Share

Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. The AIDA model. Been around forever. Since 1925 in fact. And it works. Well, half of it works. And the half that works only works for product or lifestyles that speak to our selfish desires. Nothing wrong with that other than it’s an incomplete approach when making sustainability communication.

Speaking to our selfish desires is the reason car advertising works much better than anti-speeding messages. Let’s take this example further: The first is trying to create the desire for speed, freedom, style, conspicuous consumption; The second, trying to create desire for restraint, consideration, injunction, regulation, and conspicuous conformity.

Ewwww. The second approach is wrong – like having a party clown host a funeral.

And talking of funerals, most anti-speeding messages using the AIDA model dramatise the outcome of speed in the form of dead children in some way.

So far so scary. And it certainly makes you think. But thinking isn’t doing, and there are more effective ways of changing speeding behaviour, which takes us to the glamourous Lanarkshire Council (UK) where they have speed signs that show drivers their speed, and then a ‘smiley face’ if they’re below the limit, or a ‘sad face’ if they’re above it.

The results?

• the number of people exceeding the speed limit has fallen by 53%
• Average speed reduction of 2.5mph at these locations
• Maximum reduction 14mph
• Cost perhaps 98% less to operate annually than a speed camera

The TV part of the current Act on CO₂ campaign in the UK feels a lot like our ‘clown at a funeral’ because it’s trying to create desire for restraint/consideration/injunction/regulation/conspicuous conformity using AIDA. It’s packed full of information about the problem, and represented by images of the problem.

Related posts:

1. Why advertising will save the planet
2. How Obama, Cameron, Marks & Spencer, and B&Q are making sustainability normal
3. Call for entries: The Annual Green Awards for Creativity in Sustainability

An electric spectacle

These bikes are being raced this year in UK, Italy and the US. They travel at 130mph. They are ridden by professional riders. On professional race circuits. They have an open-source computer on-board. They are electric, as well as being electric.

Don’t waste money on ‘normal’ branding

Brands at the forefront of sustainability shouldn’t lose out on the opportunity to be represented in this first year ever of racing – a sticker on the sidepod? Part-sponsoring teams in cash-and-kind? underwriting a complete team? Opportunities like this only come along once a centuary (literally).

Make it easy

We can get you a tailored sponsorship package, and make all the collateral that goes with it, and manage magnifying it out into new and your existing communications channels [What we do] in one easy package because we work with TTXGP who run the races (and they make a pretty sweet electric sports bike, too).

The teams need sponsorship – but that’s not your problem. It’s theirs. What you need is to position your business at the forefront of sustainability [What we do | About you]. We’ve brainstormed some of the categories that can usefully position themselves with this exciting new race series:

Speed of delivery is a great category
• Ocado have a great delivery service that reduces fuel consumption
• Lots of online retailers who’re cutting down on their carbon use for deliveries

Low-carbon delivery is a massive area with clients of Smith’s Electric vans

• Sainsbury’s
• London Mayor
• Royal Mail
• Private delivery firms

Computing

• IBM, DELL, Oracle, Google, Yahoo – particularly any division that’s developed energy saving software, like SAP
• There’s a whole Plug ‘n’ Play story
• What about niche products like the ecobutton, etc

Electric motors

• Obviously, but also opportunity for hybrids
• Smaller motor manufacturere – there are SO many electric mototrs in our lives – electric fans in lavatories, washing machines, food blenders and other white goods

Power supply

• This is not only restricted to electricity supply like Ecotricity – any sustainable energy is good like E-on, for instance
• Batteries are great here too – Duracell et al
• Solar is a massive category – person supplies on rucksacks, to home generation and industrial scale builds

Precision

• The precision story is common amongst all high-end motor racing which attracts sectors like watch makers, etc
• Leaidng edge product development is great here

Fun

• Earplugs, battery/solar toy manufacturer

Celebrity

• Obvious alignment

Are any of these you?

Contact us at info@thehuntingdynasty.com or phone now on 0844 357 9072.

Related posts:

1. The World’s Fastest Laptop
2. You broke my guitar. I broke your brand and launched my career.
3. While you’re selling the product, they’re buying the life-cycle

@Element_Six No worries. Keep us upto date with what you're doing in reply to Element_Six #

@MissAtherstone Hi – what happened to your website? UandS still going? in reply to MissAtherstone #

Thanks for the #rt @iconicearth @the_SRA @argus27 @badideamag #

@BusSmartTools @CowboyRichard I moved it up a bit like cotweet have done. Less chance dropping off the page in reply to BusSmartTools #

@zerofluff OK, brill. Thanks for info. in reply to zerofluff #

Powered by Twitter Tools

Related posts:

1. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-03-07
2. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-02-22
3. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-01-18

@Element_Six No worries. Keep us upto date with what you're doing in reply to Element_Six #

@MissAtherstone Hi – what happened to your website? UandS still going? in reply to MissAtherstone #

Thanks for the #rt @iconicearth @the_SRA @argus27 @badideamag #

@BusSmartTools @CowboyRichard I moved it up a bit like cotweet have done. Less chance dropping off the page in reply to BusSmartTools #

@zerofluff OK, brill. Thanks for info. in reply to zerofluff #

Powered by Twitter Tools

Related posts:

1. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-03-07
2. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-02-22
3. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-01-18

At The Hunting Dynasty we use all our communication chops to make our client’s sustainable products and lifestyles mainstream. Sustainable practice is already the ‘norm’ in some sectors (mostly sectors with long lead times like construction), but every sector will have to be sustainable in order to survive. While going mainstream makes sense logically, we rarely make decisions using logic alone – we’re more instinctive than that. Obama, Cameron, Marks & Spencer and B&Q are all helping to dial our instincts towards sustainable behaviour.

Society’s construction of social norms is an unwritten, constantly evolving, and evolutionary punitive set of group rules that allows us to get along with each other: for most of us our first exposure to this the most popular boy/girl at school. Social norms are commonly described thus:

“Social norms: the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit. Failure to follow the rules can result in severe punishments, including exclusion from the group.”
Heads, you die: Bad decisions, choice architecture, and how to mitigate predictable irrationality, Jack Fuller, Per Capita, 2009

It’s one of the most important – and pervasive – effects in the social psychology cannon. Here’s 4 authoritative icons shaping our social norms:

“I know the idea [of investing in upgrades to inefficient buildings] may not be very glamorous, although I get really excited about it. Insulation is sexy stuff.”
Obama, President of the US

Youtube

3. Marks & Spencer
M&S will roll-out a number of new products in 2010, including bespoke energy advice, renewable energy solutions such as solar panels & heat pumps, and energy efficient heating products.

Great.

But even great-er-er is their idea to prime-the-pump by offering free loft or cavity wall insulation to all its employees. If all qualifying employees take up the offer, the retailer says that it will insulate 30,000 homes for free.

“We hope to create 30,000 green M&S ambassadors by offering this energy efficient solution free of charge to our employees. It will… cut… their carbon emissions, cut their energy bills and, we believe, inspire them to become advocates for energy efficiency.”
Richard Gillies, director of Plan A at M&S

It doesn’t get more ’social norm’ than the having king (queen) of the UK high street going sustainable. Mike Barry – head of sustainable business at M&S, and Lucy Calver – head of food and Plan A marketing at M&S – write in Marketing Magazine:

“…a sustainable future will be achieved only when people feel they are part of a ‘tribe’ for change. They must be made aware they are not alone, but one among millions of individuals who are all making small changes that together make a big difference… Your ‘tribe’ might be your religion, your football club, your allotment committee, or it might be a brand you consume with millions of other people each day.”

4. B&Q
Sutton council in the UK has worked with the London Sustainability Exchange (which is funded through Capital Ambition, London’s Improvement and Efficiency Partnership).

“We recently worked with B&Q to make available 6,000 rolls of loft insulation our residents at a massively reduced price, and we delivered them for free to many households –helping them to choose to take a very simple step to make their homes more carbon efficient, and to save on their bills”
Daniel Ratchford -Strategic Director, Environment & Leisure, Sutton Council

Many of Sutton’s most successful programmes have involved bringing together a wide range of initiatives at the softer end of the scale (“more of the carrot, and less of the stick…” they say). They call this: enabling “smarter choices”.

And I think ’smarter choices’ is a perfect description of all the examples here. While we rarely make decisions using logic alone, thankfully Obama, Cameron, Marks & Spencer and B&Q did, and in so doing are shaping a social norm that will help create sustainable behaviour.

Related posts:

1. How marketing agencies get sustainability communications wrong
2. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-03-07
3. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-03-07

@EcoLabs 2 examples 10 words/save 7 trillion glns H2O http://ow.ly/18CcB Finance sustainable initiatives without/taxes? http://ow.ly/18Ce1 in reply to EcoLabs #

Powered by Twitter Tools

Related posts:

1. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-03-07
2. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-03-07
3. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-01-18

We presented an exploration of how to use behavioural quirks to the Institute for Sustainability today.

The Institute is an independent, private sector led charity created to significantly advance the UK’s ability to deliver solutions for a sustainable future. They’ve been featured on BBC Radio 4, and are comprised of most of the UK’s big businesses: Arup, BT, EDF, HSBC, IBM, and Thames Water, along with Imperial College London, King’s College London, University College London, and many others.

They are bringing together practitioners I sustainability along the Thames corridor, UK in ground-breaking practicle demonstrations. Our experience in communication sustainable practice through the use of behavioural principles got us around the table.

For information on behavioural communications, speaking engagements, or workshops fire a quick note to us here info@thehuntingdynasty.com or phone us now on 0844 357 9072

Related posts:

1. NEW REPORT – The Hunter Briefing: A Bird’s Eye View on Sustainability in Fashion
2. We’re loving this Slideshare presentation – What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later
3. How Obama, Cameron, Marks & Spencer, and B&Q are making sustainability normal

The coming Carbon Reduction Commitment measures and demands business pay for any increase in carbon output. Most businesses see technological advance as the only way to manage carbon output. Few consider their human capital as…

Well, few consider their human capital at all. But in their hands lies behaviour patterns that can deliver almost costless carbon reductions. Or, if you’re not careful, very expensive carbon increases. Behaviour is important. What simple ways can you create behaviour that delivers carbon reductions?

Here’s our list of 5 incentives:

1. Ask people to indicate the extent to which they think energy efficiency is a good thing. You get to engage people’s cool, calm, rational brain – the part that’s used to plan an early start in the morning, rather than the bit that hits the snooze button (over and over again).
2. Make it a public. We’re much more likely to be consistent with a promise made in public than one made in private – who wants to look like a hypocrite?
3. Focus on what stands to be lost instead of what stands to be gained. Loss aversion is such a strong quirk of ours it almost feels like cheating to use it. Broadly speaking we feel 1 unit of happiness if we gain £100, but feel 2 units of pain if we lose £100.
4. Tell them what their neighbors are doing.. As soon as we find out a behaviour of ours might be considered a little strange our automatic response is to correct it in favour of the ‘norm’.
5. Tell them what experts are saying. The Authority effect means people likely to obey and believe experts.

Notice that none of the points I’ve raised involve a catchy slogan or an image to try and describe the effect carbon has on the world – because neither willingness nor simple exposure to messages has a great deal of impact on people’s behaviour. A more sophisticated understanding is required to overcome barriers to action.

And it’s those barriers that are the next great frontier.

“When we look at the remaining potential for efficiency, changing consumer behavior is the next wave of savings that needs to be tapped.” says Tim Stout, vice-president of energy efficiency at [Massachusetts utility] National Grid.

As Dr. Robert Cialdini – the ex-Regents’ Professor of Psychology and Marketing Arizona State University – put it, you simply need to

“…marginalise undesirable behaviour.”

What do you think?

Related posts:

1. 7 Sustainable ads that work, and 5 that don’t
2. Incentives: Why parachutes never fail, trains are overcrowded, and you never meet an incompetent fugu chef
3. How can drinking tap water on live television change your behaviour?

Powered by Twitter Tools

Related posts:

1. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-02-22
2. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-01-18
3. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-03-07

Powered by Twitter Tools

Related posts:

1. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-01-25
2. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-02-15
3. Weekly Twitter Digest: 2010-02-01