Authors:
Dr Ling Xiao is a Senior Lecturer in Finance at Royal Holloway University of London. She can be contacted by email ling.xiao@rhul.ac.uk
Dr Lucy Gill-Simmen, Vice-Dean for Education & Student Experience, Royal Holloway University of London. She can be contacted by email Lucy.Gill-Simmen@rhul.ac.uk
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a vital role in the UK economy, comprising over 99% of private businesses and contributing to over 50% of GDP (FSB, 2022). However, many SMEs face barriers to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, including lack of knowledge, funding, and measuring return on investment (BritishChambers, 2022).
Premium snacks company Made for Drink aims to become an SME sustainability leader. They’ve implemented eco-friendly packaging despite 5X production costs and invested £90K into an Exmoor carbon offset program capturing 300 tonnes of CO2 annually. But scaling business growth 10X while maintaining net zero requires massive investments concerning shareholders.
To showcase sustainability efforts transparently, we created an immersive storytelling experience using extended reality technology. This emotionally engages consumers while avoiding allegations of greenwashing plaguing major brands like Google and Amazon.
Our project collected digital assets from Made for Drink’s Exmoor forest site using LiDAR scanning for a WebXR experience with VR capability. It documents founder Dan Featherstone’s sustainability journey through interactive spaces and audio narration.
Exposing consumers to this digital storytelling and surveying their reactions helps identify its effectiveness for spreading awareness and building brand loyalty. Storytelling influences consumer behaviour by stimulating brand identification, allowing emotional value experience, and supporting engagement (Junior et al., 2023).
Immersive technologies strengthen brand-building by communicating sustainability initiatives authentically (Van Laer et al., 2019; Rivera-Pesquera et al., 2021). As SMEs scale, they must showcase net zero efforts clearly without exaggeration. Creative digital storytelling bridges the gap between business growth and environmental commitments for stakeholders.
Our research impacts UK national brands directly and internationally by highlighting novel communication tactics. It enables SMEs to lead business sustainability using transparency. Different audiences have varying needs, so nuanced messaging told simply yet engagingly is key.
SMEs must explain their net zero transitions to investors, employees and customers. Digital storytelling is an exemplary method for creatively addressing the cost versus return challenge in pursuing green business practices. This project offers an avenue for small brands to spearhead the sustainability race.
Visit the recorded WebXR experience here. The WebXR is VR compatibility. You can access the APK which can be sideloaded onto a Quest 2 here. Following exposure to the digital immersive storytelling, a survey conducted with consumers helps us identify whether digital immersive storytelling effectively narratively transports and persuades customers of the brand’s net-zero initiatives. We will appreciate if you could complete the survey after you had a go with the WebXR.
References
Britishchambers.org.uk. 2022. From Now to Net Zero: a practical guidance for SMEs [online] Available at:3https://2018.britishchambers.org.uk/media/get/BoS%20From%20Now%20To%20Net%20Zero%20FINAL.pdf[Accessed 25 Jan 2024].
FSB, T., 2022. UK Small Business Statistics. [online] Fsb.org.uk. Available at: <https://www.fsb.org.uk/uk-small-business-statistics.html> [Accessed 25 Jan 2024].
Rivera-Pesquera, M., Cacho-Elizondo, S. and Duran-Dergal, R., 2021. Forget-me-not? Using Immersive Technologies in Brand-building Communication Processes: An Exploratory Study in the Mexican Context. Journal of Creative Communications, 16(3), pp.303-313. https://doi.org/10.1177/09732586211036768
Júnior, J. R. d. O., Limongi, R., Lim, W. M., Eastman, J. K., & Kumar, S. (2023). A story to sell: The influence of storytelling on consumers’ purchasing behavior. Psychology & Marketing, 40, 239–261. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21758
Van Laer, T., Feiereisen, S. and Visconti, L.M., 2019. Storytelling in the digital era: A meta-analysis of relevant moderators of the narrative transportation effect. Journal of Business Research, 96, pp.135-146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.10.053
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