How we might do things better
One campaign is not enough
We need positivity and vision
We must be more heart-focused
Soft messaging can be powerful
We need better role models
Green living should be 'on a plate'
There are potential allies out there
It's better to be on the inside
We must be pragmatic
Don't let's forget the M's and the E's
Green actions need personal benefits
Green must become cool
One campaign is not enough
Campaigns to encourage and persuade the public to adopt green behaviours must be framed in terms that make sense to them, according to their own values and motivations. What this might mean in practice is that one campaign, with one approach, might not be enough. We must consider framing any public campaign in several different ways.
Taking the three main values-motivations groupings identified by psychologists, a campaign to encourage the inhabitants of Acacia Avenue in the town of New Grinstead to go green might be framed as follows:
Campaign for Ethical Living aimed at inner-directed Pioneers
Key message: Do the right thing and feel good about it.
What it can offer you: Satisfaction, fulfilment, enlightenment, a sense of calm, well being.
What you stand to lose if you don't take up Ethical Living: Personal peace of mind and self-respect because you know you haven't done what you should have done.
Messaging: A focus on global concerns, fundamental ethics and altruism using global green language in abundance.
Campaign images: Global problems and people in action.
Campaign target media: Guardian, Independent, Observer.
Campaign for Smart Living aimed at outer-directed Prospectors
Key message: Do the clever thing and feel good about it.
What it can offer you: Reputation, success, the respect of others, desirability, admiration, fashionability, influence.
What you stand to lose if you don't take up Smart Living: The esteem of others; you risk looking an idiot.
Messaging: A focus on 'what's in it for you', a ban on all green language as far as is possible, a play on the kudos gained by individuals talking part.
Campaign images: Successful, attractive, desirable people.
Campaign target media: Daily Mail, The Times.
Campaign for Safe Living aimed at security-driven Settlers
Key message: Do the sensible thing and feel good about it.
What it can offer you: Security, stability, tradition, consistency, fitting in, acceptance, continuity, reliability.
Messaging: A focus on the home ground, the local environment and everyday life activities, a ban on all 'global' green language but focusing on concern for the local and with a message that you could be left out if you don't join in.
What you stand to lose if you don't take up Safe Living: The way of life you have grown to love; you risk losing everything that's important.
Campaign images: Nice homes, stable family life, pets.
Campaign target media: Daily Express, Daily Telegraph.
We need positivity and vision
The Spice Girls sang "All you need is positivity" and, as in so many things, they were absolutely right, as a whole generation of toddlers could have told us. People need to feel solutions are within their grasp. A focus on human ingenuity and imagination is more likely to lead to optimism and enthusiastic participation. And after all, humanity has moved from the oatcake to the computer in a couple of hundred years, so we just might get through our environmental problems.
Green leaders need to agree a vision of the future and make sure it isn't hopelessly unobtainable. We should turn from 'defence' to 'attack' by moving away from 'defending' the environment through the reduction of damage and exploitation to 'attacking' on its behalf through promoting a positive vision of a better way of doing things. In this way we can be associated with solutions rather than problems. Our message must clearly be: "Something better is on the way..."
In their controversial but telling book The Death of Environmentalism, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus wrote: "The world's most effective leaders are not issue-identified but rather vision and value-identified. These leaders distinguish themselves by inspiring hope against fear, love against prejudice, and power against powerlessness. Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech is famous because it put forward an inspiring, positive vision that carried a critique of the current moment within it. Imagine how history would have turned out had King given an 'I have a nightmare' speech instead. In the absence of a bold vision, environmental leaders are effectively giving the 'I have a nightmare' speech."
We must be more heart-focused
It's time we learned from the car adverts and moved from a modus operandi of information provision and rational argument to methods aimed at touching emotions, stimulating resonance, inspiring and creating desire. In other words, we should move from a head-focused approach to one that's heart-focused. In decisions that people make concerning their lifestyles, emotions and desires frequently over-ride thought processes.
This is how marketing professionals ensure their products sell. Look at the next car advert on television closely. It will probably provide next to no information about the product itself but use powerful images of mountains, clean environments, glamorous and successful people, and sex to create desire and emotional responses. We too need to think in terms of brands that people will identify with, find attractive, see as a must-have, and above all like, just as they identify with a brand in the car showroom or home in on their favourite magazine in the newsagent's. It might make us recoil but we do need to think in terms of Brand Green, packaging environmentally friendly choices in ways that people find irresistible.
Soft messaging can be powerful
The green movement has to connect with the contemporary culture of its audiences, whoever they are, and nowhere is this more important than with the general public. The power of indirect, soft messaging in popular culture has not been exploited. Celebrity culture, fashion, music... these all need to be broken into and used to promote ideas as part of the mood of the moment. Again product advertisers are way ahead of us on this one. Television and radio adverts use all these tools.
Television itself is the most powerful medium but will not play its full part in promoting a sustainable future until green messages are incorporated into popular drama, comedy, chatshows, gameshows, makeover shows, reality TV and soaps. And it needn't be full on. Peripheral messaging - something happening in the background, perhaps Coronation Street characters eating organic cornflakes while discussing the latest affair on the street - can be just as effective.
Soft messaging in books can also influence people. To take fiction, environment might not seem an obvious topic for bestsellers but there are a surprising range of books with environmental messages contained in them, sometimes obvious and direct, sometimes hidden but perhaps just as potent. Like coffee table picture books on beautiful landscapes or wildlife, fiction can produce an emotional response, which ultimately can be far more powerful as a shaper of attitude and a motivator for action than a list of facts on environmental threats. Consider Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. At first glance, it's a fantasy storybook and a must-read for idealists at a certain time of life, but on closer inspection, it can be seen to contain some strong environmental messages, among them the subjugation of beauty, magic and diversity by mankind, the decline of forests, and the horrors of over-industrialisation and consequences of a loss of respect for nature. A major trilogy of dramatic films as well, its impact is probably enormous at a subconscious level.
We need better role models
Research carried out for the Painting the Town Green project showed that 63 per cent of the people questioned couldn't think of any good green role models or leaders of the green movement they looked up to. This is very bad news. People tend to subconsciously follow the style, opinions and actions of people they admire or aspire to. If we're not providing someone green to look up to, we're missing a major opportunity.
Most of the people that the public identify with the environment are rather learned, intellectual figures. They respect them, perhaps, but don't aspire to be like them. We need David Beckham, Robbie and Snoop Dogg on board if we're to connect with younger people, and perhaps Sean Connery and even Vera Lynn for older people to take notice, and how about Kate Winslet for Gadget Man and Jordan for White Van Man? Campaigners might think this is shallow thinking but the human mind is not always as deep as we might like to think.
Green living should be 'on a plate'
Across the environmental movement we should be working towards providing 'green living on a plate', as easy as booking a holiday: the equivalent of just making a phone call, handing over a credit card number and turning up on the day. Every local authority should provide a green demonstration house in which green consumer choices are demonstrated in a practical, constructive and non-confrontational way with friendly staff on hand to offer commentary. A national one-stop telephone advisory service should be set up offering clear, easy-to-obtain practical advice on the best things to do for the environment and how to do them. Government should facilitate and encourage the establishment of 'green make-over' businesses and other private providers of, and crucially maintenance services for, green technology. There should be massive public investment in infrastructure and facilities for green living.
Similarly people need 'green starter kit' advice. They should be able to start off with easy actions with obvious paybacks or pleasant effects that fit into existing routines, before building up to the more difficult areas. For example, going green could begin with wildlife gardens, action on litter and planting or tending trees in the neighbourhood, before attempting change in areas such as transport and holidays.
There are potential allies out there
The green movement is actually a very broad church. Different arms of the movement must build links towards others, seek consensus and work together to devise overall 'brands' rather than a myriad of individual messages and even competitive brands moulded around specific organisations. It's human nature to be competitive amongst ourselves but it's counterproductive to follow the model expressed by Monty Python's Life of Brian, in which the Popular Front of Judea won't speak to the Judean Popular Front and so on.
One potentially powerful set of collaborators that we are more or less completely ignoring is the faith movement. We should seek to build bridges here, focusing on shared principles and values, and 'sign up' religious leaders as public campaigners. It is sobering for environmentalists used to communicating to limited audiences in limited ways with limited budgets to think that 1.7 million people participate in a Church of England service each month and that the number of Church of England ministers is as high as 27,000. What could Friends of the Earth do with 27,000 campaigners?
It's better to be on the inside
It might be more productive to try to achieve change by working within and with established and realistic political processes, rather than outside and against. This could mean more inside-track lobbying of decision makers rather than outside-track publicity-led campaigns to embarrass or humiliate them. Taken one step further, some might argue that relying on a separate political party to promote primarily green values may not be as effective as politicians with a strong green conscience moving into the mainstream parties and changing them from within.
We must be pragmatic
It is counter-productive to take things to the nth degree, to insist on so much that it triggers the "Oh, for heaven's sake" effect. Hence we should not, for example, suggest people wrap Christmas and birthday presents in newspaper, nor should we draw attention to pesticide residues on cats' paws as an argument against having a cat.
Similarly we should create a sense of every little counts and deal convincingly with the "I can't do everything, so I'll do nothing" reaction by presenting a 'green on balance' framework for personal living. We shouldn't chastise people for slipping into binges of 'bad ways' now and again. Nevertheless there needs to be some league tabling of behaviours to emphasise that some have much bigger effects than others. Presenting a system in which people feel they are 'doing their bit' by putting bottles out for recycling but then feel able to jet off to Australia would be dangerous.
A good way to gauge whether we are being too fussy in our 'demands' is to apply what might be called the 'Man in the Street Test'. If we were to explain our thoughts to a random member of our target audience and it resulted in raised eyebrows, a shake of the head or an expletive, then we might be taking things too seriously or trying to get too far too soon.
Don't let's forget the M's and the E's
If one were written, the bible of communications would start with the three M's and follow with the four E's. In communicating with anyone, the first task is to define the specific audience (the market), the second is to clarify what we want to get across to them (the message), and the third is to decide how to do it (the medium). Successful communication usually follows this order. Doing it in reverse, for example deciding to produce a leaflet, writing it and then wondering who might read it, is pure self-indulgence. On the same level, in trying to produce behaviour change in the public, the aim should be to strive for a partnership with them (engage), make it easy (enable), lead by example (exemplify) and give support and help (encourage).
Green actions need personal benefits
People need to have tangible, personal, close-to-home benefits from environmental actions. Every environmental action should carry a personal incentive or reward and we should press for non-sustainable behaviours to carry price penalties or other disincentives. Benefits at the society level are a shaky motivator for many people and most people discount the future in comparison with the present, so an argument that doing something is for the good of society in the long term is unlikely to work for many people.
Messages that green behaviours, for example putting in loft insulation, can save people money are also prone to failure because the amounts are usually small and often set too far in the future. The prospect of saving small amounts is for most people not a strong enough force to change deeply ingrained habits or indeed lay out money up-front to set something up. In addition, the truth is that most people today do not need to save money, certainly not at the sort of levels on offer. In general, and there will always be exceptions, people are more affluent now than ever before.
However, almost paradoxically, everyone hates paying over the odds for something at the point of purchase and most people have in-built mechanisms that lead them to seek out bargains and then feel good about them. Could tax and price mechanisms be shaped, and marketing adopted, to suggest that by adopting green lifestyles, people are somehow 'tricking' government out of money and getting a bargain?
Green must become cool
Our task must be to convert niche behaviour to mainstream. This can be done. After all, this is pretty much what all businesses are trying to do and this challenge keeps a whole army of advertising and marketing professionals in employment. If you doubt that niche can be turned into mainstream, consider the history of Coca Cola. One American company, presumably started by a small group of motivated individuals, has persuaded people in almost every country in the world to drink a nutritionless fizzy brown fluid in a red can. If this can be done, getting people to help make the world look nice should be comparatively easy.
The secret might be to develop green as something that people want to be, something that makes them look and feel good and something they think everyone else is doing. In short, green must become cool and normal. It won't happen overnight but it's not impossible. We just need to understand psychology and think in a whole new creative way.
The green movement relies too much on policy and campaign professionals. It needs to embrace sociologists, anthropologists and psychologists who understand why people act and don't act. Crucially we need to draw in too advertising creatives able to 'sell' green as brands that work for people. If we all club together, we can perhaps get the people who make the car adverts working for us.
This information is presented in more detail in Painting the Town Green: How to Persuade People to be Environmentally Friendly. The third edition of this useful report for campaigners and communicators, published in August 2006, is available at £20 (post free to UK addresses) from Green-Engage Communications. To order a copy please contact us at stephen.hounsham@green-engage.co.uk
Alternatively, download the pdf here.