1. 54 | The Edge
Duschinsky was voted the
world’s second most influential
communicator in social
innovation behind Bill Clinton in
2013, by Twitter philanthropic
platform Business of Giving.
(Image Miles Masterson/
photosbymilo)

2. The Edge | 55
He was voted the world’s second most influential communicator
in social innovation behind Bill Clinton in 2013, by Twitter
philanthropic platform Business of Giving. He is also one of
the people behind the worldwide phenomenon that was last
year’s ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. On a recent visit to Qatar, the
Conversation Farm’s Jon Duschinsky, whose clients include
someofthelargestglobalbrandssuchasUnileverandCoty,
shared his insights with The Edge’s Miles Masterson on
social innovation, what he calls “CSR 2.0”, and how these
can contribute indelibly to greater success in the modern
global business environment.
Exclusive insights from global branding and
marketing guru Jon Duschinsky
Welivein
theeraofthe
conversation.
andthatmeansthatweareallconnected
and we are all able to share ideas and belong
to communities that are no longer limited
by linguistics, geography or culture. Ten or
15 years ago, when I was growing up, if I
wanted to belong to a community, it had
to be physically located where I was, it had
to speak the same language and it had to
be pretty much the same culture as I was.
That’s what we were drawn to. Today, if
you’re growing up and you’re 15, 20 or 25,
you belong beyond borders.
that we’ve found that the whole generation
is arriving – and this is filtering up and down
demographically – with a much stronger
sense of values.
We live in what I call “the era
of the conversation”
Inbusiness,thisrelatestothe
notionofthetriplebottom-line.
What that means is that you
can instantly connect with
people who are like-minded.
So you don’t have to be
forced into a community and the kind of
group think of wherever you happen to be.
You can explore what’s important to you,
and what’s happened as a result of this is
Now, everything we do has to be not just
for financial profit, but about social profit
and environmental profit. Those are the
three key drivers of business and companies
that put social good at the heart of their

3. 56 | The Edge
business interview | social innovation
business make more money today. If you look at the
S&P 500 over 2014 and you take the companies
that are deemed to have social good baked into their
business model, and you compare them to those who
are deemed to be the least effective in that area, they
outperform them by an average of 30 to 40 percent.
“IfyoulookattheS&P500
andtakethecompaniesthat
aredeemedtohavesocialgood
bakedintotheirbusinessmodel,
they outperform the others by an
average of 30 to 40 percent.”
For a time in mid to late 2014, the world’s social media feeds were inundated with images of people, such as this man in China, dowsing themselves in iced water, a
viral phenomenon Duschinsky’s agency, the Conversation Farm, were instrumental in. “We helped create the conversation that led to the Ice Bucket Challenge. It is this
change in paradigm that is so important. With a conversation, cause and effect are no longer linear,” says Duschinsky. (Image Getty)
My favourite example of this is a bank
in Canada, which because its logo is
green, has invested hugely in the environment. But
if you look at the core values of the company, it’s all
about customer service. They’re open all the time.
They’re a bank that makes you feel that there’s a
real relationship. So their core brand values are civic
responsibility. But yet they’re spending a fortune on
replanting forests. It’s great, but it’s got nothing to do
with who they really are as a business.
Doing good allows businesses to
make more money today. That is the
reality of the paradigm.
Some companies have corporate social
responsibility departments that are basically there to
giveawaymoneyandtomakethecompanylookgood.
Or you have companies that have decided, because
the CEO had a particular pet project, to invest in that
particular pet project that has nothing to do with the
core brand values of that organisation.
The ones that do it right are the
companies that work out what they
stand for.
Theyworkoutwhytheyreallygetupinthemorning.
What are they hoping to do? And then they take that
and they feed it into the social space, whether it’s
social or environmental, and they do good in the world
that is coherent with the core business that they do.
Those are the successful companies.
Nowatthesametime,therearebillions
andbillionsofdollarsbeingthrown
awayeveryyearbycompanies.

4. The Edge | 57
social innovation | business interview
They respect the companies that stand for
something.Theymakeproductsbuttheydemonstrate
whatthey’remadeofbydoingthingsthatareinasocial
space as well. That’s what I would define as social
innovation. It is understanding that people and the
environment in which we live is as important to your
consumers as the product you make. Social good has
traditionally been giving money to charities. But social
good in today’s context is anything that is meaningful
and makes a difference to us or the environment in
which we live. It’s no longer the purview of the charity,
so we’ve got to get that mindset out of our heads.
“Whatisitthatyoucan
dothatmakestheworlda
betterplacethatnobodyelse
candobecauseof who you are?
That is the core of your manifesto
moving forward as a company.”
the modern era, but he was really harking back to
jeans in the pioneer days of the frontier west and how
the jean was the clothing that helped build America.
And today it’s a thing used in an urban environment to
get the new and future America built. People wearing
jeans as they go about their urban business.
Duschinsky holds breakout US footwear brand Toms, who give a pair of shoes away to the needy
for every one purchased, as a good example of social innovation in business. “Entrepreneurial
leaders here in Qatar have the same opportunity,” he says. Find the problem that you’re
passionate about, and then seek new and innovative ways of solving that problem,”he says.
(Image Getty)
Weaskedthem,“Whatdoyoustand
forasacompany?”
CSRisVersion1.0.Itisastartbut
actuallyisfairlyunsophisticated.It’s
givingawaymoney.Socialinnovationis
CSRVersion2.0.
Thekeyisauthenticity.Ifyoulookatthe
companiesthatpeoplerespecttoday,
peoplerespectauthenticcompanies.
Okay,sothisguy’spassionateabout
jeans.Sowhatcanwedowithjeansthat
isgoingtohelphimdemonstratehow
thispieceofclothingisrelevantsocially?
AnotherexampleisBuckler,which
isamedium-sizedboutiquefashion
companywithstoresinLondon,New
YorkandLosAngeles.
Forexample,TomsisaUSshoecompany
that’s the fastest-growing company in their
industry ever. They’re making heaps of money, but
they’ve also baked into their business model the idea
that if you buy a pair of shoes, a pair of shoes gets
given to somebody who needs it. They went from zero
to selling two million pairs of shoes in just under four
years. And they feel like they’re making a difference.
They were hit quite hard during the recession,
because they’re in this middle-range; they weren’t
mass-produced, low-priced; nor were they luxury,
which was doing fine. They were in this middle-ground
that was getting really badly battered and when they
came to us they were discounting their products very
heavily. So the conversation that we had with them
was to say, “Why don’t you look at how much you’re
going to give away by taking 40 percent off your
products and invest it in doing something that is going
to allow you to grow your brand?”
Often we say to clients, “If I was to get
you 30 seconds with Anderson Cooper on C N N
tomorrow, what would you say?” Most companies
haven’t got a clue, and this company didn’t. So we
helped them go back to the core of what they were.
Essentially they’d grown out of the founder’s love for
jeans and when he talked about jeans, he had this
passion for the fact that it was the work clothing of
And not just relevant to the person who’s going to
buy a pair of USD200 (QAR728) jeans? So we created
a new line of jeans in the store that you cannot buy,
but every time you buy a pair of the traditional jeans,
you get given a dog tag with a number on it and a pair
of these special jeans – we called them Buckler Works
– will be sent to people working for charities on the
frontline, in the new frontiers today. People who work

5. 58 | The Edge
for Doctors Without Borders. People who
work for UNICEF, who are in the field, who
are in Afghanistan, who are helping rebuild
communities who struggle from warfare.
Let’s take the jean back to the new frontier
of today’s society, by giving it to those folks.
Like the Ice Bucket Challenge, according
to Duschinsky, modern businesses need
to reassess their entire reason for existing
by throwing the cold water of their real
social contribution on themselves. They can
then emerge from it stronger with a social
innovation strategy that will entrench and
endear them in the market in which they exist.
(Image Getty)
The amount in USD raised by October
2014 for amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis (ALS) research, thanks
to the globally viral Ice Bucket
Challenge.
34.2
million
The reality around advertising
is that people don’t want to be
told what to think any more.
So we’re creating a bit of a
community around the fact
these are not just USD200
(QAR728) pairs of jeans, they
stand for something in our
collective consciousness.
Thebestthingforacompany
istopausewhateveryou’re
spendingonmarketingrightnow
andspendabitoftimeworking
outwhatitisthatyoustandfor.
These jeans would get worn
out in the field for six months and then
they’d get shipped back and we’d put them
up in store windows and tell the story of this
particular piece of clothing and what it had
seen over those six months and then we’d
auction them and the money raised goes
back to the charity that’s supported. That
was the principle of the campaign. Again it’s
saying whatever you happen to make, and
it can be as basic as a pair of jeans, there is
an opportunity for you to put social good in
your business model and do something that
is going to get people’s interest. It’s going
to tell a bit of a story, and is going to allow
people to connect around your brand.
People want to hear things from people
they trust. We don’t trust brands anymore.
We don’t trust governments anymore. We
don’t trust institutions anymore. We trust
our peers. We trust our networks. We trust
the people who are part of our community.
So if you are, as a company, still trying to
advertise to people, then you’re already
behind the curve because today people
don’t want to be advertised at, they don’t
want to be messaged at. They want to be
involved in a conversation. They want to be
given things to participate in, that they can
feel ownership of and that are aligned with
their values.
Now articulate that and then
turn that into what I would call a
manifesto: this is our mandate, this is why
we do what we do. Once you’ve got your
mandate, then you’re going to need an idea.
A creative idea that allows you to bridge that
mandate into the social good space. So once
you’ve worked out what your mandate is,
what’s the natural and authentic transition
into the social good space? What is it that
you can do that nobody else can do because
of who you are? That’s the question that
comes next. So who are you? And then what
is it that you can do that makes the world a
better place that nobody else can? That is
the core of your manifesto moving forward
as a company and of what you’re then going
business interview | social innovation

6. The Edge | 59
conversation, cause and effect are no longer
linear.Aconversationisorganic.Whenwedid
the work to change the conversation around
ALS, could we have predicted that it would
turn into the Ice Bucket Challenge? No, we
couldn’t. But we did know that by changing
the conversation, by building a community
around the cause and by getting people
talking about the issue we were creating
the space for something truly remarkable to
happen. And happen it did.
Jon Duschinsky was brought to Qatar by
The London Speakers Bureau.
to begin to do, because once you work out
which territory you can own, that nobody
else can own, it’s got brand value.
“Social
innovation
isunderstanding
thatpeopleand
theenvironment
in which we live
is as important to
your consumers
as the product you
make.”
There are opportunities to do
this everywhere. For example,
one of the major issues in
Qatar is child obesity.
Whatdoyoustandfor?Andthen
whatspacecanyouoccupy
thatismeaningfultopeople?A
spacethatonlyyoucanoccupy
becauseofwhoyouare?
Those patients came together
and were not just the pivot
point in making the Ice Bucket
Challenge go viral.
Butyoumustrememberthere’s
noonesizefitsallonthis.
If you look at the Zuckerbergs
of the world and others,
they’re saying, “Okay, so I’ve
got a lot of money, I want to
change the world.”
I think back to when lots of
people poured buckets of
cold water over their heads
for amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis (ALS).
Decide to do something in your space
that gets people talking. And even better,
if you can find a way of allowing them to
How am I going to do
that? Am I going to do it by giving
money away to charities? Absolutely
not. What I’m going to do is try and find
innovative ways of solving these problems.”
The entrepreneurial leaders here in Qatar
have the same opportunity. Find the
problem that you’re passionate about,
and then seek new and innovative ways of
solving that problem, get the train going. We
are not the only people, as the Conversation
Farm, doing this kind of stuff. The mechanics
are there, it’s not rocket science. It’s just
tapping into the fact that we live in the era
of the conversation and recognising that
and recognising that policy follows people.
participate in whatever you’re doing, then
you’ll get great traction, because people
like to not just share things on social media,
people like to curate and people like to
createandpeopleliketoaddandcontribute.
How much does it cost to create a whole
new language around food and give the kids
tools to do this? Couple of million dollars?
Tell me there’s not an entrepreneur in Qatar
who would want to see this problem solved
and doesn’t have a couple of million bucks
to throw at it? Of course he does. Then let
the government jump on board once it’s
moving. People need to recognise that they
have more power than at any time in history
to create the future. They can create what
they want for their countries and for their
societies and their communities, and I would
call out to entrepreneurs around that. Policy
follows people. All of these problems that
you think are government problems and that
you think are social problems that cannot be
dealt with, you can deal with them all.
social innovation | business interview
They now have big networks, but they
also convened, we worked with them to
convene the world’s leading scientists on
this issue. We locked 150 scientists in a
room for two days and said, “Leave your
egos at the door, and answer one question
before we let you out of this room. And that
is if money is no object and there are no
barriers to collaboration, how are you going
to cure this disease? How long’s it going to
take and how much is it going to cost?” That
was a year ago and now a business plan for a
cure has been written by about 40 of those
folks who continued to work together and
have now nailed what it’s going to take to
cure this disease, have put a dollar figure to
it and they’ve put a timescale to it.
We created the environment
in which it could thrive and the
community which could carry it. In short,
we helped create the conversation that led
to the Ice Bucket Challenge. It is this change
in paradigm that is so important. With a
We did not create the Ice
Bucket Challenge.
A conversation is cheap,
nimble, effective and organic
and when we did the ice bucket challenge,
it started with some work that we did
trying to create a conversation around ALS
in partnership with the World American
Football. We highjacked American football,
with a conversation created around this one
guy who used to play, but who now has ALS
and the fact that he was leading the fight
and that there needed to be a conversation
about this. It motivated a load of patients
who came out of the woodwork and went,
“finally we can have a voice!”
You need to have a nod from the
CEO. There are other companies where
you’ve got a CMO who really gets it and
understands that this is not traditional
marketing. However, there is one truth here
which is you can’t do this on your own. You
can’t do it internally. You cannot create
the manifesto and an understanding of
looking at the problem differently from
within your own. And then what’s very
interesting is once you start to get to the
point where you’re getting a manifesto
down on paper, you share that with staff
and people start coming up with ideas and
initiatives and want to lead things. So a lot
of this can happen quite organically as well.
Social innovation releases an energy in an
organisation that’s just immense.