In today's podcast episode, we are talking about sustainability and credibility, the toughest currency for brands. In the cleaning segment, the brand "Frosch" is considered the uncrowned king. Consumers clearly trust the household cleaners with the friendly amphibian on the bottle to not only clean effectively but also to be "clean" themselves. How do you earn such a head start in trust? How do you get the supposedly stingy Germans to put a few more cents on the counter for a more sustainable product?
"Hard work" is the explanation given by Reinhard Schneider, our guest on today's podcast episode. Reinhard Schneider is the head of a Mainz-based family company that produces Erdal shoe care and Frosch household cleaners, and he has consistently aligned the latter with sustainability. In our conversation, he explains why sustainability should be fun, but why he has absolutely no sense of humor when it comes to greenwashing. He is highly critical of competitors who, in his opinion, are destroying consumer trust. He sent lawyers to the offices of competitor Procter & Gamble, and sent a Cessna circling over competitor Henkel's headquarters with a protest banner. "Sustainability is like being at a swimming pool: companies stand at the edge of the pool and try to outdo each other with announcements. But hardly anyone jumps in," the entrepreneur criticizes.
Yet a consistently sustainable approach pays off, says Reinhard Schneider, and he can prove it with hard facts. Since he took over the company and geared it toward sustainability, its revenue has tripled. The "Frosch man" tells us in our latest episode how he broke the 600 million euro mark and passed the consumer acid test. This episode comes with a strong recommendation to listen!