Why smarter marketing is needed to tackle climate change
Editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Drum, Gordon Young, wonders if marketers are taking too hard approach in how they approach the climate disaster.
The world is heating up and so is the climate change rhetoric. The UN Secretary-general Antonio Guterres has stated that the "era of global warming has ended, the era of global boiling has arrived… the air is unbreathable, the heat is unbearable".
Such language is designed to shock the world into taking action, action we need to take. But is this rhetoric counterproductive? It has certainly had an impact on mental health. Psychologists say ‘eco-anxiety’ is an emerging problem, especially among young adults and children.
The American Psychiatric Association has defined the condition thus: “The chronic fear of environmental disaster that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one’s future and that of next generations.”
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News reports suggest that places like Rhodes have become an uninhabitable burnt-out hell hole abound, as well as numerous reports of extreme weather events. There is no doubt that climate change is a huge issue. But there is also little doubt that scientific findings and extreme weather news can be exaggerated to grab people’s attention and motivate them to change their behavior.
However, evidence suggests, that as well as causing mental health issues, such an approach simply cultivates a state of denial and paralysis (if we are all doomed, then what’s the point?) as well as cynicism.
For example, if people are led to believe on one hand Rhodes has been wiped from the map, only to see people back next month as though nothing has happened, it may serve to undermine the entire climate change argument.
And also deploying fear will succumb to the law of diminishing returns - as people are desensitized to the issue.
There are other examples of that happening in the past - for example around health education campaigns to get people to quit smoking.
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Initially, the consensus was fear was the best tactic. Pictures of blackened lungs, tumors and other gore abounded. However, there came a realization that most smokers already know that smoking was bad for them. Two-thirds already wanted to give up. The reasons they persist are highly complex.
And the communication itself has to become more complex as a result. The alarmist images, maybe deterred non-smokers, but simply became background noise to actual smokers.
Maybe it’s time for veterans of these campaigns to advise the likes of the UN. They would suggest toning down the fear, encouraging the media to maintain a sense of perspective when dealing with weather news, and instilling in the rest of us a sense of hope.
One example from the 90s was from what was then known as The Health Education Board of Scotland. Rather than running with lines such as ‘smoking will KILL you’ their approach was a more subtle ‘think about it.’ Featuring terms like ‘this tastes boggin’ its films looked at the social consequences of smoking - like the downsides of smelling like an ashtray. 90% of teenagers said the ads made them think about their health.
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Maybe it’s time for veterans of these campaigns to advise the likes of the UN. They would suggest toning down the fear, encouraging the media to maintain a sense of perspective when dealing with weather news, and instilling in the rest of us a sense of hope.