Climate Cooldown

You're having a laugh!? That depends.

July 2023

The Climate Cooldown newsletter is a monthly roundup that focusses on positive business and marketing-related climate news, steering away from the doom and gloom.

There’s something about ‘sustainability’ that makes us forget our marketing fundamentals. Instead, we're getting tangled up in jargon, science and tech talk.

Research by Media Bounty shows that for some of our customers, the way to ‘sell’ our green credential is actually NOT to talk about them. Instead, it’s about normalising sustainable behaviours and leaning into what they really care about.

Because, as we all know, what we talk about, depends on who we’re talking to.

The solution? 'The Solutionists'.

As Solitaire Townsend says in her latest book 'The Solutionists - How businesses can fix the future', "Consumers only, utterly and always, want to know how your solution is going to make them:

feel better about their personal environmental impact (not yours);
help them make the world a better place (not how you’re doing that);
believe that the solution works better/is cheaper/has special powers for them, because it’s sustainable (but not that they have to sacrifice to be sustainable)."

Should we be shouting about our achievements?

Instead, we often get stuck on whether we’re doing ‘enough’ to shout about our sustainability achievements. And how we can make our customers sit up and take notice of our progress.

Is it enough to do more than our competitors? Be better than the industry average? Or, do we need to lead the way?

What's in it for me?

So, we hone in on technical details, rather than what’s in it for them.

As much as we need to tackle the huge issues we’re facing, there’s no point telling people who aren't interested. Even if we think they should be.

The persuadables

MediaBounty talks about ‘the persuadables’ and how we get more people excited about ‘going green’ - without mentioning the ‘G’ word.

The persuadables are the 69% of people in the UK who are neither climate activists or climate deniers. We call them this because they are still 'persuadable' by both pro-climate and anti-climate groups. This makes them an essential audience to engage with - because they've not yet made up their mind about climate action.

Think ‘This Girl Can’ or Ryan Reynold’s ‘Lead from behind’.

Yes, they need to understand what’s happening to our climate, but they may not be interested in what you’re doing to try to sort it out.

Climate comedy

MediaBounty suggests venturing into the land of comedy to make it land. We'll be honest, we're struggling to see the funny side of 50+ degrees in the US and China, but then again, we're not ‘persuadables’.

And actually, a good laugh would definitely make it all a bit easier to manage. As the team from Media Bounty says;

"We haven’t found a solution for climate change yet, but… we’re definitely getting warmer."

What we've been reading & listening to this month:

Short read: 'Is there a hangover-to-temperature degree ratio?' A great LinkedIn post exploring ‘when it’s too late’ using the analogy of drinking.
Long read: 'Sustainable Marketing - How to drive profits with purpose.' Why ‘sustainability’ matters and a comprehensive guide to implementing, driving and maintaining these practices in any organisation.
Great listen: ‘Sustainability Communications - how brands can win.' How to balance driving sustainable practises with greenwashing and what’s relevant to the audience.