Experience Matters

Was Earth Day a downer?

How about all that buzz around Earth Hour, eh? Millions of people around the globe turned out their lights, all in the support of the idea that “individual action on a mass scale can help change our planet for the better.” 24 global cities signed up, 58% of adult Australians participated and over 2100 global corporations including McDonald’s, Proctor & Gamble and Citicorp got involved. It was an engaging event to many, including me and and my family.

But let’s cut to Tuesday. I took a day off to do some volunteer work for a local environmental organization. Naturally, discussion of Earth Hour arose during the breaks in our meetings. The consensus among the people in the room? Earth Hour was a downer promoting a wrong-headed message about the need for change.

Let’s explore the appraisal of some of the environmentalists I met with on Tuesday. In their opinion, despite all the positive messages about personal empowerment and mass collaboration, the foundation of the Earth Hour message was still built on fear and the need of sacrifice. In effect, the World Wild Life Fund says that we all need to stop what we’re doing right now before we send humankind to the brink of doom. Watch just the first few seconds of this Earth Hour video.

Do it a few of times if you need to.

When you watch carefully, it doesn’t start very positively, does it? But maybe you didn’t notice the images of catastrophic climate change. Maybe it’s because you’re now so drenched in these same images daily that you’re becoming desensitized, maybe even fatalistic. Even the positive parts later in the reel fail to offer clear, meaningful solutions. The message focuses on “try and sacrifice,” not “solve and change.” Does this sound a little damning? I’ll openly admit that I still like the concept personally, but of the more than 70 emails that went around Critical Mass the Friday before the event, about a third were much less enthusiastic about Earth Hour. The negative feedback fell into four categories:

• Cynical: One comment described it as “symbolic of a soft fascism”
• Pointless: A few questioned the real impact of the promotional money spent.
• Apathy: Some questioned whether an hour’s darkness would address a problem as serious as climate change.
• Hockey: Many asked “What about Hockey Night in Canada?” (But this is Canada, of course.)

Early in the Tuesday meetings, we watched a research presentation about public attitudes to environmental issues. The conclusion was simple - it’s time to offer hope and real solutions. This thinking is gaining credibility through books like The Geography of Hope and Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility. Sites like Worldchanging are almost defiantly optimistic in seeking real-world solutions.

Closer to home, we’ve seen the world’s fifth largest agency holding company, Publicis purchase the solutions oriented consultancy, Act Now to form the corner stone of their newest agency, Saatchi & Saatchi S.

And then we have campaigns like Honda’s Problem Playground.

On reflection, I think it’s better work than Earth Hour’s promotions video because optimisim and solutions thinking are at the heart of the message. But why am I talking about this on a digital marketing blog? Because climate change has become a marketing problem. You may not be directly involved in the environmental movement, but it’s just a matter of time before your clients or your company will ask you to talk about this issue in the context of a marketing campaign. With that brief will come a lot of responsibility. When you’re talking about climate change, it’s not just about selling product or ideas anymore. Your messages can and will ultimately impact the public’s willingness to keep their faith and participate in meaningful solutions.