Every campaign is an opportunity to influence the audience towards sustainable behaviours, even if the campaign is not for a sustainable product or service.
Changing behaviour is notoriously challenging, particularly in the realm of sustainability, yet advertising has demonstrated its power to alter behaviours and beliefs. Few sectors wield the potential to influence culture and society to the same scale as advertising.
The potential for advertising to address environmental challenges is immense, but success hinges on businesses and brands effectively conveying their messages. Utilising the well-documented principles of behavioural science, advertising can effectively frame choices in a more positive and appealing manner.
The Green Print report by ITV highlights four ways in which advertising can play a meaningful role.
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Awareness The most basic role – signposting ‘greener’ brands to fuel their growth. See steps 3.1.1 and 3.1.2. |
Education Helping consumers understand which behaviours need to change to reduce carbon emissions. |
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Reputation Going deeper into proving environmental credentials, thus building brand reputation. |
Driving change Framing climate-friendly behaviours in an appealing and motivating way to actively create change. |
Not every campaign needs to scream “this is sustainable”, “this is better for the planet”. The research shows that you don't need to do that. What you need to do is create great advertising that’s emotional, empathetic, inspirational, aspirational and helps people make the right choices.
The most practical step to normalise behaviour is the subliminal one. In every campaign there should be an effort to normalise sustainable behaviour and products. Make it the norm that cars featured in the background of adverts are electric, that lights are turned off at night in offices, that houses are shown with solar panels on roofs, that people are seen cycling to work, families are seen out enjoying nature, individuals have a vegetable patch in their garden, etc. It doesn’t need to be referenced or related to the core content of the advert, but just by appearing in the background we can start to normalise a more sustainable way of life.
We’ve got sustainable advertising wrong up to this point. It’s not necessarily about highlighting sustainability initiatives that a big corporate has done. It’s about normalising sustainable behaviours.
Challenge: Clothes are cheap; worn once and then binned. eBay has been selling pre-loved clothes since 1995 and yet they were lacking mass appeal. eBay needed to re-write the narrative surrounding pre-loved clothing. To ignite a second-hand revolution, we had to show Gen Z and Millennials that used clothes could be on-trend and desirable.
Idea: To understand what was fuelling the fast fashion economy, we looked to one of the UK’s biggest and most talked-about fashion properties. A TV show that makes and breaks fashion trends among the exact Gen Z and Millennial audience eBay wanted to target. ITV’s Love Island.
Now in its eighth series, for the first seven the show had been sponsored by fast fashion brands. The items islanders were wearing were selling out in minutes.
We harnessed the power of Love Island and re-wrote the narrative. Using product placement throughout the show, islanders were dressed in stylish pre-loved looks, with viewers able to bid on shoppable edits of looks like those seen on screen.
Co-branded TV and video ads and X (formerly Twitter) content celebrated the looks and embedded pre-loved fashion into the conversation of the moment.
Result: The response was incredible, with over 1,700 pieces of positive press coverage, and a staggering 7,000% increase in searches for ‘pre-loved fashion’ on eBay, and a surge in sellers of secondhand clothing on the site.
- EssenceMediaCom
The resources will help guide you through the process of understanding how you can normalise behaviour in the work that you produce.