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Government advertising campaigns on climate change won’t
work unless they stop being miserable, gloomy and bleak -
and, instead, start encouraging more people to take positive
action on climate change, says a new report by the UK's National
Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, (NESTA) just
published.
The report reveals how harnessing commercial-style advertising
and marketing techniques would make a powerful impact on changing
the behaviour of individuals in response to the threat of
climate change and provides incisive consumer insight into
why current campaigns may be failing.
NESTA commissioned BMRB (British Market Research Bureau)
to conduct research for its report - 'Selling sustainability
- seven lessons from advertising and marketing to sell low
carbon living' - into the effectiveness of advertising
on individual behaviour change. The report says that, while
UK policy has responded to some degree to the threat of climate
change, the UK government has not yet fully embraced the importance
of mass behaviour change to respond to it.
Furthermore, despite increasing efforts to engage the public
on climate change and link it to their individual behaviour,
there is little evidence of significant behaviour change to
reduce emissions. This is because there is often a gap between
awareness of climate change and individual action.
NESTA CEO, Jonathan Kestenbaum, said - “The report shows
it’s not enough to simply make people aware of climate change
issues. To have a mass impact, campaigns must engage people
in a compelling way and persuade them to change their behaviour.”
The research shows that -
- Campaigns should avoid being ‘miserable, gloomy and
bleak’ (despite the potentially catastrophic consequences
of not acting), instead emphasising that taking action on
climate change is ‘normal’ - encouraging more people
to engage with it.
- Campaigns should recognise the importance of fairness
- i.e. Everyone needs to be seen to be doing their bit,
including government and industry.
- Campaigns should be personally relevant. They should relate
to our environment, not the
environment and should use insight from commercial ads to
engage emotional responses.
- Campaigns should identify the opportunities for individuals
in taking action. For example, consumer research shows that
millions of people desire a lower-stress, less consumption
orientated lifestyle - this could form one basis for a social
marketing campaign.
Based on rigorous analysis of the most effective commercial
and social advertising campaigns, the NESTA report enshrines
a new set of core principles which it strongly recommends
should be harnessed for any future public campaigns, dubbed
- 'The 7Cs' - ads should be clear, compelling, connected,
creative, configured, consistent and confident.
To view the full TV ad version of the Honda - 'Hate Something
- Change Something' - cited as a good example in the Supplementary
report - Click
Here
Note - 'Hate Something - Change Something' can
be found 2nd row from bottom.
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