Kian Bakhtiari, the author of December’s Bigeye Book Club selection, “Marketing for Social Change,” discusses how brands can drive meaningful social impact. Kian explores moving beyond performative activism to authentic change, strategies for maintaining momentum, and the evolution of marketing from driving consumption to creating positive social outcomes. He shares practical insights for marketers seeking to balance stakeholder interests while remaining true to their values.
Episode Transcript
Adrian Tennant: Coming up in this episode of IN CLEAR FOCUS
Kian Bakhtiari: A brand and a business needs to stand for something, and especially now in the 21st century, it’s not enough to just sell a product or service. Maybe if you’re a toothpaste or bleach, you might be able to get away with it. But if you’re a consumer brand, if you’re a business that has employees and works within communities, you have to stand for something.
Adrian Tennant: You’re listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, fresh perspectives on marketing and advertising, produced weekly by Bigeye, a strategy-led full-service creative agency growing brands for clients globally. Hello, I’m your host, Adrian Tennant, Chief Strategy Officer. Thank you for joining us. In a time of significant political and social transition, the role of brands in addressing social issues has become increasingly complex. As some companies reassess their positions on social initiatives, marketing professionals face unique challenges balancing stakeholder interests while remaining true to their values and maintaining authentic connections with consumers. Our guest today brings a valuable perspective on navigating these challenges. Kian Bakhtiari is the founder of The People, a creative consultancy powered by a global community of young changemakers. And one of the Top 50 Future Leaders by the Financial Times, Kian regularly writes about marketing through a Gen Z lens for Forbes and is an advisor to UN Climate Change. His new book, published by Kogan Page, is “Marketing for Social Change: How to Turn Purpose into Business and Social Impact,” which is our selection for the Bigeye Book Club this month. To discuss some of the key ideas in his book, I’m delighted that Kian is joining us today from London, England. Kian, welcome to IN CLEAR FOCUS!
Kian Bakhtiari: Hi Adrian, delighted to be joining you today.
Adrian Tennant: Your book, “Marketing for Social Change,” comes at a moment of political transition here in the US. What inspired you to write it, and how do you see the role of business in driving social progress and evolving in this environment?
Kian Bakhtiari: A political transition indeed! I guess to begin with that first question of what inspired me to write the book in the first place, is this underlying feeling which I’m sure I’m not the only one that we’re living in quite strange times. And this is great quote by Antonio Gramsci, and it goes something along the lines of “The challenge is that the old world is dying but the new struggles to be born,” and I think we’re actually in one of these times where we’re not quite in the new world, but we understand that existing systems and the old systems are no longer serving us. So the real reason behind writing the book was we’re in 2024 now but many of our practices, whether we look at society as a whole or marketing and advertising, is stuck in the 19th century.
Adrian Tennant: We’re seeing some of the largest companies reassessing their DEI and social impact initiatives. Kian, how should marketing leaders navigate this changing landscape while maintaining authentic stakeholder connections?
Kian Bakhtiari: Yeah, it’s a great question, and it’s also a reflection of the current realities of business going back to that point of the old world and the new world existing together. You often think of social progress as progressive, as in step-by-step, things move towards a positive direction. But as we can see throughout history, that’s not always the case. Often the old world and the new world live together and there’s often a struggle, a wrestling match for oxygen and who can get the idea across. And you see that played out, Adrian, both in the world of DEI, social impact, ESG, call it what you would. And I think how markets can really address these challenges is like all good markets do so the first thing is a brand and a business needs to stand for something. And specially now in the twenty-first century, it’s not enough to just sell a product or service. Maybe if you’re a utility like toothpaste or bleach, you might be able to get away with it. But if you’re a consumer brand, if you’re a business that has employees and works within communities, you have to stand for something. And secondly, you have to have a clear audience. And I think often the challenge comes from standing for neither side of the equation. So I would say this is a problem for companies that haven’t integrated social impact, DEI, into the core of their business practices. As we well know, after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, there was a huge influx of corporations and companies making social justice commitments, something I reference in the book. I think it was McKinsey who estimated it to be around $340 billion worth of commitments. But as you mentioned we’re now seeing that slashed back some quite publicly due to external pressure but often also some rather silently; they’re not as loud, the department’s a little longer existing, those job roles are no longer in place. And those that do exist find it really challenging to try to change the company within. So we also have to be respectful of the realities of people who are trying to advocate for social impact and diversity inclusion. It’s a tough job in an environment where the economy might not be doing well and the focus is on just hitting the numbers. And I would say the focus really should be on finding out what you stand for, what’s your mission, and who you’re serving because often most of the backlash and challenge comes from not standing for either side and then you almost don’t get the benefits of either so in the book I use the example of target where they created a whole range of LGBTQ+ products in their stores. This was a public commitment to show their commitment to the community. But then when they got backlash on that, they decided to scrap it. And I think in those scenarios where you don’t stand for something and don’t have an internal brief, and you’re swaying towards external pressures, you don’t get the benefit of either party.
Adrian Tennant: Kian, in your book, you outline how marketing, historically of course used to drive consumption, can be repurposed as a force for positive change. Can you explain this evolution?
Kian Bakhtiari: Yes, Adrian, and I would say this is very much at the heart and the central idea of the book, “Marketing for Social Change” is this idea that modern marketing was very much born out of the ashes of the industrial revolution. As a result of new technology we had extra capacity to produce products, and this was even more so after World War I and World War II, which meant we had this surplus of supply. And then what that meant was we needed to match that with demand and consumer demands. So we went through this process of what could be called manufactured demand, where PR companies, advertising companies were commissioned to promote consumption products. We’re at this really interesting point today where in most developed economies, the majority of the economy consists of consumer spending. So if we look at the US, 68 percent of the economy and the GDP is consumer spending. In the UK, it’s 60 percent. Ultimately, we need to find another way, another system because it’s not sustainable to have this infinite amount of consumption in a finite world. So the premise of the book is marketing at its heart – it’s a tool, it’s a skill, and it’s neutral. So as much as it can be used to promote and really sell cigarettes, oil, in a similar way it can be used to promote women’s rights, climate action, health. So it’s this idea of can we decouple marketing from consumption And if so, what could marketing look like in the 21st century? Because that shouldn’t be viewed as a really scary thing. From my perspective, it’s a really amazing opportunity to reimagine business and reimagine marketing in a way that respects our humanity and respects future generations.
Adrian Tennant: Your book discusses how change often faces resistance. Kian, what strategies can help maintain momentum for positive change even when the broader environment seems more challenging?
Kian Bakhtiari: I think the first thing is just accepting that if you want to change things, you are going to face resistance. That’s the reality of being a change maker because often change isn’t easy, and there is a status quo, and people are comfortable with that, and in our current world people benefit from the current system. So if you want to change and dislodge that that’s not going to be a comfortable act so that’s the first part. In terms of more specific how can people prepare for system change the first chapter of my book is on why changes hard so i really focus on from a behavioral perspective on a personal level. why do humans struggle with change and often it’s a survival instinct right if you were in the savannah and then you’d quite prefer consistency because change might mean you’re gonna get hunted down by an animal of sorts so there’s this comfort around a status quo bias where given the choice, we often prefer things not to change. The analogy I would use is if the TV is on, we would often keep it on the same channel rather than change the channel. Or if we’re going to the restaurant, it’s quite easy for people, even though they might want to explore, experiment with a different kind of lunch today, that often end up going for their usual because they know how it tastes and they know what they’re going to have. So first it’s just acknowledging that change can be hard and why we’re wired to really create a level of security and a level of familiarity. Next I would say the book also focuses on having a clear mission that brings people together and fights against the thing that is preventing change. So one part of it is having a mission of what you want the future to be like but as part of that you also need a fight of something that your brand organization is against so just to bring that to life. In the book there are examples such as Oatly, where for them, their mission was a more sustainable drink – but their fight was against Big Dairy that’s the thing that gave them energy so thinking about both what are you for and what future do you want to create but also what are you fighting against. Third i would say the power of community so not trying to do it alone i think often we see in the marketing industry and generally in business there’s this hero complex of i want to solve the problem by myself i’m going to start this initiative so Thinking a bit wider around systems and community and collaboration of who’s already doing great work in this space for the thing I want to change. I might be struggling, as you mentioned, Adrian, with resistance to change. So how can I build a coalition of people who believe in the same mission, who want to make this happen? So don’t try to do it alone. Try to bring people on the journey with you.
Adrian Tennant: Great advice. The People, your consultancy, takes an innovative approach by involving young changemakers directly in the work. Kian, how are they viewing current shifts in corporate social engagement?
Kian Bakhtiari: I think there’s a few different levels to that, Adrian. On the first level, one thing we see as quite a consistent theme across our community, so we have a global community of young changemakers, as you’ve mentioned, from all around the world, is many of them are struggling to see the path forward. And that comes from a place of there’s no outlet for them to shape their own future. If we look at the world of business or politics, if you think about it, 50% of the world’s population is under 30, but they’re rarely represented in those numbers in the world of business or politics. In business, the average board of directors is 60, which is great. They have lots of experience, but where are we hearing the voices of young people? And in politics, I believe it’s 2.6% of parliamentarians are under 30. So if you imagine if you’re a young person, that creates one of two responses. One is you completely disengage because you feel like you can’t make a difference. On the flip side, there’s hope because we see a lot of community members creating their own platforms and movements and they’re saying, if you’re not going to share the table with us, we’re going to create our own. Secondly, I would say where it’s playing out even more so than on the consumer and brand side is from an employee brand perspective and a workplace perspective where young people are choosing to work for companies that share their values. And that’s become increasingly important. So there’s this element of employee activism. In my book, I referenced the Paul Polman survey, which shows that this isn’t just things on the internet, it’s actually happening where nearly 50% of millennials and Gen Z have resigned from a workplace because it didn’t share the same values as them. Ultimately, if you’re a business, if you do have a positive social impact, you’re going to attract the best talent, you’re going to boost your brand advocacy, and you’re also going to prevent backlash.
Adrian Tennant: You also write about moving beyond performative activism to create authentic change. Kian, what does this look like in practice, particularly when some organizations may be feeling pressure to pull back?
Kian Bakhtiari: This i would say comes from a personal experience, so I think writing “Marketing for Social Change” is not necessarily just a theory; it’s based on my own practical experience working with companies and seeing the realities of most companies are on a spectrum and on different let’s say parts of the journey and how can we move beyond performative action? I think firstly, it’ll be good to define what performative action is and what’s real change. So on the performative side, I would say impact and change is not just on the kind of advertising lens. So what it isn’t is just diverse casting. So diverse casting is great. It’s important to make sure people can see themselves in advertising, but that doesn’t create system change. It doesn’t embed it in the business. Similarly, it’s not a PR exercise. So if the KPI and the ultimate outcome is just to get some good publicity or press, that’s also performative. And what I would say is people can always tell the difference between a business that really wants to create change and one that’s doing it to look good. And we focus a lot on young people and we’re talking about the most informed generation globally. So it’s not just what you say, it’s what they see, and they’ll do their homework. They’ll Google what your supply chains, what your kind of practices are. So you can’t just say things without backing them. In terms of what real change and real social action looks like, I think we’ve already touched on the point about having a clear stance and a mission. It works in three ways. One, it helps with decision-making because you know this is what we stand for and this is why we’re doing it. It mobilizes your employees but also external stakeholders. Second, it sounds simple but not many companies do it, is direct participation. So I have a whole chapter on participatory practices and how do you make sure in your governance you’re involving different stakeholders like communities and people. Because most companies are still quite hierarchical and they’ve not changed probably since ancient Egypt where you had this kind of pyramid structure. You’ve got the CEO, you’ve got the leadership, management, and frontline workers, and then communities are at the end. Whereas what if you flip that on its head and what became more participatory, where as you’re making decisions, you’re including those communities with lived experience, with expertise. I’ve included, for example, in Brazil they do participatory budgeting, which is citizens can decide where budgets go. Our own work with Penta Brands where we’ve built a youth advisory board where young people’s views are taken into consideration for future workplace implications. And then lastly, I would say decolonization, like doing this, going through the journey of writing this book. One of the things that really surprised me was how much of business practices comes from military and colonization, whether that’s the British Navy or the Dutch East India Company. And I think shifting from this extractive mindset to something that’s more regenerative and includes companies as part of society.
Adrian Tennant: Let’s take a short break. We’ll be right back after this message.
 | Adrian Tennant: In partnership with our friends at Kogan Page, this month’s Bigeye Book Club selection is “Marketing for Social Change: How to Turn Purpose into Business and Social Impact.” The book’s author, Kian Bakhtiari, presents a practical guide for brands looking to create meaningful social impact while building authentic purpose into their business strategy. “Marketing for Social Change” shows how brands can move beyond performative purpose to create lasting positive change. Through compelling real-world case studies, the book demonstrates how creativity and action can drive both social impact and business success. Shipping is always complimentary for customers in the US and the UK, so let “Marketing for Social Change” be your roadmap to building a purpose-driven brand that makes a real difference. |
Adrian Tennant: Welcome back. I’m talking with Kian Bakhtiari, founder of The People and author of our featured book, “Marketing for Social Change.” Some argue that brands should stick to business and avoid social issues entirely. I’m thinking of folks such as Robbie Starbuck, a conservative activist who’s led the charge against corporate DEI programs. Kian, how do you respond to this “stick-to-business” perspective?
Kian Bakhtiari: I would say my argument is that actually this is business. So if you think about it from the lens of how much we’re missing out by not including certain groups. So for example, our current economic system doesn’t take into account any negative externality. If we look at climate change and the climate crisis, and we’ll get into DEI as well, is there’s been lots of research done which shows that climate change has cost $2 Trillion to the economy over the last 10 years. So if you think about it from a business perspective, and if you think about it from a collective perspective, that’s a business problem. Similarly, when it comes to financial exclusion or poverty and equality, by not involving members of society in the economy have low productivity rates you have lower levels of innovation and creativity. Say I would like you the other point of buying not including all parts of society when losing out on impact innovation and creativity and for example if you look at negative externalities for business right, if let’s say a company creates a new factory in a country and they start producing goods and products, Naturally in the first quarter the company sales go up by twenty-nine percent so their revenue goes up by twenty-nine percent. But if they’re polluting the waters and the fish die, and then the local community can no longer fish. That’s at the moment not baked into our current economic structure so we’re missing out on value because we’re measuring value in a really narrow way which only looks at company profits.
Adrian Tennant: Hmm. It’s a more holistic view of a company’s impact is really important.
Kian Bakhtiari: Absolutely and companies are part of society I think we really need to debunk this myth that a business exists outside of society because if it wasn’t for people who are employees, people who buy the product and advocate for it, and natural resources companies would not be able to do what they do now because of regulation or lack of regulation that’s not being accounted for.
Adrian Tennant: Your book emphasizes the importance of collaboration over competition. Why is this shift critical for addressing major social challenges?
Kian Bakhtiari: It’s really important. We touched on colonialism, but also extractivism. So most business models have focused on extracting more than they put back. And you can view that in a number of ways, whether it’s on the environmental level, towards communities. So the way they make profit is they take stuff and the surplus of that is their profit. And what that creates is a scarcity model where you can only win if others lose. Whereas if we think about a more regenerative model, if you view the world through the lens of abundance, it becomes about collaboration rather than competition. And if we look at most of the world’s biggest challenges, they are not restricted to an individual company or individual country. They’re multinational, they’re complex, and they require mobilization on a level and scale that we’ve not seen before. And in order to do that, so I’ll give a very simple example. Let’s say coffee or chocolate. That’s going to be really hard to grow if the climate keeps becoming much hotter, right? Now that becomes a problem for all chocolate and coffee manufacturers. Because it’s also a problem for society so rather than trying to tackle that on a singular brand or business level which will be hugely ineffective inefficient, why not pull your kind of resources and talent together to tackle some of our biggest problems so i think increasingly my hook is the future will be. One of collectives more decentralized but also more open to working with each other. That’s not to say companies won’t have things which are proprietary, it’s just to say on bigger matters, where the whole category can either lose or gain, there is this opportunity to collaborate.
Adrian Tennant: We love case studies on IN CLEAR FOCUS, so could you share an example of a brand that has successfully maintained its commitment to social impact while navigating pushback?
Kian Bakhtiari: Yes, there’s a number of different brands, but one that comes to mind and I’m sure won’t be new to listeners, but I think it’s important because often consistency and standing and believing in something is important is Ben and Jerry’s. So if you look at Ben and Jerry’s on a surface level, it’s ultimately an ice cream company. They sell ice cream. But the brand views that as a vehicle to create social change, and that’s been very much embedded into the business from the founders Ben and Jerry from the very start, so I think they had a clear mission around the world they want to see and their activism and their clear focus on mobilizing communities, but also supporting communities. So they’ve done a lot of work in America focused on the justice system and how it disproportionately affects and criminalizes the Black and African American community, which is a big problem in the US with the prison systems. In the UK, they’re focused on refugee rights. In the book, I mentioned the example of Ben and Jerry’s decided not to sell their ice cream and occupied Palestinian territories which created a tension with Unilever and I think that’s where it becomes really challenging is when sometimes the mission might have short-term implications when it comes to commercial results. And that’s when you see the flip side of what we talked about earlier, of companies who have kind of reined back on their DEI commitments. When things get hard, when things aren’t so nice, and when there’s public pressure and scrutiny, that’s when you actually see the companies that are committed to this, irrespective of whether they benefit from it or not.
Adrian Tennant: Your book discusses the importance of building bridges between different perspectives. Kian, how can marketers help reduce polarization while still advancing positive change?
Kian Bakhtiari: It’s an interesting one, Adrian, and it’s one I’ve wrestled with. It’s quite interesting when you look at surveys done around trust and often people are less trustworthy of governance than they are of business. And I think what’s become really interesting is we’ve started to view brands. We want to see the brands we engage with as a vehicle to create the world we want to see. But that’s tough because as mentioned previously, the current structures don’t always allow that. And when we think about building bridges and bringing together, you could argue that the world is increasingly fragmented, whether you look at that on a geopolitical level, within countries, so whether you take the USA or the UK or other parts of Europe or Brazil you’ve got divisions within the country. And also finally, I would say on an individual level, we live in an increasingly socially isolated world where even if we look at young people they are lonely than generations before and there’s this opportunity especially for brands to bring people together and have uncomfortable conversations and bridge these gaps. Like for example, if I look at the US and the current elections there’s been a million and one ways that people have interpreted it, but one of the interpretations that I personally like the most and gives me some hope is you’ve had a large number of people who voted in a way where they don’t longer believe in the current system now you could argue they might not have much choice of where to channel that But I think, again, if you can have conversations between people that don’t agree, one of the challenges is everyone’s almost speaking into their own groups and they’re not being exposed to the views of others. So how can brands create platforms which creates dialogue?
Adrian Tennant: As you reflect on the publication of “Marketing for Social Change,” what takeaways were there for you personally through the writing process?
Kian Bakhtiari: Great question, Adrian. I would say one on a personal level is if I was left to my own device and I wasn’t working with KoganPage, it’ll probably take me 10 to 20 years to write a book. And I think it makes me reflect and I’m sure you’ll know like the power of a deadline to kind of focus energy and efforts so I probably had just over six months to write the book, and it made me think we’re so much more capable and inventive than we think we are when we’re put under constraints. So it’s the power of constraints to create something much greater than you thought. And then on a content level and thematic level, I think it’s the shift, seeing the shift from the old school way of doing marketing, which is very much top-down hierarchical towards how do you build new participatory processes, which involve people in the process. So thinking about it in relation to power.
Adrian Tennant: Kian, this was your first book. Do you have any future writing projects in mind?
Kian Bakhtiari: Wow. If you asked me after I’ve just finished my last chapter I would have told you Adrian, never! It’s been a really rewarding process I’ve really enjoyed it, but it’s been very tough balancing that with running the business. I think I’ll give you a marketer’s answer. They say you should market twice as much as you’ve spent building and creating the theme. So I would say at least for the next two or three years, I really want to focus on helping organizations and individuals to try to harness some of the tools and frameworks in the book before even starting to think about the next idea. So there’s one thing to write the book, but I really, really passionate about making sure it’s a playbook and it doesn’t gather dust on people’s shelves and they can actually use it in their daily lives, in their projects, campaigns, business meetings to create social change, which is good for communities, but also make sure their business is future proofs.
Adrian Tennant: Love that. Kian, what’s the one thing you’d like readers to take away from your book?
Kian Bakhtiari: Adrian, that’s a tough question and I expect nothing less from you. I’m gonna cheat slightly on this one. I’ll give one thing but I’ll give one which is personal and one which is collective. So on a personal level in the book in the early stages I talk about this idea of micro activism. So often, we think of social change as this huge systemic thing, which can be quite overwhelming because we don’t know where to start and we don’t feel like we can make a difference, so it’s just this idea of micro activism where in your daily actions you can create a change so whether it’s like you’re walking in the morning and you smile at someone or you buy from a independent business. Or you think about your pension scheme for example, these are small things which shifts your perspective from being a passive consumer to being an active citizen and seeing that your actions have an impact on society. So that’s the one thing from a personal level. And then on a collective level, I think more than ever, and especially seeing what’s happened in the US, we need people to come together. You’ve got so much happening in technology and AI, and it’s often easy to forget that the only way things have ever changed is when people come together, they unite, they organize to actively call for change. And I think what consumerism has done really well is it’s individualized people and activism through the lens of consumption. So for example, I don’t know, using less plastic or making sure like you’re using a metal straw and that’s great. We all need to have our kind of individual actions, but we need to think as part of a community and as part of a bigger connective. So my call to action for any marketers is to think about who can you collaborate with to push your mission and what you’re trying to do further.
Adrian Tennant: Great conversation. If listeners would like to learn more about your work at The People or your book, “Marketing for Social Change,” what’s the best way to do so?
Kian Bakhtiari: In terms of The People, so you can find out more at www.thepeople.work And for the book, you can check out your podcast, Adrian, Kogan Page website, and also Amazon and all great book companies.
Adrian Tennant: Excellent. And a reminder that IN CLEAR FOCUS listeners can save 25 percent on “Marketing for Social Change” when you order directly from KoganPage.com using the promo code BIGEYE25 at checkout. Kian, thank you very much for being our guest on IN CLEAR FOCUS.
Kian Bakhtiari: Thank you, Adrian. It’s been a pleasure.
Adrian Tennant: Thanks again to my guest this week, Kian Bakhtiari, the author of this month’s featured book, “Marketing for Social Change.” As always, you’ll find a complete transcript of our conversation with timestamps and links to the resources we discussed on the IN CLEAR FOCUS page at bigeyeagency.com. Just select ‘Insights’ from the menu. Thank you for listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, produced by Bigeye. I’ve been your host, Adrian Tennant. Until next week, goodbye.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00: The Importance of Purpose in Branding
01:11: Navigating Social Issues in Marketing
02:06: Inspiration Behind “Marketing for Social Change“
03:20: Reassessing DEI and Social Impact Initiatives
06:15: Integrating Social Impact into Business Practices
07:06: The Evolution of Marketing Beyond Consumption
09:03: Strategies for Sustaining Momentum for Change
12:17: Engaging Young Changemakers in Corporate Social Engagement
14:51: Moving Beyond Performative Activism
20:00: The Case for Business Involvement in Social Issues
22:32: Collaboration Over Competition for Social Challenges
24:31: Case Study: Ben & Jerry’s Commitment to Social Impact
26:55: Building Bridges to Reduce Polarization
29:01: Personal Reflections on Writing the Book
30:07: Future Writing Projects and Focus
31:14: Key Takeaways from “Marketing for Social Change“
33:26: Where to Learn More About Kian Bakhtiari
