead us through the day. It’s going to be action-packed, there’s going to be a lot of great content, a lot of learning, and the strength and numbers will ensure that we are helping each to our part. So once again to our audience. Thanks for tuning in to our best behavior brought to you by Behaviorally. I’d like to thank our guests Sarah today, and we’ll catch you next time