ESG to take centre stage at Global Marketer Week in Istanbul

As the most visible element of any company’s activity, marketing needs to evolve and adapt to ensure that brands can credibly deliver on their ESG commitments.

Key practical challenges for marketers and policy professionals include developing responsible marketing frameworks, which define what good looks like in areas such as climate change, diversity, equity and inclusion, responsible media investment and brand safety, marketing to children and data ethics.

This year’s Global Marketer Week in Istanbul will examine the changing ESG pressures on companies, how different functions can respond to these challenges and offer practical advice on what best practice looks like when it comes to responsible marketing frameworks and policies.

Key ESG focused sessions include:

The CMO Forum will focus on sustainable growth. Against a challenging economic and societal backdrop, three of the world’s biggest brand owners will provide stimulus for marketing leadership roundtables. Workshops will focus on how responsible marketing frameworks can drive more effective behaviours from the marketing function and translate into positive business outcomes.

The Policy Forum will explore in detail the myriad of fast-changing pressures from ESG perspectives, how companies need to respond, the role of policy in helping companies get it right and how these translate in practice into company frameworks or policies for responsible marketing. Three brand leaders will share how they have internalised ESG thinking in practical terms into their own marketing policies. 

The Media Forum will examine how the change called for in the new WFA Global Media Charter can be accelerated. The Media Charter identifies a number of issues across the full spectrum of ESG themes. Similarly, there will be case studies from pioneering clients who are already pushing for the change identified in the Charter. Working sessions will identify the biggest challenges and put forward potential solutions.

The Sourcing Forum will continue its transformative focus: addressing how the function can drive sustainable growth through smarter external relationships, developing strong and long-lasting commercial structures with key partners, with a view to ultimately becoming their agencies’ client of choice.

The WFA is currently conducting research into what best practice in responsible marketing frameworks looks like, and how marketing organisations can communicate their approach both internally and externally.

The study will ask senior marketing, media and policy professionals at some of the world’s biggest companies in order to understand more about who is involved in policy development, governance and ownership, where there might be gaps and how functions can align. The results will form an important part of discussions in both the CMO Forum and the Policy Form sessions in Istanbul. 

“The ESG agenda is broad and deep and presents numerous challenges for all areas of marketing. This year’s Global Marketer Week will allow members to take a deep dive into best practices to help brands develop their processes and approaches to responsible marketing. It will be a unique opportunity to share thinking and ideas in this vital area,” said Stephan Loerke, WFA CEO.

We are very conscious of the tragedy unfolding right now in Türkiye and Syria and we are in touch with our local partners. The earthquake hit a region that is more than 1000km away from Istanbul. We do not foresee any impact on our events. Our plan is to continue with our preparations not least as a sign of solidarity to our Turkish partners.