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CASE STUDY

Serving Up Sustainability: Acqua Minerale San Benedetto

Challenge

Acqua Minerale San Benedetto has been a pioneer in sustainability. The company has invested in projects to reduce the impact of plastic on the environment and to develop carbon-neutral supply chains. Despite its commitment to sustainability, San Benedetto's Reputation Score in 2017 was not reflective of its environmental efforts.

Response

A reputation strategy was set the following year to drive awareness around San Benedetto’s best in class environmental terms. The action plan identified the following pillars:

  1. Leadership: Give media exposure to the President and CEO, Enrico Zoppas

  2. Governance and Citizenship: Translate sustainability achievements into consumer language - and make them relevant in marketing campaigns

  3. Innovation: Develop both products and packaging with clear environmental benefits

  4. Media: Craft communication plans using a multichannel approach

  5. Reputation: Leverage strong reputation to negotiate trade deals with retailers

Results

Consumer Propensity: Willingness to buy from San Benedetto +15 percentage points when respondents were aware of new “EcoGreen” bottles!

License To Operate: By 2020, the public’s trust and willingness to give San Benedetto benefit of the doubt both rose +11 percentage points.

Trade Negotiations: Using RepTrak data, San Benedetto leveraged its eco-friendly reputation for competitive differentiation. The beverage company successfully negotiated favorable deals with like-minded retailers thanks to interest in their eco-friendly products. San Benedetto procured additional shelf space and the best product positioning inside supermarkets.

“

‘Learning from nature to create well-being’, is what we do everyday. [Those] who are part of the large San Benedetto family know that our commitment is to achieve excellence both in product quality and in preserving the planet to deliver it cleaner for future generations. [The] public will evaluate and choose us for this.

Enrico Zoppas

President and CEO

Acqua Minerale San Benedetto

How San Benedetto Did It

Using RepTrak’s model, San Benedetto:

A. Identified areas of weakness to improve upon:

  • Innovation

  • Governance

  • Citizenship Drivers

B. Set important KPIs to measure progress:

  • Reputation Score

  • Driver Scores

  • Conversion of Fence Sitters into Ambassadors

C. Delineated three attributes using factor analysis to frame messaging strategy:

  • Excellence in products

  • Responsible supply chain and production

  • Sustainable innovation

D. Fielded custom questions to inform detailed communications. The data inspired the following projects:

  • Launch of sustainable “EcoGreen” bottle

  • Multichannel ad campaign to support product portfolio & sustainability commitments

E. Moved the needle on RepTrak KPIs. Between H1 2019 and H2 2020:

  • Excellence in products

  • Responsible supply chain and production

  • Sustainable innovation

  • Global average Reputation Score +4 points

  • Reputation Score +6 points when respondents were aware of “EcoGreen” bottles!

  • Rational perception of key Drivers improved from average to strong score band: Innovation (+2 points) Citizenship (+3 points) and Governance (+3 points)

  • Products and Leadership Driver Scores (already strong) grew stronger

  • Transformed Fence sitters (-6.1% yoy) into Ambassadors (+6.5% yoy)

Key Learnings

Adopting a fact-based holistic approach, grounded in ESG, San Benedetto dramatically increased its Reputation Score and business. The main lessons learned are:

  • Use simple, intuitive language to ground the pillars of strategy and the brand messaging (e.g., “excellence in products” )

  • Use concrete measures to substantiate the corporate commitment to sustainability (e.g., supply chain carbon neutrality)

  • Integrate ESG elements at the product and brand levels to enrich their proposition and to humanize communication

  • Use corporate communications and brand advertising in synergy to get high levels of reach, awareness, and emotional impact

  • Leverage strong reputation and other intangibles as competitive differentiators. San Benedetto successfully negotiated business deals by pointing to their strong reputation, including their impact on local communities, their commitment to ESG principles, and consumer’s propensity to buy their products