We set up Green Banana Marketing four years ago to make a difference. We work with environmentally conscious companies, charities and education organisations needing our expertise for marketing and corporate partnerships. We offer the benefits of big company thinking with the agility of a small company.  We have a unique set of skills and experience spanning three decades of working in the commercial, charity and public sectors.

What we do

• Defining appropriate organisational positioning and messaging for relevant audience groups
• Developing marketing strategy and innovation
• Identifying funding opportunities through corporate partnership strategies, brokering partnerships and defining benefits and opportunities
• Understanding and defining ethical, sustainable and CSR strategies and engagement
• Delivering marketing collateral

“Green Banana Marketing bring huge energy and creativity to any marketing with a clear sense of what works – we would certainly recommend them to others”
Director of Communications, Fairtrade Foundation

“Green Banana Marketing provided relevant and engaging insights, quickly getting to the root of the issues providing refreshing, creative and cost effective work
”
Marketing and Communications Director, Care International

Meet the team
GBM is made up of a core a team of 4 people who work across client projects.

Giles Robertson – Director and founder of Green Banana Marketing
Giles is the Director and founder of Green Banana Marketing and is the project lead on the majority client work.

Giles has over 21 years of experience of stakeholder engagement, partnerships, brand and marketing strategy.  Giles is experienced at project management having overseen a number of large-scale projects with WWF, Laban, the British Council Climate Programme, Plan International, Centre for Fashion Enterprise and Fairtrade Foundation.

Beginning his career on the agency side he worked as a graduate trainee at Saatchi & Saatchi, with periods at Ogilvy and Publicis.  He created brand strategies for the Renault Clio launch, with the Papa Nicole campaign, RSPB’s million member campaign, Coca-Cola’s Euro ’96 sponsorship, Ford and Toyota.

At Laban – the world’s largest dance centre, he managed the press, brand and marketing as the organisation moved to a new lottery funded premises, attracting 7,000 locals to the opening weekend.

At WWF, as marketing chief, he developed major awareness campaigns for climate change and deforestation and managed partner relationships with HSBC, Disney, Ben & Jerrys and ITV.

As Deputy Director at Southbank Centre, he managed the brand development for the successful reopening of the newly refurbished Royal Festival Hall attracting over 250,000 people to the first weekend.

He is founder and chair of the Not-for-profit Group, a networking and thought leadership group within the Marketing Society. He regularly writes for industry publications including Marketing Society and Third Sector. And as a dedicated Trustee of the Marine Conservation Society, the UK’s leading charity for marine conservation charity, addressing the very serious threats that face our seas and marine life, he enjoys advising them on marketing, fundraising and partnerships.

He lives in the Chilterns with his wife and three young children and does his work in the
belief that we can all make a difference to the world around us.  He always remembers the words of Sir Peter Scott, WWF’s founder who said;  “We shan’t save all we should like to, but we shall save a great deal more than if we had never tried”

Jon McGowan – Client Director
Over 20 years experience working client-side on marketing, communications and sponsorship for major international brands. In his last role as Head of Marketing for The Energy Saving Trust Jon was on the successful partnership team that won the multi-million pound tender for the Government’s domestic renewable technologies tender, the Low Carbon Building Programme. Jon has also worked on the Sun City Million $ Golf tournament in South Africa and the Beefeater Oxford and Cambridge boat race. Jon is a specialist at analysis, strategy delivery and business planning– where he supports projects.

James Duncan – account executive
James helps project manage the day-to-day delivery with previous experience of the food industry having worked with Jamie Oliver’s new Italian restaurants and project management at Ernst & Young. Currently working on the British Council’s Climate4Classrooms project, forming partnerships, and very much involved in being up to date on climate change issues and events.

Ruthann Hughes – Associate consultant
Ruthann is a skilled researcher with over 12 years’ experience of conducting qualitative and quantitative research and evaluation programmes. She has worked on a range of projects with an environmental focus ranging from public consultation on sustainable fishing through to stakeholder engagement programmes on climate change and energy transmission and consumption.

She works as an associate on a range of projects for Green Banana Marketing including stakeholder understanding around issues such as sustainability, education and climate change, focus groups to help refine creative thinking and work shops to improve integration and efficiencies in campaign delivery.

Ruthann also has a strong international background. She has run numerous international research studies and, as part of her role as project manager on the Women Into Work programme, coordinated a network of European NGOs.

Digital and design
We also work with a small team of designers and web developers who are able to deliver our digital and brand requirements across projects as well as social media strategies.