Let’s talk about sharks. You know, those sea creatures made infamous by the 1975 Steven Spielberg film … the truth is sharks do seem to have an unfortunate reputation.
But if you take a less superficial look then you see an amazing group of animals that plays an important part in the ocean’s finely balanced ecosystem. This is a creature that we can learn from, but it’s also a creature that needs help to survive and that’s where the Plymouth-based charity www.sharktrust.org comes in.
Today’s piece is about that charity and more importantly how and why we at Just Enough Brave got involved with them.
Just under a year ago, we wrote a piece about Brand Purpose. It was about why brands exist rather than what they want to achieve and how it had an altogether more wholesome attitude towards customers, the markets and life in general.
When we wrote that piece it made us think about our own brand purpose and why as a business Just Enough Brave exists. If you do it yourself for your brand it can actually be a reasonably scary process because you’re never too far away from words such as money, performance, and profitability, and what if that’s as good as it gets? Let’s be honest that’s a slightly depressing thought.
When we started to talk about what ‘flicks our switch’, we came to the ‘great outdoors fairly quickly. Within the business, we seem to have a shared love of the spectacular marine environment that’s on our very own doorstep and we’re all big watersports fans. As a result, when the opportunity arose to do our bit for the Shark Trust we dived in, literally.
Without sharks, the marine ecosystem faces an uncertain future. The Shark Trust vision is a future where sharks, skates and rays thrive within a globally healthy marine ecosystem. Twenty years on from when they started, the Shark Trust is now well established in Plymouth as a credible, internationally recognised champion of shark conservation.
When the Trust needed some help with its brand communications strategy we were able to help on the basis that it’s an organisation that means something to us. We don’t look at it as a sponsorship where we say ‘the association will win us brownie points with customers’ or ‘our banner on their website will make the phone ring’. We do it because we want to, because it means something to us and because we can.
Don’t get us wrong this isn’t some slightly odd, Seventies-inspired, hippy trip where we all start hugging each other. But it is a hugely rewarding way of working … it just feels better.
We all need to earn a living, it’s what makes the world go round. However, our suggestion is that even brands and businesses need to get involved with something that genuinely connects with them. Who knows it could become an anchor point for that bigger boat we’re gonna need.
You can find out more about the Shark Trust here and if you’d like to help support our work with them please contact our Managing Director – Dave Smith.