2281 - The Future of Digital Ads: Reducing Carbon Emissions and Driving Results with Boa's Avril Tomlin-Hood

0:04Well, hey, Thoughtful Leader. Welcome to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur. On this show, I interview purpose-driven founders, experts, and change makers who are making a real impact in the world. Want to be a guest? Simple. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click podcast. I'd love to promote your story to our audience of over 100 ,000 and across over 2 ,300 daily episodes and counting. Want to get booked on other great shows like this? Simple. Go to podverified.com and get your free guest authority score. Thousands of hosts are looking for high quality guests and Podverified connects you the right way. Now let's dive into today's episode.

0:58With us right now, it's Avril Tomlin Hood. Avril, you are the founder and CEO of Boa. You are found on the web at weareboa.com. I should always point, I love to point out you are a podcaster as well. Your podcast is called In With The New with Avril Tomlin Hood. So to our friends that are listening, you could just simply search around. We've got a direct link, Avril, to your show, but it's great to have you. Great. Well, thanks so much for having me, Josh. I'm looking forward to our chat today. Yeah, it's going to be a great topic. Before we get into your superpowers and the work that you do with BOA, I'm wondering, in your free time when you're not doing anything work-related, what have you been doing for fun lately?

1:39What have you been geeking out on? What are your hobbies, passions, that sort of thing outside of work? oh it's when i have time for it i'm a young kid i have a busy business but i am forever and always trying to fit in a yoga class or an extra walk in the woods with my rescue pup who's a husky mix and we live up in vancouver um north vancouver so beautiful mountainous area so sneaking off in there whenever i can have some time with nature oh my goodness do you how do you do you schedule that do you intentionally schedule it or do you just kind of fit it in where you can or well the great thing about the dog is that he requires me to take him out no matter what so that I don't have to schedule so much he'll look at me um but the yoga yeah I've got to be really on top of it and carve out the time and and um I go through periods of rededication and then slipping away and then dedication again and and I do accept it's a practice right and it's never going to be linear like any kind of growth or commitment it is uh fluid yeah what's your dog his name?

2:41Matrice. Matrice. All right. Well, we're grateful for Matrice. I've got a Matrice. Matrice's name is Levi. He's a mini Australian shepherd. And so, yep, he loves his walks and his, you know, walk going around the neighborhood and getting his sniffs in for the day. Avril, your company, BOA, can you share just a bit about what your superpowers are, what you do? Absolutely. So BOA is a strategic, sustainable digital media buying agency. So we work at the cross-section of advertising, media buying specifically, and sustainability. So we partner exclusively with purpose-driven brands to achieve high performance, more efficient from a carbon perspective, so lower carbon digital ad campaigns.

3:30Wow. Well, okay. Why? Why? Yeah. So there's a lot to unpack. So just going to go back a little bit to lay the groundwork is essentially I stumbled into this already having worked with sustainable brands and aligning my personal vision with my professional vision, which is partnering with companies that believe that purpose and profit can go hand in hand. And along the way, over the last few years, it sort of came to light for me that the internet and therefore digital advertising, which powers the internet, has a remarkably significant carbon footprint. So we see numbers up in the area of 3.7 to 4 % of global carbon emissions caused by the internet alone.

4:20So that's on par with the airline industry, right? So just the energy required to power the internet. I think a lot of people are talking about this these days more than they ever were with AI. Yes, with AI. I just saw a headline to the eyes of when we were recording this today that the power consumption in the state of Wyoming for AI applications or AI usage is out. If I'm correct here, they need more power for everything AI than the entire population's use of power in the state, which is bonkers. Can you talk about like why that's a, why this is a big deal that we should be mindful of this? Yeah, I mean, we should be mindful simply because we don't have infinite resources when we're talking about sustainability and we're looking at something that is sort of a runaway train as I see it.

5:09So I don't think, no, AI is not all bad. The internet is not all bad. Advertising is not all bad. I mean, I work in technology and advertising. So I fully believe in its power. However, I think that we need to be very conscious as both professionals and personal people of the fact that every action has externalities, negative, positive, whatever. And so dumping all the time and resources and energy into growing something like AI is, you know, it's going to have negative impact in the long term. So high, high carbon impact. Yeah. And, Avril, I guess I would not have thought about, you know, media buying and why.

6:04So when you take this lens or this mission and you apply it to something like advertising and media buying, I wouldn't have thought about that. But I guess, how does it work? Yeah. So like I mentioned, so internet is highly carbon intensive and the internet is powered by advertising. It's the ecosystem which makes the internet run, right? People don't always make that connection, but every piece of content you read, every app that you're on, every social media channel that you use, everything, nothing is free. Everything is powered by advertising. Advertising makes up the economy of the internet.

6:41Advertising is made up of very complex and inefficient supply chain on the back end. Without getting too deep in the weeds of the complexity involved, essentially, every time an ad is bidded on, because we're bidding, that's what media buyers do. We bid essentially on placements for advertisements online. And there are thousands and millions of these bids happening at the same time. Every time a bid is placed, a server is called upon. And every time a server is called upon, energy is used. So it's, you know, without having a visual representation, because I find that really helps sort of put a, you know, fine point on it.

7:22Okay, everybody close your eyes and imagine this here. Yeah, so it's essentially the inefficient and complex supply chain on the back end of digital advertising and media buying just creates a lot of carbon emission and a lot of waste within that. Well, it's interesting about how much I think that we can make small choices, both personally in our personal lives. And then, of course, as a company, you know, particularly if we're looking to, you know, kind of affix a little bit of a halo from an imaging standpoint. And, you know, it's like we can make we can cut these small corners here and there and say, hey, you know, we are all for, you know, sustainability and making sure that we're just being good stewards here.

8:09We're not, you know, being wasteful with how we do things. But I wonder, you know, the impact of choosing, you know, a different packaging or whatever versus, you know, how we do our media buying, you know, where is, I guess, what's the weight of the potential impact? Yeah, it's a very good question. And it's one that we discuss a lot with client partners and people in the industry. So, you know, if you are creating a product, if you are manufacturing something, you are using packaging, you are using plastic-based materials, you are shipping things from one part of the world to another, the scope of that impact in terms of emissions is going to make up the vast majority of your environmental impact as a company.

8:59And so it's really important to address all of that as well, of course. The thing about addressing the environmental impact of the advertising that you're doing is it may not make up the lion's share of your emissions as a large manufacturing company, but it is an area that is notoriously difficult to track. So it falls into scope three emissions. So that's, you know, like providers, service providers, you know, third parties, all that kind of stuff. It's really easy to activate. It's like we can cut the carbon emissions of a company's ad campaigns by 40 percent like that. right? Just by going in and eliminating a whole bunch of that wastage that I mentioned on the back end of the supply chain.

9:38So it's great for thought leadership. It's great for including in sustainability ESG reports, all those things on the sustainability end. But the most important thing is that it's higher performing advertising. So what we have found is there's a direct correlation between lower carbon campaigns and higher performing campaigns. Because when I talk about waste, we're essentially getting rid of waste. So that's inefficiencies, ad impressions that aren't necessarily being served to the right person in the right environment, above the fold, et cetera, et cetera. And by default, then our targeting is getting more efficient.

10:17We're talking to less of the right people as opposed to more of everybody. And so what we see time and again, you know, with our clients, like 99 % of the time is that the actual performance, the KPIs that we're measuring, like ROAS, that's return on ad spend, ROI, obviously, you know, click through rates, shopping cart ads, site visits, engagements, you name it, those performance metrics increase, as well as the carbon decreasing at the same time. So that would be the primary reason for a business to take this into consideration. And then the kind of, you know, altruistic or sustainability piece, I don't think it's altruistic, I think it's necessary for survival.

10:58That is kind of cherry on the sundae for a lot of people that we work with. Yeah. Well, and again, just from a branding perspective, from a communications perspective, I mean, it's nice to be able to, as a company, to share these stories of like, listen, if you're aligned like we are, we just want to take you behind the scenes and like, here are the things that we do. Like we live, this isn't just lip service for us. You know, this is one way that we actually live this. So I'm thinking that there's, you know, in addition to, you know, your claim that no, it's actually a far better deal to do it.

11:39You're going to get much better bang for the buck if you do it this way. But again, I, you know, I think that there's a, you know, there's a PR plus to this, you know, these, these little, you know, these seemingly small things that add up over time. And I think it's important not just to communicate with that customer base that's asking for it. Like they do business very intentionally with people who believe like they do. But it's, I mean, and also I think it communicates, you know, it's a good example to other companies as well. I mean, somebody needs to be the leader. I mean, if you're not a leader here, okay.

12:16But, you know, certainly if you feel this way, here's your, you know, here's your opportunity. Yeah, 100%. And I say, you know, I've heard it said, and I say it often myself, is people do business with people. They don't do business with businesses. And it's that alignment, right? And so when I talk about sort of marrying my personal belief system with my professional abilities, that's exactly what I'm talking about. And then you like-minded individuals within businesses, they resonate with that. And I think it's beyond just the, you know, checking a box. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, Avril, which types of companies are you working with?

12:57Who's kind of in your sweet spot that you've had great success with? Yeah, so we're relatively agnostic when it comes to verticals. We have experience. I mean, I've been in the media buying world for, you know, 17 years at this point, eight years with Boa's agency. So I've, you name it, I've worked with the type of company. Right now, we're focusing a bit more on the CPG space, so the consumer packaged goods. So there are a lot of companies in that space that are purpose-driven. And we find that there's a great alignment there when it comes to companies that are looking to make those incremental areas of impact, put them into action.

13:38So working with a partner like us makes sense. So we work with folks in Canada and the US. So companies like, you know, say Nature's Path, they're a great test partner of ours. And we do a lot of activations, testing out the sustainable ad tech whilst, you know, improving performance for all their campaigns. And we just find, you know, personally, when it came to kind of thinking about the types of companies we wanted to work with that we're doing, that we're truly sustainably focused, food and beverage is, it fits really well in that area. You know, because it's kind of hard to work for a company that's selling a whole bunch of new shoes and stand behind the, you know, mission, vision ethos of sustainability because that's a little bit counter to what we believe in.

14:29Yeah. One last question I want to ask before we kind of talk about, you know, where folks go from here is I'm really curious about your view of where advertising platforms are today, specifically social media, including YouTube, search, and then other, you know, kind of distributed video platforms. What movements have you been seeing this year? A couple hours. Nothing but movement, Josh. Yeah, that's a big question. I mean, there's only ever been movement in my industry. That's the thing about it. That's the thing that I think keeps me in it. I like the movement. I like that pace. um ai is disruptive right and i don't like to kind of throw it around i and talk about it and in really broad terms because i think there's a lot of specificity required when we're discussing it within the broader umbrella of ai but there are a lot of tools and technologies that are coming onto the scene a lot of them are kind of you know they'll be gone in a year or two startups whatever there are some that i think are going to be like really transformational when it comes to this industry in terms of eliminating a lot of human requirement for optimizing campaigns, for creative rollouts, for all kinds of things.

15:49But generally speaking, maybe what I'm going to say, park the AI piece, because that's a huge conversation, is what I really have noticed in the last year to two years is the increasing walled garden nature of the platforms that exist. So when I say walled garden, I mean social media, paid search, Google, Meta, all the retail media platforms. So anyone in consumer packaged goods will be familiar with Walmart, Kroger, Costco is coming out with one. These are companies that are owning the data that we are feeding into it and that customers are feeding into it. And they're not sharing it with the, you know, it's not open web in the sense that we used to run a lot of programmatic, right?

16:35And now walled gardens are becoming increasing in their number and they're coming, the walls are getting higher. And so when you're media planning strategically for companies who are looking to reach broad groups of people across many personas across great geos, it's getting a little bit more challenging to decide where to put that money because there's benefit and rich data to each one. But because of the proliferation of the amount of walled gardens, it's become a little bit more challenging. It used to be like you got YouTube, you got Meta, you got Programmatic, and there you go. I mean, I'm simplifying that.

17:12But hopefully that makes sense. Yeah. All right, Avril, your podcast, just before we kind of get into calls to action, what's In With The New? So In With The New is a podcast that we've been, gosh, at least a couple of years now, maybe even, yeah, a couple of years coming up to our 100 episodes this year, which is bananas. us. We interview the leaders behind innovative, sustainable brands, we say. So cross verticals, food, fashion, energy, you name it. And we just talk to them about their origin stories, their views, their experience, launching, scaling, working for sustainable businesses. And I get a lot out of it.

18:00Nice. I like it. Okay. Weareboa.com. When somebody goes to the website, What would you recommend? What are next steps for a friend that's been listening to our conversation? Oh, gosh. Just go poke around. Go to Thoughts. See, that's where we post sort of most recent extended case studies, blog articles. We have a whole section on work that we've done. You can see a sample of the types of clients that we work with. Not extensive, of course. And reach out. There's a contact link, of course. You know, contact us anytime. Connect with me on LinkedIn. Happy to chat. Just broaden my network and connect with like-minded folks is my goal.

18:35I like it. All right. Again, the website is weareboa.com, the name of the podcast, In With The New. Avril Tomlin-Hood, again, you're the founder. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks so much, Josh. Great to chat with you.

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