Task

Marketing is all about being able to communicate your ideas to specific audiences. The purpose of Assessment is to help you practise a specific style of communication, namely a presentation. As students you need to develop your presentation skills as this is one of the most common ways of communicating in business. You need to create a presentation as if you were going to deliver it to the client.

Background: Introducing Rainforest Alliance Certified Seal

Market forces can encourage and drive environmental, social and economic sustainability from businesses and consumers i.e. harnessing the power of the market to protect the environment. Rainforest Alliance's mission is:
The Rainforest Alliance works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behaviour.

We know that consumers are increasingly seeking "green" goods and services that do not compromise the health of our planet. One of the most effective ways to show consumers that you are a responsible company working towards sustainability is to feature the Rainforest Alliance Certified^TM seal or Rainforest Alliance Verified^TM mark.

Purpose of this presentation: to communicate to your audience the value of a brand/product partnering with a third party certifier to demonstrate to the marketplace their commitment to sustainability. Evaluate its effectiveness.

Task:Research and find at least four journal articles relevant to how a brand can market their commitment to sustainability including, more specifically, via a third party certifier. Find an industry example of how a company has or is currently using Rainforest Alliance certification to promote their product (e.g. TV/internet advertisement, print advertisement, packaging) to demonstrate how this is communicated to the market. Construct a 10 minute PPT presentation (to be presented in class - max 10 slides).
Example of what students may find from the WARC database available from CSU Library (and yes, you can use this article as part of your research.

This article looks at best practice in partnering with a third-party certifier, here defined as an organisation that testifies to a brand's commitment to a good cause and ultimately aims to move the economy towards being more sustainable. But the article also lists issues that marketers have with these partnerships, including being unimpressed by labels' branding, an inability to 'own' the sustainability problem, difficulty in working with purchase drivers and the need for clarification in what the brand stands for. It also offers advice for working with these third parties, such as giving the debate full attention, being brand-centric, collaborating closely, plotting the direction that the brand narrative will go in and engaging with consumers.

Steps to completing this assessment task:

1. Research and locate at least four journal articles (and again, yes, you can use the article cited above)
2. Research the Rainforest Alliance website to gain a background of what they do
3. Identify a product/brand using the Rainforest Alliance Certified Seal or one that could but does not yet do so
4. Develop your presentation to argue your case

Suggested PPT structure:
Title page (1 slide)
Rainforest alliance background - the why (2)
Journal article discussion (2 slides)
Your industry example with theory applied (4 slides)
Reference list (1 slide)

Remember to include visuals and links where necessary to clearly communicate to your audience the purpose of this presentation.
You can include animations, links to other sources (i.e. multimedia such as YouTube clips). In your presentation you need to describe and engage your audience with interesting and relevant information.

You MUST include speaker notes which show exactly what you would say when staging the presentation.
You need to include the details of your Rainforest Alliance Certified Seal industry example and link to your research theory. You need to use theory to justify how and why your example communicates to the marketplace your brand/product's commitment to sustainability and the impact on the brand. So you need to define and describe the concepts and as this is academic work just like the report, you will be expected to have references to support your choices.

The key is to demonstrate with theory and practical examples what value is provided to the organisation, its distributors and its customer through use of the Rainforest Alliance Certified Seal.