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How to Leverage Sustainability to Drive Revenue Growth

How to Leverage Sustainability to Drive Revenue Growth

Adrian Alfieri
Adrian Alfieri
CEO, Verbatim

Neutrl is a platform that makes it easy for consumers to shop sustainably. They're partnering with hundreds of brands like Enso Rings, Aura Bora, and Magic Mind to reduce the carbon footprint of consumer goods. 

We sat down with Ian Lazarus, Founder and CEO of Neutrl, to understand how his team enables DTC brands to operate more sustainably. Specifically, we cover:

  • Helping brands speak transparently about sustainability with their shoppers
  • What it means to build a community of like-minded shoppers
  • How to shift the narrative of being a modern brand that's aware of its carbon footprint


A Brand's Journey Towards Sustainability

Neutrl was born out of Ian's desire to help brands and consumers become more aware of the hidden cost of commerce and its impact on climate change.

He initially noticed that consumers were increasingly clamoring for brands to produce their products sustainably. In response, brands were trying to figure out how to address their relationship with climate change.

That's where Neutrl enters the picture. They built a tool that helps merchants calculate carbon emissions associated with customer orders.


You Have to Start Somewhere

When Ian pitches Neutrl to potential customers, they're often eager to plug the tool into their website immediately. However, Ian wants to ensure brands understand their climate footprint in addition to simply installing a shiny tool.

Brands can often spend months thinking about retooling their entire supply chain, but Ian reminds them that they can begin by offsetting the emissions from the thousands of packages they send out a day.

By waiting to reveal a brand's sustainability plans until they’re perfect, brands can miss out on a valuable opportunity to take action and share their sustainability journey with consumers immediately. 

"Consumers are more serious than ever about shopping sustainably. They want to combat climate change, but they just don't know where to start."


Building a Community Flywheel and Driving Value

Neutrl is focused on building a community of brands and shoppers aligned in their mission to be more carbon-conscious.

Making this their focus has allowed Neutrl to achieve incredible results for its partners, proving how serious both buyers and brands are about taking care of the environment. 

One of Neutrl's brand partners saw a 28% increase in revenue over a six-month window when consumers opted to offset their emissions with Neutrl at checkout, proving that sustainability is more than a fad.

While Neutrl's inclusion at checkout allows consumers to transact more sustainably, it also increases the chance they'll transact more often, driving greater LTV through customer retention.

"Increased revenue and conversions prove that buyers care about doing good."


More Than a Checkbox 

Neutrl is more than a checkbox. They are:

  • Addressing consumer desires to shop for products consciously
  • Empowering brands to speak about sustainability to their customers
  • Building long-term relationships with customers, leading to more revenue for the brands

"UPS won't help brands marketing their sustainable shipping efforts; that's our job."


Carbon Neutral; Shifting the Conversation

As carbon neutrality becomes more popular, Neutrl plays an active role in shifting the conversation for the general public.

The airline industry has normalized the option for customers to offset their emissions. 

Still, there isn't the same adoption when it comes to retail, even though apparel is one of the highest CO2-emitting industries in the world. By partnering with Neutrl, brands and consumers can actively take steps in the right direction.

"eCom continues to explode, meaning C02 emissions will only get worse. We have to change that." 


Being on the Right Side of History 

54% of Gen Z consumers think about their carbon footprint when shopping, and 88% of shoppers want brands to help them live more sustainably, but the reality is that many brands aren’t prepared to do so.

Neutrl solves this, seamlessly empowering brands to tell their sustainability story to consumers, building meaningful relationships as both combat climate change.

"We can't ignore climate change any longer. By partnering with us, you get to be on the right side of history."

Adrian Alfieri
Adrian Alfieri
CEO, Verbatim
ObviRidgeBackboneHiyaMilaKitsch
missbotez
bloomnu
missbotez x bloomnu
4.7M followers
Problem

Coming up with 100 unique, 30-second scripts is painful.

Manually matching 3-second clips (from your 10,000-video library) for every shot of your 100 scripts is even more painful.

Creating 3 permutations of each of the 100 ads (for A/B testing) is maximum pain.

Now imagine voiceovers, captions, music, & manually uploading all 300 ads to Meta & TikTok on top of this. Also imagine you're an agency doing this for 10 brands (now we're at 3K ads).

Products for scriptwriting, competitor research, creative storage, video editing, creative analytics, & UGC exist, but they're not built for admaking (or just built badly).

Capcut
Capcut
Video editing
$7.99/month
Adobe Premiere
Adobe Premiere
Video editing
$54.99/month
ChatGPT
ChatGPT
Scriptwriting
$20/month
Foreplay
Foreplay
Competitor ads
$99/month
AdSpy
AdSpy
Competitor ads
$149/month
Recharm
Recharm
Creative storage
$500-$3k/month
Motion
Motion
Creative analytics
$1K-$10K/month
Billo
Billo
UGC
$99/video
Air
Air
Creative storage
$250-$2k/month
Solution

Icon solves this with the first AI Admaker. Think CapCut, but for making winning ads with AI in minutes (vs. a general video editor).

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From there, we'll help with permutations, voiceovers, captions, music, and even auto-upload your ads.

We're built to augment marketers, not give you unuseable AI creatives. Our AI gets your ads 80-99% of the way there, leaving you to add your final touches to get them to the finish line.

Solution

How it works

Bring a script

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We'll split your script into shots and pick matching videos (to get you 80-99% of the way there). From there, take it to the finish line with the Admaker Editor.

Bring a script
B-roll cutting

Save time by using Icon to cut in B-roll on your talking head videos.

We'll pick matching videos to cut in on your talking head videos (to get you 80-99% of the way there). From there, take it to the finish line with the Admaker Editor.

B-roll cutting
Ad cloning

Save time by using Icon to clone ads from top brands.

We'll clone an ad using your videos (to get you 80-99% of the way there). From there, take it to the finish line with the Admaker Editor.

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Make me an ad

Save time by using Icon to make you ads (with the click of a button).

We'll make ads using your videos (to get you 80-99% of the way there). From there, take it to the finish line with the Admaker Editor.

Make me an ad
Describe an ad

Save time by using Icon to get an ad from a short prompt (e.g. creative brief).

We'll make an ad using your prompt (to get you 80-99% of the way there). From there, take it to the finish line with the Admaker Editor.

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Ad from voiceover

Save time by using Icon to create an ad from a voiceover.

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Ad from voiceover

What they're saying

Obvi
"We went from spending hours making each ad to building entire campaigns in minutes. Icon's AI helps us shape perfect creatives at incredible speed."
Ron Shah

Ron Shah

CEO, Obvi

Products

Admaker(replaces CapCut, Adobe Premiere)

Create winning ads in minutes.

Helps with scriptwriting, competitor ad cloning, script-to-video matching (for every shot), B-roll cutting, video creation, permutations, voiceovers, captions, music, analytics, ad auto-uploading, & more.

Replaces CapCut ($7.99/month), Adobe Premiere ($54.99/month)

Admaker
Adspy
(replaces AdSpy, Foreplay)

Save time with AI-powered ad cloning.

Replaces Foreplay ($49-$99/month + $20/user), AdSpy ($149/month)

Adspy
Ads Manager
(replaces Ad Managers)

Save time with ad manager auto-upload.

Replaces Meta Ads Manager (direct use)

Ads Manager
Creative Library
(replaces Recharm, Air)

Save time by storing, tagging, creating, & splitting videos with AI.

Videos are used as building blocks for AI-generated ads in Admaker.

Replaces Recharm ($500-3K/month), Air ($250-$2K/month)

Creative Library
Creative Analytics
(replaces Motion)

Save money with built-in creative analytics.

Replaces Motion ($1K-$10K/month)

Creative Analytics
UGC Creators
(replaces Billo)

Save time & money with AI-generated UGC.

Replaces Billo ($99/video)

UGC Creators

Story

Kennan Davison

Kennan Davison

CEO, Founder
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
CPO, Chairman, Founder at Skio (CEO 2021-2024, $10M+ ARR in 3 years, profitable).
Previously: Pinterest, Hulu, Wieden+Kennedy (ad agency), League of Legends Challenger (Top 200 North America, 100M+ players globally), Y Combinator S20 (solo founder), Columbia (transfer, dropout).
Hi, I'm Kennan!
Growing up, my dream was to be a pro gamer: this felt within reach in high school once I ranked top 200 North America in League of Legends (out of 100M+ players globally).
Despite this, I needed to support myself so I went to college and started learning to code. Coding came naturally (especially with 100 hour weeks) and I was soon skipping class to work at places like Hulu and Wieden+Kennedy (ad agency). Realizing that being paid to work full-time (vs. paying to go to school) sounded quite nice, I dropped out after 1 year to join Pinterest.
After Pinterest, I started a company called Skio which does subscription management software for brands on Shopify. In just 3 years, we've partnered with 1000+ brands (Liquid I.V., Milk Bar, Polaroid, Barstool, Unilever, KraveBeauty, Boba Tea Protein), reached $10M+ ARR (+profitable), and built an amazing team of 50.
With advancements in generative AI (video specifically), I saw an opportunity to help brands bring their stories to life exponentially faster and make marketing much better (hence Icon & building the first AI Admaker).
I love learning how we can help better. Feel free to reach out any time at kennan@icon.me.
Founders Fund

Founders Fund

Icon Investor
Founders Fund
Founders Fund
Founders Fund
Founders Fund
Founders Fund
Founders Fund
Founders Fund
Peter Thiel's Founders Fund is a venture capital firm. Its partners have founded and funded companies including PayPal, Palantir, SpaceX, Anduril, Flexport, Airbnb and Stripe.
Kennan Davison

Kennan Davison

CEO, Founder
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
CPO, Chairman, Founder at Skio (CEO 2021-2024, $10M+ ARR in 3 years, profitable).
Previously: Pinterest, Hulu, Wieden+Kennedy (ad agency), League of Legends Challenger (Top 200 North America, 100M+ players globally), Y Combinator S20 (solo founder), Columbia (transfer, dropout).

Products
Icon

Others

Admaker
(replaces CapCut, Adobe Premiere)
Create winning ads in minutes.
Replaces CapCut ($7.99/month), Adobe Premiere ($54.99/month)
check
x
Adspy
(replaces Foreplay, AdSpy)
Save time with AI-powered ad cloning.
Replaces Foreplay ($49-$99/month + $20/user), AdSpy ($149/month)
check
x
Ads Manager
(replaces Ad Managers)
Save time with ad manager auto-upload.
Replaces Meta Ads Manager (direct use)
check
x
Creative Library
(replaces Recharm, Air)
Save time by storing, tagging, creating, & splitting videos with AI.
Replaces Recharm ($500-3K/month), Air ($250-$2K/month)
check
x
Creative Analytics
(replaces Motion)
Save money with built-in creative analytics.
Replaces Motion ($1K-$10K/month)
check
x
UGC Creators
(replaces Billo)
Save time & money with AI-generated UGC.
Replaces Billo ($99/video)
check
x

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