Branding an elephant called global warming
According to eminent people like Sir Nicolas Stern, if CEOs in the UK do nothing about climate change, it will cost the equivalent of at least 5 percent of Global GDP each year, now and forever
According to eminent people like Sir Nicolas Stern, if CEOs in the UK do nothing about climate change, it will cost the equivalent of at least 5 percent of Global GDP each year, now and forever
A famous parable demonstrates how truth is relative: A wise man guides four blind people to describe an object. They are led to an Asian elephant. Groping about, they try to appreciate and explain the new phenomenon. One grasps the trunk and concludes it is a snake. Another explores one of the elephant’s legs and describes it as a tree. A third finds the elephant’s tail and announces that it is a rope. The fourth blind man, after discovering the elephant’s side, concludes it’s a wall.
The tale reminds me of the current confusion surrounding global warming. According to eminent people like Sir Nicolas Stern, if CEOs in the UK do nothing about climate change, it will cost the equivalent of at least 5 percent of Global GDP each year, now and forever.
According to Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), there are already almost as many environmentally displaced people on the planet as traditional refugees. The figure for ‘climate refugees’ could be as high as 50 million by 2010.
Yet some conspiracy theorists suggest the current fixation with energy and pollution is in fact more to do with the tip of the propaganda iceberg related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and oil prices, rather than the fate of Antarctica. Others wonder if the whole issue has only gained powerful support, as it helps breath new life into general elections for parties such as the US Republicans or in the UK, David Cameron’s Conservatives.
Supporting their case, cynics point to Professor Richard Toi, cited 63 times in the 670 page Stern report, who said, “If a student of mine were to hand in this report as a Masters thesis, perhaps if I was in a good mood I would give him a ‘D’ for diligence; but more likely I would give him an ‘F’ for fail.”
The winds of change
Hurricane Katrina brought the potential effects of global warming to the doorstep of the American public. In March 2006, a TNS/ABC poll showed 49 percent of Americans deemed global warming extremely important to them personally. A further three in 10 said it was somewhat important. (In 1998 only 31 percent of people thought global warming was extremely important). In April 2007, it was reported that the world’s largest freshwater lake by surface area, Lake Superior, could completely lose its essential ice cover by 2040. Just before Easter 2007, global rises in temperatures and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere lead to a US Supreme Court ruling that global warming is ‘real’.
In the UK, David Cameron wants CEOs, and everyone else for that matter, to either stop flying or only fly once in a blue moon (or should that be red hot sun?) Yet many question the sincerity of a man who takes a private plane from Oxford to Herefordshire – a distance of less than 100 miles – rather than catch the train.
Prime Minister in waiting – Gordon Brown – wants everyone to change lightbulbs and switch off the television sets to do something more interesting instead – presumably in the dark.
The Climate Change Bill aims to reduce emissions by up to 32 percent by 2020 and 60 per cent by 2050. While Britain will become the first country in the world to set legally binding targets for cutting its carbon dioxide emissions, it will continue to trade with the doyens of industrial strength toxic global warming: India and China.
Offering factories tradable allowances, the European Union’s Emission Trading Scheme caps the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by industry. Yet, in the past, too many allowances have been dished out and devalued – so they no longer give countries powerful inducements to invest in alternative green-friendly technologies.
How do you tackle an elephant?
Recognising that something has to be done, CEOs are asking brand communication and marketing departments to lend their expertise in tackling the climate change ‘elephant’ and at the same time, reinvent the PR merits of corporate social responsibility. For their parts, global marketing departments are looking at ways to make sustainability sexy.
For example, noting the unfriendly and confusing tone of the expression ‘global warming’ Viral Marketing guru, Seth Godin invited marketers throughout the world to come up with a more user-friendly term. Answers ranged from ‘global crisis’ to ‘fever climating’.
In the US, Ben and Jerry’s, owned by Uniliver, launched a Climate Change College. Energy-bar producer, Clif Bar & Co’s instigated an employee incentive programme called The Cool Commute, offering $5,000 to employees who buy a hybrid-fuel cars.
Orders for Toyota Motor Corp’s Prius hybrid cars are booming. Don Esmond, Toyota’s senior vice president for US sales, said the company plans to boost Prius sales to 175,000 this year, from 106,971 in 2006. In the UK, the recent widening of the congestion charge area in London will also increase demand.
It’s hip to be on the edge of oblivion
Italian based fashion brand, Diesel has taken the concept of global warming to new extremes. Their ‘Global Warming Ready’ print advertisements campaign feature celebrated international tourist spots devastated by global warming. The skies of Venice’s St Mark’s Square is filled with tropical birds rather than pigeons. A flooded London is only accessible by speedboat. New York City is waterlogged. South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore is on a beach and China’s Great Wall is buried in desert sands. All the ads show models wearing Diesel clothes and the headline: ‘Global Warming Ready’. Trendy Diesel aficionados are encouraged to visit green-friendly websites like, www.stopglobalwarming.org.
Every cloud has a cO2 lining
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Trains are aiming to tap into the green consciousness the business traveller. He has also teamed with Al Gore, former American Vice President (now an eco-global movie celebrity) to announce a $25m initiative to clean up the skies. A series of concerts “bigger than Live Aid” announced for this July, will put the subject of climate change before a global audience of two billion. The concerts will encourage individuals to take personal pledges to reduce emissions, for instance, by using energy efficient equipment or flying less.
In his classic book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell’s suggests that to instigate sustainable change you must reach key movers within a market; offering them a genuine sense of individual autonomy, mutually beneficial for themselves, their peers and environment. A bullying brand or authority coercing a market ‘top down’ by sheer brute force just won’t work.
The current lack of consistent clarity and authority from a universally credible source of information about global warming is confusing. Legitimacy gaps cause complacency. People realise something ought to be done, but fall into the trap of feeling comfortable simply doing nothing; hoping that either corporations and governments will sort the problem or gambling that it may go away through natural causes.
Having been thrown the gauntlet, it’s time for CEOs to harness the skills of their communication, marketing departments to support production processes in turning the threat of global warming into profi table outcomes for business, people and the planet.
www.brandforensics.co.uk
Eight brand forensics steps to market the elephant
1 Position global warming as something affecting consumers directly and immediately.
2 Encourage a multilateral approach to individual change.
3 Design a tangible icon that connects with people rather than corporate
sensibilities.
4 Reinforce changed habits with catchy, easy to remember phrases.
5 Offer people self control over instigating a change by participating in a collaborative process.
6 Let people recognise non-cynical efforts made by trusted brands and so encourage them feel that they too can contribute towards a greater good.
7 Address, in a non-patronising way, the genuine concerns of individuals such as the young and middle aged.
8 Help people frame climate change messages in perspective.
