Media One Creative, co-founded by award-winning entrepreneurs Derek Rider, CEO and Corey Peck, COO are out to disrupt the creative industry. The five-year old video content leader has scooped a significant amount of Fortune 500 and mega-brand clients from agency establishment. It doesn’t hurt that Derek and COO Corey are young, optimistic and genuinely socially motivated.
Socially mindful entrepreneurs have recently led the pack in multiple industries. From Jessica Alba’s $1.7B Honest Company, Warby Parker’s eyeglass empire or Plum Organic’s $400M sale to Campbell Soup, business is finally waking up to the fact that doing good, is good business. These now infamous unicorns took the world stage with ground breaking innovation in their respective categories. What makes them even more unique is these mythical creatures are all B Corps.
B Corps are for-profit companies certified by the nonprofit B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. To be a B Corp you must pass the B Impact Assessment and score a minimum of 80 out of 200 points. The assessment measures a company’s impact on solving social and environmental issues through business. The assessment is tough, and with only 2000 B Corps globally, it’s clear that the 80 point entry point is difficult to achieve. Yet that’s exactly the type of challenge market disruptors like Media One Creative thrive on.
Though Media One is not exactly a B Corp today, Derek and Corey readily identified with the ideology of the movement and wanted to know where they fell on the B Corp continuum. After three hours of heartfelt discussion as we completed the assessment, we had a score, and a lot more work to do.
For most traditional companies there will be a significant gap between current practice and the requirements of certification. Completing the assessment is an eye opener that poses more questions than answers, and really forces you to take a long hard look in the proverbial mirror. If your company isn’t measuring up today, will it ever?
The reality is that becoming a B Corp, or b business is a process. Making the transition is typically related to the size, age, and leadership of an organization. Unilever has been working on integrating sustainable development goals throughout their company for years, and many public initiatives such as committing to using 100% recyclable plastic, have decade long lead times. The point is that the b business movement is creating an awareness that change is inevitable. The B Impact Assessment provides companies with a framework, and goals to work towards. Ultimately the speed at which a business becomes B Corp certified is far less important than practicing social and environmental consciousness when making decisions every day.
For Derek and Corey B Corp certification is clearly in Media One Creative’s future, and over time their B Corp journey will simply be part of the folklore behind the media world’s next biggest social purpose superstar.
Brand for Benefit helps companies transform their business through trust, purpose, and exceptional marketing.
CEO Carolyn Ansley is an award-winning marketer, entrepreneur and mother who believes using business for good is good business.
