Market Summary - Environmental Advertising & Ethical Advertising

At a Glance

Environmental Advertising & Ethical Advertising - Can Business inspire consumers to behave more sustainably?

Over the last ten years there has been a considerable increase in consumer expenditure on environmental and ethical products and services (see chart below).  However, the consumer driven sustainability revolution never really materialised. We know that some consumers decide which tomatoes to buy based on their provenance or which shampoo to buy based on carbon footprint, but the great majority don't.
Major corporates say that the number of consumers willing to change their behaviour is stuck at around 20%. So what about the other 80%? A growing number of companies, ranging from Unilever and Procter & Gamble to Marks & Spencer have started to think about how they help consumers change their behaviour.
This is not for some great altruistic reason, rather it's because they recognise that the most significant environmental impact in consumer goods comes not in their manufacture, but in their use. If they are going to keep growing, they need to encourage their customers to be more responsible in the way they consume goods and services.

UK expenditure on green/ethical goods & services -£bn

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Environmental Advertising & Ethical Advertising

How the science of behaviour change can help with Sustainability

It’s always the same questions that come up time and time again about changing people’s behaviours.  Les Robinson (Director of Enabling Change) has shared some of his tips with the Guardian:

How do you change people's behaviours?

It's a delusion we can change peoples' behaviours. Instead, people change their own behaviours. Our role is to create an enabling environment and provide opportunities for people to become inspired by what their peers have achieved. When we offer people a chance to take a step closer to the lives, businesses or farms they dream about (and we make that change feel safe) then they'll do the changing for us.

How do you move beyond "the converted"?

The converted want to change the world. The majority just want incremental improvement in their farms, businesses, lives, families, health etc. There's nothing wrong with that and we can't transform the majority into the converted. Instead we have to respect their hopes and enable them to achieve the things that matter to them.

So, instead of asking "How can I make the public share my passionate concerns for climate, road safety, domestic violence etc?" we need to ask "How can I be of service to the concerns they already have?"

Which behaviour change theory is best?

The best theory is the one you make yourself by intimately knowing your audience and understanding their needs.

What if people just aren't interested?

Don't blame them. Instead, act more like a designer. Immerse yourself in their lives until you figure out how to create solutions that answer their real needs.
Imagine if the inventors of the first mobile phones (known affectionately as "bricks") just sat around blaming the public for not buying them. Instead they set about evolving the phone into something that met more and more people's practical needs. The same applies to, for instance, a climate change project. If you want people to reduce their energy use then get to know your audience and work with them to innovate solutions that are a good fit to their real life needs.

Do threats work?

Rarely. After all, when was the last time you changed your behaviour because of a threat? Threats create waves of denial and resistance.

Do incentives work?

Incentives are a two-edged sword. Sometimes they help, sometimes they don't. There's an unresolved decades-long debate between economists and psychologists about the effectiveness of incentives.

How do you create great messages?

Marketers typically overestimate the power of messages, a syndrome that could be called "message fetish." People are rarely convinced by messages. Usually they are convinced by the inspiring real life examples of their peers. Nevertheless, we always need to communicate, and stories (rather than messages or slogans) are our best tools. Stories should be short, emotional, surprising, concrete and believable.

Can marketers persuade people to do absolutely anything?

We humans resent unwanted advice, especially when it threatens our comfort zones. Denial and resistance are driven by fear and the worst fears are social fears. Behaviour change is therefore rarely achieved by persuasion or marketing but almost always requires modelling how to carry out unfamiliar behaviours with ease, aplomb and dignity.

In conclusion

Behaviour change is a multi-disciplinary effort. It involves practices and ways of thinking that no one profession can claim expertise in, like organisational change, infrastructure design, observational and social research, regulation, design thinking, social psychology, and communication and marketing.  And, of course, leadership.
Because it's a multi-disciplinary effort, one of the most important roles of a change agent is to be a facilitator of strategising discussions involving individuals in diverse fields, including members of the target audience itself. That kind of facilitation might just be the most important thing we do.

To read the full article click here

Top tips on communicating your companies’ sustainable vision

It is often hard for businesses to know where to begin when it comes to developing communications strategies around sustainability.  It’s important that campaigns are both credible and authentic; The Guardian has spoken to Ed Gillespie, Co-Founder of Futerra Sustainability Communications about key steps for businesses to follow when developing such campaigns:

Understand your 'Why?'

It's actually your 'why' that people and ultimately customers are interested in, so it's vital that you understand it yourself in order to share it effectively and more widely.

Know how far you want to go

It's important to be realistic about the scale of your ambition - Knowing thyself and how far you can go over time will ensure you don't end up on wild flights of hopelessly improbable sustainability fantasy.

Create yourself a vision

What do you hope to practically achieve? A great way of galvanising your business around a vision is the crafting of a 'Big Hairy Audacious Goal' (BHAG) that excites, challenges and also scares people (just a little) in the scale and scope of its aspiration. A good recent example of a powerful BHAG is the launch of Unilever's Sustainable Living Plan - their stated intention to 'halve the environmental footprint of our products by 2020' is certainly hirsute and daring. Of course they've yet to clarify all the details of how it will be practically achieved – but the point is the grand ambition will now drive both efficiency and innovation right across the business.

Do something

Communications are only as credible as the substantive, tangible initiatives that underpin them. Without these activities delivering real change you are putting yourself on an inexorable path to greenwashing. Your change programme should embrace both good housekeeping and your core business, or it's simply window dressing whilst stocking the same old same old on the shelves inside the shop.

Communicate honestly

Now you're ready to communicate openly, honestly and with authenticity. And you don't have to broadcast it.  Communication via social media is an amazing opportunity to share your aims, experiences and achievements as the values on which it's built: transparency, ethics, innovation and collaboration, align well with those of sustainability itself. Engage your audiences in genuine dialogue and they will tell your authentic story for you.

To read the full article click here

Finding out more

The Guardian's vision is to be the leader on sustainability within the media industry and to be carbon positive in our activities.  There are a number of ways that we can work with commercial partners to help build a more sustainable future. This includes sustainability strategy workshops, hosting networking events for sustainability practitioners, creating cross-media content solutions for product launches, sponsorship opportunities, targeting ad campaigns to the right audience on the most relevant platform and providing market intelligence.

For more information, please contact

Carrina Gaffney, Commercial Sustainability Manager
carrina.gaffney@guardian.co.uk
020 3353 4456