When you're a company with a mission and an online organic store, how do you go about aligning values and marketing strategy ? In this interview, Manon Le Bourdiec gave us her vision, that of Greenweez, and it was an incredibly rich discussion that I recommend to all companies thinking about their impact.
GreenweezGreenweez is the 1st online organic supermarket, and more generally the desire to offer eco-responsible alternatives to all traditional consumer products. Greenweez has very strict specifications, a labelling system and manufacturing sites mainly in France or Europe, etc...
Manon Le Bourdiec came to talk to us about Greenweez's ambitions, about replacing traditional consumption with more virtuous consumption, and also about their long-term vision for the regenerative strategy:
"The notion of regenerative means taking into account all the planetary limits that have now been defined. [...] It means transforming our model by saying to ourselves: I'm not just trying to limit negative impacts, I'm trying to transform that into positive impacts. How, in the end, can my company contribute positively to the whole chain of nature, the environment, biodiversity, etc.?
List of references cited during the podcast:
- HEC Master in Sustainability and Social Innovation
- MACIF
- Ecosia
- Mano Mano
- Patagonia
- Biocoop
- AXA Climate
- CrushOn
- Brawler
- Vela
To listen, click here!
This recording is also available on all podcast platforms:
Text transcript of the podcast recorded with Greenweez
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
Hello Manon.
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
Hello.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
Thank you for being with us today. First of all, can you introduce yourself, tell us where you're from and what you do most days?
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
Thank you very much for the invitation to this podcast. Manon Le Bourdiec, I'm currently the marketing and communications director, or rather CMO, of Greenweez. I'll come back to Greenweez in a moment. It's a bit of a classic career path. I'm a graduate ofHEC in a major called SASIwhich focuses on the environment, sustainability and alternative models. It's a major where we study a lot about mutualism and cooperatives. We also think very early on about tripartite accounting, etc... Things we saw in class a few years ago, which are quite fascinating and which have always made me want to work in organizations that have meaning and impact, whatever that notion of meaning and impact may be.
My career path began at the Ministry of the Economy, because at that time, I had this desire to work for the notion of the common good. At the Ministry of the Economy, I worked on export support for companies. This was a company that had been rejected by the private market and wanted to go international, so it asked for help from the public sector. In all honesty, it was a fascinating project, but in the end, it wasn't really for me, the public sector.
I think I was a bit impatient in terms of speed of execution. I was lucky enough to join the company as a Project Manager reporting to the Deputy Managing Director, in charge of all marketing, digital development and distribution for the company. MACIFwhich is a mutual company with a positioning that I found extremely interesting, since they have no shareholders. The shareholders are the member-policyholders. I got into this alternative mode. It's a company with great values. Then, one thing led to another, and I was lucky enough to move to another insurance company, by chance, where I held the position of office manager, then marketing, innovation and communication manager.
From there, I moved into marketing a little more, but with the common thread of working on the company's top line, development, innovation and digital. This aspect of trying to do things differently, to transform, to keep moving forward and to accelerate is something that has always driven me.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
How did you hear about Greenweez?
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
I was working on the defense side of the insurance business. It was very interesting in terms of content, but in the end, it didn't suit me as much in terms of value. I was just telling you that this notion of impact was something that drove me. My partner and I went on a round-the-world trip for a year, which turned out to be a bit complicated because it was during the Covid. But we did manage to do a bit of slow travelling. When we got back, I handed in my resignation and said to myself "We've got to get out of Paris". We had Annecy in our sights. Half mountain, half lake, for us it was a return to nature.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
Like manycompanies on ImpactYou're a breeding ground around Annecy.
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
Exactly. There are a lot of boxes at Impact and I was lucky enough to arrive just when they were looking for a marketing director. Greenweez is a brand I knew, and I wasn't a customer, but now I'm more than a regular customer. I was used to consuming organic products and I also wanted to accelerate in that direction. It was like the planets aligned at a moment's notice and, to be honest, firstly, it's a beautiful impact box and secondly, it's a change of life that I have absolutely no regrets about, and that's great.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
I understand that. Here's your chance to open up a little about Greenweez. What is Greenweez? How did it come about?
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
Greenweez was founded almost 15 years ago by Romain Roywho is still at the head of the company, with this desire to offer alternatives to traditional consumption, mainly very quickly in the organic sector. We're still the leader in online organic products, but two years ago, we launched our marketplace and expanded our offer to include all aspects of everyday consumption. We now have over 170,000 products, with the aim of offering an eco-responsible alternative, whatever the product. For example, you're reading the latest IPCC report on your cell phone, you smash your phone on the floor and say to yourself, "How can I consume a phone in an eco-responsible way?" Either don't buy it. For a cell phone, let's face it, it's a bit complicated, but there are alternatives. Reconditioned phones, and even better, reconditioned phones made in France. We started from this principle, saying to ourselves: "Today, we need to consume differently, to consume less, but to consume better.
There are always things we'll need. We'll need to eat, buy shampoo, buy a table. We come up with the most ecological alternatives possible. We have extremely strict specifications, with a system of labelling, place of manufacture, etc. for everything. We give priority to "Made in France". If there's absolutely nothing made in France, we expand a little to "Made in Europe", and always with very strict choices, precisely, in these labels and in this desire to offer something as ecological, eco-responsible and sustainable as possible for consumers.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
So 170,000 products is a huge number. Does that mean there are 1,500 of you occupying gigantic warehouses? How do you manage to work? I was going to talk about Amazon later, but I'm going to talk about it directly. Gigantism isn't necessarily the stuff of dreams for people who are a little involved in ecological issues, it can even be frightening. How do you align your values with this volume?
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
It's true that our aim was to broaden our range to offer as many categories as possible, and therefore as many universes as possible for better consumption. Our aim was to broaden our range rather than to go too deep into it. We're not going to offer 500 different rice products. On the contrary, we have a very strict choice, so we're going to focus on the products we find essential. On the other hand, we're going to open up to other categories - recently, outdour, fashion a few months ago, now we're going to accelerate on second-hand, etc. Our first idea is to have extremely strict specifications, and even to make them stricter and stricter as the products and the universes increase. We have, for example, backtracked on certain vendors we may have had initially, because we felt they met our specifications. Then, the further along we got, the more we said to ourselves "No, in fact, we're different as a marketplace, so we're going to go one step further in our choice of products". The other point is to try to accompany the consumer in a different way. It's also about taking them by the hand and saying, "Okay, we've got a lot of products, but you've got to get to the essentials on what you need." Finally, this volume of products is not at all a desire to encourage over-consumption or anything else, but really to say "We have alternatives for everything. This will enable you to consume 100% eco responsibly in your living environment. But that doesn't mean you have to buy everything. It means doing things differently."
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
Once again, we're focusing more on a strategy of replacement and helping consumers replace non-organic products with available alternatives.
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
But also in their lifestyle. For example, in parallel, we have a major content strategy where we offer a huge number of tutorials, DIY, etc... on how to make your own washing powder, how to reuse cardboard, how to plant your own garden, on a mini-balcony, in permaculture, etc... So, we also have this desire to say that, ultimately, this consumption involves different products, but also a different way of seeing things. And the last point, to fully answer your question, is that in the end, when we think about this notion of eco-responsibility, today it's a necessity. Ecologically, we no longer have a choice when we see what's happening, the latest IPCC reports and the latest climate analyses that have come out recently. But everyone enters into this new consumption in a different way. At some point, we're all sensitive to something. For example, "I want to reduce my plastic waste: I see my garbage cans piling up. I want to do things differently, and I'm going to start with zero waste". Or "I saw a report on endocrine disruptors, which traumatized me, so I want to consume better by eating organic." Or "Covid made me think a little differently about manufacturing in France. And so, from now on, I'm going to favor, as soon as I can, from an economic point of view, made in France." In the end, we all have a cause that motivates us a little more. And that's what was important to us. We want to help everyone consume better through the door they choose. It can also be second-hand. It can be different labels, gluten-free, vegan, etc. And every time, it's about saying "You want to do things differently? Do you want to do better for the planet?" And we're going to help you do that, whatever your solution.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
So how do you go about acquiring new customers? Because there is an acquisition logic behind it, to acquire new customers. Traditionally, through these different entry points, we've focused more on the product than on the desire to change consumption patterns. How does this change the way you work on customer acquisition?
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
As far as we're concerned, we do a lot of work on the upper and mid-funnel of brand storytelling. To explain who we are, what we can offer as an alternative, etc... For us, this consumption on the site can't be differentiated from this desire to explain, to educate... Our whole mid-funnel strategy, on social networks for example, revolves around this. It's all about what I was saying earlier, DIY and tutorials. We also have a very successful blog with recipes, recommendations, how to use soda ash etc... We have a real mid-funnel and high funnel positioning strategy. As for our low-funnel strategy, we still have a fairly classic start-up positioning. The only downside is that we're determined to make an impact, and we'll be talking about this later, particularly in terms of sobriety. We are increasingly analyzing the impact of our actions, particularly in terms of carbon. But we do have an acquisition strategy, particularly when we open up new universes. At the same time, we do this mid-high funnel by telling these new stories. We launch the trend, explain why, how etc... and why it's key for us to move into these new universes. And then we're going to have a fairly classic strategy, SEA/SEO, which is a major one, since we need to get our key consumers, our core customers, to buy into these new universes, but we also acquire a lot of customers through these new universes. So, these communicating bases are key and, to make them work, we need to have a relatively classic acquisition strategy based on a rather classic mix of channels.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
Okay. Let's go back to the classic thread, because we've already strayed a little. One of the questions we've traditionally asked is what does sobriety mean for Greenweez?
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
I think that for us, and this is the basis of our marketing strategy which we're reworking, particularly for 2023, is to do less but better. There's this notion today, a bit like trying to get people to consume less but better, of working on our marketing and communication. For me, it's all about the end result and also "UX Design". I have my own "UX Design" department, and I feel that everything fits into this sobriety component. The aim is to work on this notion of less, less impact, less carbon impact, less digital impact, etc... But to have results that are as relevant as ever, and in our results, to end up with a classic sales-margin analysis. It's still marketing, but it's also impact. We have this triptych today, this triptych of KPIs that we look at regularly and that all the marketing teams have as KPIs, and in particular the various managers. They are also objectified on an Impact KPI, which remains key for us. This notion of sobriety must be embodied on a daily basis. We have to try to be creative, to be innovative, to do less, do it differently, better, more relevant, but with the least negative impact.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
When you talk about KPIs, it's interesting to ask yourself that, alongside the classics of traffic, sales, average basket, etc., what is the content of these KPIs that will measure impact?
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
We've done a lot of work. We started with the simplest KPI, which is the site's weight. We have a real eco-design topic and we regularly check the speed of the site, the speed of our pages and especially the weight, because there are sites where you can evaluate the ecological weight in terms of CO? of each of our pages. We had a UX Design team trained in this, and on the other hand, on the ecommerce side, all the sales and CRM activities in the newsletters, we tried to optimize the weight of all this, so the digital impact. In the end, that was the easiest thing to do, because it's so easy to find websites. We also know the impact of newsletters, it's easy. We analyze it every time and try to work on it. It's always complicated because we try to tell more stories. We always want to do lots of things, but we say to ourselves "We're going to try to do less anyway, and we'll calculate it all". The other KPI we have is that we're lucky enough to be able to do carbon audits.
We did our carbon footprint this year and were given a few KPIs on video volume. For example, on social networks today, we try to limit videos. We're trying to limit high-definition, 4K videos, which are absolutely useless because everyone watches them on their cell phones, and so we're also giving ourselves KPIs precisely in terms of the weight of our publications. Typically, it's much better to make an infographic than a video. We try to multiply this. Less photos, more drawings, etc... Trying to rework the basics of eco-design. Then there are all the more classic marketing levers. You mentioned acquisition. We asked ourselves a lot of questions about acquisition. We're lucky to have an in-house CSR manager who's brilliant and highly motivated to help us with all these issues. We've found a few calculators on the Internet where we fill in the number of words we're positioned on, the number of videos, displays, etc... And they give us an overall carbon impact.
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So, we're also trying to say, "Okay, we took a photo at the beginning of the year, and we're going to try, in proportion to our investments, to reduce these impacts." This also means reducing the use of video, and rethinking the formats we push at the top of the funnel a little differently, whether in social ads, display, YouTube, etc. And then, trying to think of ways to reduce the impact of our investments. We're also trying to position ourselves on slightly different search engines. Today, we're actually on Google Bing. We're also making progress on Ecosiaetc.. So all the engines are a little different too.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
What's more, you probably already have a target audience on these alternative engines. I was going to say mass, but you've just thwarted that notion a little. How do you position yourself in relation to GAFAM? Amazon isn't a subject for you because, of course, you're a marketplace yourself, so there's no point in talking about it. Nevertheless, I wanted to come back to KPIs. There's a subject that's gaining ground, even if it's not yet very well understood. It's the subject of climate shadow, which attempts to calculate not only the direct impact of communication and marketing, but also the carbon footprint of purchases made as a result of marketing actions. Are you now able to calculate an average basket in carbon equivalent alongside your average basket in monetary terms? Is this something you're trying to do?
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
It's funny because we haven't put the average basket back. On the other hand, in our carbon footprint, we have a very clear assessment of our products. It's extremely interesting that you should mention this, because we have several ambitions, notably in the very short term to reduce our carbon footprint, but in the medium term, to move towards a regenerative approach. But then, if we want to reduce our carbon footprint, we also want to reduce the carbon footprint of our baskets and reduce the carbon footprint of that famous average basket you mentioned. This means continually optimizing our offer with products that have the lowest possible carbon footprint. Unfortunately, there are always products that are... For example, among the products on which we're focusing, we have cow's milk, because as we know, cattle have a relatively high carbon impact. And in the organic sector, our main persona is the young mother. The young parent, let's be a little more open, is going to buy infant milk. Because of its weight in the mix and its carbon impact, it's a very strong component of our own carbon footprint. So, it's interesting what you're saying because, yes, we need to have this average basket too. We've started working with our CSR Director and our Purchasing Director to optimize all this and to rework the basket mix a little. This involves a great deal of education in terms of communication and marketing, in order to steer customers towards products with the lowest possible carbon footprint, mainly zero waste. We're pushing zero waste very hard to convince people of this, but we're also working on our own offer. We have a bit of both to work on. It's really interesting. We don't yet have this vision of the climate shadow, to visualize it exactly, but we already have these first figures and we're working on them. I don't put it directly in my marketing and comm impact, but in the end, it's there. It's a major factor today.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
Because it's true that here we're coming back very quickly, particularly to orders of magnitude, because what you were saying about infant milk, I have to admit that I'm not sure there are any viable alternatives today on that part. You probably know that better than I do.
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
Yes, on rice milk, for example, just no cow's milk. But it's an extremely sensitive subject, and it's very complicated to educate people about it. At the same time, there's a legal issue and there's also an issue of will.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
But what I'm getting at is that if we take products that are perhaps a little more consensual, there's a real need to educate people as to why the impact on emissions is very different between one choice and another. Being able to redirect consumption towards one or the other is obviously where you have a major communication objective.
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
It's funny because we came across a German ad, where basically, there was a product with a crossed-out price that said less 50% of carbon impact. This notion of promotion was compared to an organic banana versus a conventional banana. Banana isn't a good product, because banana is imported, but there was this comparison between the two and the idea of saying "I'm gaining in carbon impact". It's always the same job, as soon as you get into this, to say "If I calculate the carbon impact, my traditional product actually costs a lot more in terms of overall impact. But it's not just carbon. Impact on nature, impact on biodiversity. If I calculate all that, in fact, this non-organic banana is extremely expensive. So, yes, this organic alternative does have a price tag, there's something monetary about it, which is ultimately what we look at on a daily basis, but there are lots of other things. It's this desire to look at all these things. Today, we don't know how to put a figure on it, but we're trying. We're trying to look at it, and this is also something we're working on with our CSR Director, to say to ourselves, "How can I tell a story around this? How can I add value to these eco-responsible organic purchases and tell them that they're worth something? How do I make it real?" We have our own KPIs, but how can I give customers KPIs too? There's a study that came out not too long ago that said that if all the companies - I think it's the 100 biggest American companies - included in their figures the cost to the climate, to biodiversity, to CO? etc. of all their externalities, they would no longer be profitable. It's this notion that we need to be able to analyze and concretize on a daily basis, both in our narrative, in our storytelling, but ultimately also very concretely in our sales promotion.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
I'll pick up on what you've just said, and then we'll move on to the regenerative strategy, because you had some things to say. There are Mano Mano which has been communicating quite a lot lately about the fact that they're gradually going to introduce a carbon score for some of their products, and they're not yet able to do so for all of them. Do you have any discussions between ecommerce platforms and marketplaces like yours, even though you're in very different niches? To come up with common methodologies that would enable you to have indicators on your respective sites that can be understood by users and, above all, that aren't different every time? Because that's the problem with echoescores, etc... It's that we need to be able to really compare and not say to ourselves "If it's B on one site, on the other, it's not the same rating at all".
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
Quite honestly, I'm not in that league, but it's necessary. It's necessary because, as you say, today's product scores differ from one platform to another. At some point, we're going to have to have something, either a label or an almost universal scoring system. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, even transcategory, transuniverse... on all possible products, I think we're going to get there, we're going to get there. I think that the notion of labeling is also key, to move forward on ever more eco-responsible labels and in particular regenerative labels, which do not exist today in Europe. There's a label being set up in the US, notably by Patagoniawhich is making good progress in this area. But I think we're only at the beginning of the road when it comes to clarifying the impact of the product and labelling this regenerative aspect, or more generally the impact on biodiversity and the environment, in the broadest sense.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
This makes a good transition to the regenerative strategy. Go ahead, get started.
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
In a nutshell, the notion of regenerative means taking into account all the planetary limits that have now been defined. There's water, biodiversity, greenhouse gases, etc. All these planetary limits have to be taken into account. It's about transforming your model by saying to yourself "I'm not just trying to limit negative impacts, I'm trying to transform that into positive impacts. How, in the end, can my company contribute positively to the whole chain of nature, the environment, biodiversity, etc.? It's a whole process that makes us ask ourselves a lot of questions. We're not farmers ourselves, so we're at one end of the value chain, which means we can't be regenerative ourselves. We can aim to be regenerative and help an entire industry reinvent itself. And then, since we can never be 100% positive impact, we have to say, "OK, what's going to continue to be negative impact? The goal is to minimize that. How do I neutralize these negative impacts as much as possible? It's really something that's pushing us to rethink our entire business, our entire value proposition to customers, and to think anew about our role in society and the environment we need to have tomorrow. Our roadmap is 2030. Last year, our CSR Director and our founder Romain Roy took part in the "Communauté d'Entreprises pour le Climat" (Business Community for Climate Action), and they got the message across to us. There are always moments when you feel a bit dizzy, when you say to yourself: "OK, we're going to have to change everything, reinvent everything". Now, we talk about it a lot with our teams, telling them that "It's a long timesheet, but we're going to take it step by step and the first steps are coming now. So how do I start moving forward very slowly, laying the foundations on all this?"
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
What does this mean in practical terms?
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
We have several components. We've already tried to rethink certain aspects of the offer, to make stricter choices in our specifications, etc. So we're tightening the funnel even though we already have very strict specifications. We're making slow progress on this. The other subject, which concerns me in particular, is to speed up the educational aspect. We have to say to ourselves: "In my role as a company, I also have a duty to help our customers, and more broadly all our fellow citizens, to become more aware, to consume differently and to help them to do a little more. It's this aspect that's extremely key. As I was saying earlier, we have a blog, Twitter self actions, tutorials and so on. We're going to be stepping up the pace on all these fronts, with an almost daily training and support process that's even more advanced. Initially, we were focusing on alternative recipes, making your own beauty products, etc... Now, we're going much further in terms of the universe and it's really your daily life, everything that surrounds you, to better inform and have a much stronger awareness.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
It also requires us (because we're talking about carbon emissions all the time at the moment) to try and go beyond that and into all the other areas. That ties in with another question I wanted to ask you. You were talking about Ecosia and advertising on Ecosia. Obviously, that's an audience that's "acquired" for you, even if Greenweez isn't the only one. But if you move towards a discourse like that, will you continue to be able to address people who perhaps have a more targeted ecological awareness? As you said, "At some point, I saw a report and was shocked by it, so I stopped consuming such and such a product. But how do you manage to avoid scaring people and being too... "extremist"? Even if I don't think so, for some people that may be their vision. How do you keep expanding the people you're going to want to attract?
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
Yes, which is our goal, because it's necessary. That's a great question. For us, there's also the recognition of not being perfect as a company, as an individual. We're honestly a company where people are very committed to the environment, but if we all wanted to be perfect ecologically, we'd really have to go further than we all do. It's already saying to ourselves, "Today, we all have to do something, but it's normal not to go all out at once. We all have an awareness that goes something like "I'm stopping buying this product, I'm boycotting this brand, I'm starting with these actions." And for us, it's at this point that we need to take them by the hand and say, "Congratulations, I'm going to accompany you. I'm going to accompany you already in the universe you choose in 1 and little by little, make you understand that there are other universes and that it's possible and that it's easy." These aren't such big sacrifices, it doesn't cost that much, far from it. On the contrary, there are plenty of low-cost alternatives to consuming in a more eco-responsible way. In the end, the impact of all this, which we're going to quantify at some point, is worth it. On the contrary, it's all about being very humble, explaining, gently educating, and not being too guilt-inducing. I agree with you, that's not our role. We're very committed, we're militant, but militant in saying "We respect everyone's actions." "You bought your table made in France, so cool. You didn't eat organic. That's okay." Everyone makes an effort, and even the smallest effort is important. That's also what we need to work on. But from a brand point of view, it's a real difficulty to say "I'm committed, I'm a brand that's as militant as the others". BioCoopBut I'm in no way guilt-tripping. It's also about informing, educating, giving advice, learning, how to reuse this, how to reuse your other cooking, how to do this, how to do that... It's also about easy little everyday tips, and we encourage people to go back to these little, simpler everyday tips.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
Which means that every time you post something, you have to torture your brain a little to know if you're really on your thread and if you're not turning left or right?
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
Exactly. And we can be. At times, we've republished information on the IPCC report or things like that. We've had customers say, "That's not what I want from you. OK, fine. But that's our position.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
Yes, that's your mission.
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
Exactly, that's our mission. our raison d'être because we're a company with a mission. I didn't mention it, but that's our raison d'être. And in our raison d'être, we have this aspect of disseminating information to as many people as possible and teaching as many people as possible, which is a key element of our pillars. It's part of who we are, it's part of our positioning. We sometimes have extremely demanding customers who, when we've launched our Marketplace and opened up new worlds, say "Why are you going there? Because we think that's where other people will come in. Today, we consider second-hand goods to be one of the first steps towards eco-responsible consumption, particularly for this new generation, Generation Z. And so, reconditioning is one of the first steps towards eco-responsible consumption. And so, reconditioned goods, second-hand clothes, etc... So, we have to go for it. It's a key door.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
Another question I almost always ask the people I interview is: "Do you think that a break with the past is essential, or that, in the end, very traditional companies that have been around for decades are capable of making a real revolution internally, even if it means putting themselves at risk on ecological and climate issues? Or will we still need a replacement strategy and new players born directly and natively into this world?
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
I think there will be both. But I think there are companies that can make the transition, but it's going to be more or less violent depending on the company's model. On the other hand, any company can think differently. And that's what all the work around regenerative thinking and so on is about... Our CSR manager is currently helping companies with this kind of thinking. Not long ago, she was telling me about a company that made tin roofs. Its highly committed manager went to this operation, this workshop, to try and rethink his business model for tomorrow. He got a huge slap in the face. All in all, making tin roofs tomorrow is a bit complicated. But in the end, what's the real reason for his business? What's his value proposition? Maybe tomorrow's roofs won't be made of sheet metal, but of wood, and they'll have to rethink their entire production process. But in the end, it still has a reason to exist. It's also about pulling those threads together. And I think that all companies have a thread to pull and a reason tomorrow to propose something, a model, etc... For us, it was also something where we said to ourselves "Is it relevant tomorrow to always be an online site?" The answer is yes, and we're going to offer something different, but no doubt with other elements on the side to compensate, to also offer another business model. But there's no doubt that it's a job that requires a certain amount of violence on the part of managers to say to themselves, "I've just got to innovate a bit. I've got to break things up. I've got to take some business away. I've got to say to myself: I'm going to stop this business, which is ultimately extremely profitable from an economic point of view, but not at all profitable from an impact point of view. These are also very complicated decisions for me, but I'm also a deeply optimistic person, and I believe that everyone has the means to succeed and reinvent themselves.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
But you've got to start fast!
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
Exactly, get started quickly. And to pick up on your last point, I think that challengers and new companies arriving with ultra-alternative models also help us.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
To prove that it's possible and that we can do things differently.
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
Proving to us that it's possible and challenging us on a daily basis, saying "Wow, he's coming up with something really different really fast. There's something there to scratch. He's even stepping on our toes, so we have to move a little faster. And that's what makes it so interesting.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
The penultimate question I'd traditionally ask is whether marketing and sobriety aren't ultimately contradictory. And I think that in everything you've said, you've shown us that we're going to need communication. I think everyone will have understood your position on this.
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
For me, this isn't contradictory, but it does require, on the one hand, extremely clear KPIs, and finally setting these KPIs with very regular analyses, etc. On the other hand, it requires training for all marketing and communication teams to rethink their profession. And finally, what we've put in place this year at Greenweez also requires us to give everyone a sober marketing objective or impact marketing, impact communication, etc. This means that you've got our community manager, you've got the objectives you had last year which have also evolved a little (we have an evolving strategy) but I'm adding a mission objective linked to our mission business. The whole company has this today. This mission objective uniquely supports our raison d'être and our status as a mission-driven company, and is therefore pure impact. But it's you, on a daily basis. You, on a daily basis, must have a real impact on our mission objectives, on our raison d'être, on our KPIs, marketing and communication. In the end, it's also about making everyone accountable.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
It's great. Thank you so much for everything you've said. And then, one last question before we say goodbye. What are the companies, other companies or other organizations? Because it's not just companies in the classical sense that inspire you in their approach and that you'd like to hear in this type of podcast?
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
For me, a company I follow a lot and whose founder I also know (even if it's more of a department) is AXA Climate which is really fascinating and which, today, advocates an exciting regenerative model. I also come from the world of science, so it's something I'm quite interested in. But Antoine Denoix goes a long way on these subjects. Today, I admit that it's probably the model that inspires me the most, but there are a huge number of brands that are coming up and offering very interesting things. In fashion, for example, there are all these second-hand, upcycling brands, etc., that we're starting to see, particularly in the fashion industry. In fashion, for example, we have all these second-hand, upcycling brands, etc., which we're starting to see. CrushOn, Brawleretc.. Which are great alternative brands. Fashion is just one example, and today, in all areas, I find that there are small brands on the rise with very high standards. Just yesterday, I saw a report on a chocolate brand from Brittany that brings in its cocoa by sailboat. In fact, there are alternatives for everything. You have to have the courage to go for it, because it's a very expensive and very different way of doing things. I also saw last week, François Gabart which has launched a prototype of a sailing cargo boat. There are lots of things happening, and that's what makes it so exciting. It's hard for me to give you an example of a company. On the contrary, I think it's important to keep in mind, as you said, all the small businesses that are coming along. They're everywhere and there are lots of them with lots of different ideas. It's a matter of continuing to follow all that to draw inspiration both in the basic model, but also in their communication, because all these companies that are arriving are also arriving with very different and alternative marketing and comm models.
Jonathan Loriaux, Badsender
Thank you so much for the 40 minutes we spent together. It was really rich. I hope we'll have the chance to meet again and I wish you a very good day.
Manon Le Bourdiec, Greenweez
Thank you very much. See you soon.
