Although the advertising world is currently undergoing phenomenal changes as a result of the numerous channel and screen options now available, the next media revolution is already well on its way. This new direction involves changes in consumer habits, and the rules are going Green.
A new, worldwide study by HAVAS to examine attitudes to ecological problems and their effects provides us with fascinating data. For the first stage of the study, which focused on assessing how concerned people were about ecological problems, the world was divided into three types – Eco-Apathetics; Eco-Attentives; and Eco-Absorbed.
While the eco-apathetics constitute 6% – 11% of the general population throughout the world, in the US (Ike and Gustav didn’t do their job . . .) they actually account for 34%. This is significant because the eco-apathetics believe that nothing will change in their lifetime and therefore have no intention of changing their habits.
The majority in Brazil, China, India and Mexico, agreed that as a nation and as individuals, they must make a concerted effort to drastically change their habits.
In the US, only 10% of the population believes that if individuals make changes they can have an effect on the global situation.
The process taking place in the advertising world in all environment-related areas is one of the most positive and encouraging to occur in this industry.
The advertising world together with the world of content and media knows how to change its habits and lead the rest of the world to the most important stage – taking action – even in highly problematic markets such as the US.
So how did we do this? Tens of thousands of consumer participants were presented with the numerous options available today that allow the average citizen to do something that will benefit the environment, such as:
• Telling family and friends about environmental dangers;
• Properly insulating the home against heat and cold;
• Swapping the big jeep for a hybrid car;
• Using a bicycle or walking;
• Minimizing the quantity of garbage;
• Recycling paper, plastic bags, bottles and plastic containers, using rainwater; and so on;
It is apparently very difficult to motivate people to make these changes. Less than 10% of the participants were willing to carry out a single action.
The two actions that more than 40% of the participants were willing to do were:
1. Purchase products and services that are good for the environment (42% of the participants);
2. Stop purchasing products and services that are bad for the environment (52.7% of the participants);
So here’s the data that, when it lands on the desks of the analysts in the major advertising firms, generates the green revolution.
We are talking about a real competition in which media and content specialists and journalists throughout the world go all out to capture the heart of the consumer and convince them to buy environment-friendly green products.
Green is fashionable – even if the products are initially purchased because it’s the trendy thing for the good-lookers to do, that’s OK because it’s good for everyone concerned.
In this competition, while everyone is trying to make their product stand out more than the others, the competitors are trying to prove that this or that label doesn’t “pass the test” and is “not green enough”, or even worse – is bad for the environment.
At one stage, “green” only referred to transport and food products. Today, everything fits into the green category and everyone is required to show that they are making an effort in their field.
The favorite companies leading the green march towards a better environment include Toyota (the leading hybrid car manufacturer); Whole Foods Market (offers the widest range of organic food products); and the leading ice-cream manufacturer, Ben and Jerry’s, which opted for a fun direction – they invested in music (the Dave Mathews Band), named ice-cream flavors after glaciers, and launched a school for conservation and environmental protection.
These are regarded as good-for-the-world branding.
However, even in this area, some companies simply jump on the bandwagon, manipulating their image so they appear to care about the environment without actually doing anything that will benefit it. The best-known examples of such companies are Google, which is regarded as green because of its minimalist image (although this does not prevent them from damaging the environment); and Apple which was lucky enough to choose the apple as its logo, putting this company at the top of the list every time.
There are also those companies that are trying to jump on the bandwagon but which constantly struggle with credibility problems. McDonald’s is the best example of this problem. On one hand they invest heavily in promoting their green image. They were the first fast-food company to change to recyclable packaging and also include in their menus healthy options which are supposedly based on Canola oil and organic milk. On the other hand, however, McDonald’s is not only responsible for raising chickens and cows in despicable conditions, they also insist on distributing hundreds of millions of cheap plastic dolls (as gifts with the Happy Meal) which, according to the experts, creates pollution equivalent to that generated by five plastic manufacturing plants.
The true revolution occurs when the interests of the different groups involved coincide, such as:
• Opportunity to increase sales of brand name products with the help of a new “excuse” (which this time is also ethical), and here the numbers talk for themselves – according to Morgan Stanley, by the year 2030, $1 trillion will be spent on green products worldwide;
• Ability to focus the consumer on taking the desired action, that is, is of course, to purchase a product, under the pretense that it’s a philanthropic contribution, and an opportunity to help the brand name image;
• The human–ethical desire to improve the world that we live in and to protect it from threats to its existence.
Now those of us on the creative side face a complex challenge.
As creators of content, film and marketing stories, I believe that we are privileged to find ourselves in an interesting position, as our professionalism takes on a key role together with our sense of mission. We find ourselves positioned precisely in that place where the companies are required to invest in creating new products and changing or replacing current ones, in order to demonstrate the next new product to the world.
What does this mean? It means that we must pull out all the stops and use all our cinematic, television, new media and interactive knowledge with marketing, doco and drama content, to serve our goal. We must find the way, as we always do, to generate traffic, rating and a genuine experience. The real difficulty here is finding a sophisticated way to convey the message, without being tiresome (it’s not always a subject with a lot of sex appeal). We must find a way to get this message through to Mr. and Mrs. Everyman-in-the-Street so that it becomes a hot topic of conversation. But we do not want just another reality show (Leonardo diCaprio is currently working with the producer of the Survival reality show on a program titled E-topia in which participants will set up a utopian green city. It sounds good, but the pilot program showed that they focus primarily on a number of dismal characters chasing one and other in a pathetic competition. In short, it’s Survival with a green backdrop).
It will be satisfying to write a screenplay, to “crack” the format puzzle and to embark on some green filming. Only the future will tell if we have succeeded in producing something of quality that will influence the world of content.
However, there’s no doubt – the numbers, the data and the real dangers waiting around the corner, are what will lead us to the next new focus which cannot be ignored – to GREEN CONTENT.
