Saving Chocolate from Global Warming

I wrote this post in honor of chocolate. The chocolate harvest is now endangered by global warming.

I’d like to see a chocolate bar replace a polar bear as the symbol of global warming’s devastation. One cost of global warming is emotional safety. People equate chocolate with reassurance, romance, affection and many other things that have little to do with the chemical makeup of a candy bar. Chocolate doesn’t really make us happy – it’s a placebo.

Some people might object to a “Save the Chocolate!” slogan for health reasons. Interestingly, there are similarities between our relationship to global warming prevention and our relationship to dieting – at least, in the United States. Dieting tends to be both ineffective and plagued by guilt (which does not work for global warming prevention either). Dieting involves major lifestyle changes; reducing one’s environmental footprint is an even more difficult process.

What is often missing from both dieting and environmental lifestyle change? Social marketing. Dieting may be popular, but it certainly isn’t easy or fun. Environmental lifestyle change is rarely marketed as fun, popular or easy.

But why shouldn’t they be promoted this way? One could choose exercise and food options one enjoys, design programs that are simple and easy to follow, and remove guilt by introducing flexible decisions.

Maybe if we start enjoying the process of trimming our environmental footprints now, we’ll still be able to enjoy chocolate later.

Chocolate doesn't influence love... at least, not chemically.

How Environmentalists Can Respond to Americans’ Need for Personal Space

While reading about social science and environmental communication, I’ve noticed a gap between how environmentalists in the United States view personal space and how their audiences perceive it. If environmentalists tell audiences not to “say ‘eww’ to thrift stores,” avoid public transit, or live in suburbs, they may encounter resistance—not because their audiences are opposed to sustainable choices, but because they value personal space.

Instead of overlooking personal space issues, environmentalists should address them constructively. Understanding the way United States audiences respond to these questions could transform the way we design eco-friendly housing, products and communities.

If environmentalists fail to respond to these issues, apathy is one likely outcome. Suzanne Shelton, the CEO of an environmental marketing organization, writes  that “gas may hit $10/gallon and folks may still want to live in the suburbs… because it’s more serene/away from the hustle and bustle.”

Although market research participants may see environmental actions as  morally positive , they may or may not integrate these actions into their lives—especially if other issues, like the economy, are on their minds.

In personal conversations, I often see the value of developing answers to these questions. Some of my friends and family drive frequently despite my attempts to persuade them to use public transit.

When Concordia marketing professor Zeynep Arsel interviewed me about thrift shops and clothing exchanges, she acknowledged that another personal space issue—hygiene concerns—can interfere with sustainable behavior.

Although social distance has some undesirable effects on communities, it also gives people the space they may expect or require. If someone is allergic to perfume, is it reasonable to ask her to take public transit daily? Expecting people who have spent their lives surrounded by lawns and picket fences to adapt to life in Manhattan may be somewhat naive.

Fortunately, environmentalists can respond to this problem upfront by altering their approaches to marketing and design. Recognizing personal space as a valid concern is an essential step toward developing solutions.

1. If you are promoting clothing reuse, look into the reasons people may object to buying products secondhand. Washing clothing and testing electronics are two pragmatic responses. Transaction ratings could improve the reliability of sites such as Craigslist.

2. If you are encouraging people to move from single-family homes to apartments, how can you take personal space into account? Soundproofing and visual privacy could make apartment living easier for people who have lived in larger homes.

3. If people are avoiding public transit or bicycle use, cities can improve safety in stations and parking lots, reduce the rate of bicycle accidents, and take other steps to make public spaces more welcoming.

One clear message which emerges from social marketing is that environmentalists can’t expect the people we are trying to reach to share our views. What is a fun thrift shopping outing for me may be an awkward or even unpleasant experience for someone who buys everything new.

Washing secondhand clothes doesn’t dilute environmental messages about reuse and recycling. Giving people privacy in their homes and a sense of safety in public spaces could make it much easier to promote high-density, sustainable urban living.

Image credits: Street photo by mrjamin

Originally published at Scientific American

The Powerpuff Approach to Energy Efficiency

The Powerpuff Girls have decided to take on an energy efficiency challenge. Well… not exactly. I’m sorry to say there won’t be an episode showing the Powerpuff Girls breaking light bulbs and replacing them with CFLs.

Fortunately, since the Powerpuff Girls are busy taking leaps in the air instead of promoting eco-friendly behavior, a California nonprofit, Zilowatt, is designing energy conservation education for grade school students. The New York Times profiled the program recently. The article featured the superhero graphic below.

Zilowatt's superheroes (Source: Zilowatt's website)

This image implies that the grade school students are Powerpuff-like superheroes – saving electric power and having fun at the same time. This group of kids of varying ethnic backgrounds and appearances is using energy for positive purposes.

SmartMeme and Adbusters take a similar approach to existing ads and media frames – except that they dismantle their messages instead of building on them.

Although entertainment-based education isn’t new to social marketers, approaches like Zilowatt’s are relatively unusual. Of course, saving energy is a serious process and should never be adulterated by using humor, putting cute stickers on CFL boxes, or writing tongue-in-cheek blog posts about social marketing.

Social Marketing and Energy Efficiency

In 2010 and 2009, I developed two reports on behavior change for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

The first report, an overview of advanced metering programs, demonstrated that user-friendly technology can make it easier for homeowners and businesses to save energy. It emphasized technology rather than motivation.

In the second report, I took a more in-depth look at the gears that move behavior change. Why do we choose to save energy?

Many groups rely on environmental and economic motivations to get results. While these benefits do matter to audiences, emphasizing them can lead nonprofits and businesses to overlook the value of social marketing.

If you buy an iPhone, the odds are that you didn’t make that choice to save money. The iPhone may make your life more convenient. It may be fun to use. It might even improve your social life. Motivations like these – the nuts and bolts of social marketing – are absent from many conversations about saving energy.

Audiences who have a DIY ethic may find it satisfying to save energy. However, this group is only part of the population. For the rest of us – the ones who want to be talking with our friends online, checking our calendars, or playing solitaire – saving energy can also be satisfying. But to tap into this potential, we need to move beyond talking about money and the environment. We should ask questions and innovate.

Why a Zombie Apocalypse Story Helped the CDC

Fear-based media messages are the nonprofit equivalent of canned PowerPoint presentations. They’re popular but often ineffective. Audiences don’t necessarily see avoiding risk as a persuasive justification for changing their behavior.

In May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) turned this situation around by using humor. The post caught the attention of Fox, CNN and many other news sources. The Boston Globe reported the page received 30,000 hits in a single day.

How did the CDC change the story? Ali Khan, a scientist, saw readers weren’t paying enough attention to the fact sheets on hurricane preparedness. So he wrote a post about how to survive a zombie apocalypse. The strategies for surviving zombie apocalypses and hurricanes are remarkably similar.

Often, audiences would rather read People than prepare for hurricanes. What does that magazine offer that the CDC website rarely provides? It has stories with characters and visual interest. By telling a tongue-in-cheek story about zombie apocalypse survival, the CDC captured more attention than it would have in months of posting more serious content.

Coincidentally, the CDC followed some of the main principles of social marketing. Social marketers encourage audiences to take socially responsible actions by making those choices fun, easy and popular.

Health education materials can be extraordinarily useful; preparing for a hurricane is much more practical than reading People. But without social marketing, health professionals may find their programs have a limited reach. Population Media Center has used entertainment-based education to bring health messages to countries around the world.

The CDC’s willingness to innovate saved its socially valuable message from being buried in an unread fact sheet.

If you communicate about science, what stories are you willing to tell?

Visualizing Energy Efficiency

In 2009, I wrote a post called “The Invisible Hand of Plastic.” But energy efficiency is much less visible than plastic.

Energy efficiency's invisibility makes it more difficult to promote than renewable energy.

Although software developers find creative ways to show customers how saving energy works, sometimes a visual analogy can change audience perspectives.

This video from the Minnesota Energy Challenge says wasting energy is like letting a faucet drip. The message is simple, but was based on market research. You can also see how the video uses numbers to show potential savings.

The Live Blue Initiative: Bringing Coral Reefs Close to Home

The New England Aquarium unveiled its Live Blue Initiative recently. The initiative uses some of the same communication approaches I’ve seen in successful energy efficiency programs.

Like the energy use stickers from my Twitter post this week, the Live Blue site attempts to connect our environmental choices with their effects. The site asks visitors to click on an image of a sea creature to select an area of the ocean; once they select these places, they can commit to taking environmental actions. For example, when I click on the image of a rare dolphin from the New Zealand coast, I learn that “living blue” can help this species of dolphin survive.

Inviting people to make commitments can be a very successful approach for environmental outreach. But what is “living blue” – and how does it make a difference? The site suggests environmentally friendly choices, but doesn’t connect these actions with their results. I know using fewer plastic bags is a good idea, since many of them become unhealthy appetizers for animals in the ocean. But if I’m deciding between bringing reusable bags to the store and not buying oysters, how do I know what to choose? If I didn’t read environmental news, I wouldn’t know oysters are going extinct.

I’m already supportive of the New England Aquarium’s work, so I’m interested in learning more about “living blue.” But there are many people who are not sure why they should recycle. If the New England Aquarium wants site visitors to understand that their choices have environmental consequences, the site should make the connection between the “living blue” actions and their potential benefits – especially the benefits that are clearly and directly relevant to website visitors.

Environmental Behavior: When Seeing Isn’t Believing

Today, I took a closer look at the Grist article on the behavior change research I did earlier this year. Here’s a quote:

If you want to know how to change behavior, don’t read a bunch of polls about the messages that make people say positive things to pollsters; read a report like this one from ACEEE, which looks at which behavioral programs around energy efficiency have worked, i.e., demonstrated tangible, consistent results.

I would reframe that point and expand it to say that awareness, motivation and action are three different things.

Here’s one practical example. An avid snowboarder who studied science in college may be deeply opposed to global warming. This person might even answer market research surveys in a way that shows commitment to a healthy, sustainable lifestyle. But the snowboarder might still buy a ticket to Alaska for an outdoor vacation without thinking about the global warming effect of the plane flight.

Meanwhile, the snowboarder’s next-door neighbor may have never taken a college-level science class. This neighbor might take a local fishing vacation with a much lower environmental impact than the environmentalist’s trip to Alaska.

Scientists and environmentalists often believe providing information leads to action. The reality is much more complicated than that. People tend to take actions that are convenient, socially respected and expected, entertaining and economical. People also view time and mental energy as expenditures, too; efficiency isn’t just a matter of saving money. Community respect and support motivate many environmental choices.

There are many potential motives for environmental learning. Curiosity about science motivates some people to seek out environmental news. Self-sufficiency also appeals to many people. Many people take an interest in health and community well-being. But motivation and learning are distinct from action.

I haven’t seen enough evidence to say that I support Grist’s conclusion about action leading to changes in beliefs. It does certainly lead to changes in habits. It would be interesting to look into this question further.

The snowboarder I mentioned isn’t lacking information. There’s plenty of carbon footprint information available online. But the appeal of outdoor sports, the sense of adventure, and the desire to see new places are high priorities for some people.

Instead of judging the snowboarder’s sense of adventure, we should talk about ways those adventures can happen closer to home. Although going without the things one enjoys may seem like a reasonable response to environmental concerns, environmentalism – like dieting or exercise – can be taken to an extreme where people lose their sense of enjoyment and feel isolated or discouraged in their efforts. Environmental issues are long-term; our responses should be long-term, too.

P.S. As always, my blog reflects my personal perspectives, not those of any organization where I’ve worked.

Environmental behavior change doesn't have to be this difficult.

Why Humility Can Be a Star Quality Online

At several media-related events lately, I’ve heard people raise an important question. Now that people’s online in-boxes are full of unwanted information, how can communicators make sure they are reaching their audiences?

Taking conversations offline can help. But there are other ways to reduce information overload, too. Some of these answers are relatively straightforward; cut out the hype, keep your content concise, and focus on your audiences.

Cutting out the Hype

If you want people to read your newsletters, buy your books, or believe your views, you should build more than a glossy self-presentation or press release. Even if you want to win an American Idol contest, you still have to practice before you go out and dazzle your audience.

If you want to attract interest, be interesting. Know what you want to say. Make your content worth bookmarking and sharing.

Keeping Your Content Concise

Online, people can easily click past pages with large amounts of text unless the copy maintains their interest. Consider how readable your text is – and whether or not to reduce the word count – before you post it online.

The following quote sums up my perspective on the value of saving space in e-mail: “If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.”

Focusing on Your Audiences

Keep your audiences in mind when you are writing. A newsletter should begin with information that will catch readers’ attention and keep them reading. Encourage your audiences to comment on articles, forward newsletters, reply to polls, and engage with the content in other ways. Ask for feedback occasionally.

Although personal and organizational updates have a place online, putting readers first still matters. Listening is a skill that can set you apart from the chorus of self-promotion that exists online. Authenticity can be valuable.

The American Idol analogy shows that listening matters. Your audience may make you a star, but your success will never be entirely up to you. If they vote for you, that will happen because they listened to you.

If you’re interested in reading more about this topic, I recommend the book Your Attention, Please: How to Appeal to Today’s Distracted, Disinterested, Disengaged, Disenchanted, and Busy Consumer.

Why Doing Environmental Outreach Is like Selling Pomegranate Juice

Environmentalists often question the ethics of marketing and advertising. Given that advertising usually increases consumption – and that environmentalists often try to shift our course of action on that front – it’s understandable that environmentalists often steer clear of marketing classes.

The course I’ve taken that made the strongest impression on me was a class in promotional materials design. A few years later, I attended a workshop on Community-Based Social Marketing which had an even greater impact.

Why? Well, from taking science classes, I already knew how to justify things rationally. I knew how to analyze long-term trends and tell people they should give up short-term benefits for “the seventh generation.” In other words, I knew how to do what environmentalist science majors already do well.

But, like many other people, I did not know how to communicate, advertise and promote environmental change in a way that would get results. It took marketing and environmental psychology to teach me that.

It might seem paradoxical that environmentalists should hire marketing professionals. After all, what we’re doing is the right thing, isn’t it? But that type of conviction doesn’t necessarily translate into a successful social movement. To reach people, one has to talk with them. One has to ask them about their experiences, rather than just saying they should hang their laundry to dry even if their communities prohibit using clotheslines.

There are many health, environmental and economic benefits to bicycle commuting. Why don’t people bike more often? When I applied environmental psychology to my own life, I realized I wasn’t doing this because my bike (a heavy hybrid) was in the basement. I moved the bike to the front fence and solved the problem.

This is an example of how marketing and psychology can help environmentalism rather than holding it back. We should pay attention to the human side of environmental issues, listen to our audiences, and think creatively about ways to make it easier and more fun to take eco-friendly actions. As diet failure statistics show, telling people to “do the right thing” doesn’t necessarily deliver results.

Let’s make sure environmental choices get advertised as well as pomegranate juice has been over the past couple years. Pomegranate juice is sour, but people drink it all the time now. Compared to that, many eco-friendly actions are relatively sweet alternatives.

Pomegranates may be sour, but they're still popular with health-conscious shoppers.