Taking it to the Streets
Dear Mavens,
We’re working on a community adaptation strategy, which clearly means we need to get the community engaged—otherwise it wouldn’t be a community strategy, would it? We think the idea of “preparedness” will resonate with our community, and want to build on that to get people thinking about, sharing, and taking adaptation actions. This means we need to develop an ad campaign to get people on board. Can you offer any advice? Our local advertising company doesn’t have experience with an issue like this.
Sincerely,
Shirley Outside Sheboygan
Dear SOS ,
What a great idea. You’re all in it together so you might as well make it sexy and enticing to the member audience. We’ve never designed an ad campaign (other than our influential ecumenical series, including our anti-leaf blower effort “For god’s sake buy a rake,” our water conservation effort “Holy moses don’t use hoses,” and our buy local campaign “For the joy of Buddha, buy local gouda”) but we won’t let that stop us from sharing with you our thoughts on the matter.
Obviously it is important to start with your goals but we’ve talked about that i past columns (check out Getting to Your Point from October). Since you seem to know your goal, we’ll move on to step two, know your audience.
Communication is a two-way street, and to communicate effectively you have understand the values, interests, and needs of your audience. You can use this to get their attention, tap into social identities and affiliations, encourage participation, and make behavior change easier. Questions to ask about your audience include:
· What motivates them? There’s a common assumption these days that jobs and money are the big motivators, but research shows that that isn’t always the case. In any given situation people may also be motivated by
o Saving time, people’s lives, cute animals, or pretty places
o Improving their quality of life
o Being a trend-setter
o Protecting investments (financial, emotional, or other)
o Keeping up with the Joneses
· What do they know or think they know? Giving people too little background can leave them confused. Too much background and they feel patronized or overwhelmed and choose to ignore you. And if people believe things to be true that are different from what you tell them, they may write you off. If you discover your audience has some misconceptions or disagreementswith you, confront these directly but respectfully.
· What are their core, unchangeable values? We all have values that we hold so dear that we will never change them, at least not without a major identity crisis. If someone believes deeply that people matter more than plants and animals, they won’t be swayed by impassioned pleas to save an endangered insect or plant. Acknowledge underlying differences in values—don’t pretend you share values that you don’t—then look for common ground, for example the long-term health and success of your community.
· Where do they fit in the “six Americas”? In 2008 a group of researchers[1] found that Americans tend to fall into six distinct groups when it comes to climate change: alarmed, concerned, cautious, disengaged, doubtful, or dismissive. Understanding the viewpoints of each of these groups can help you figure out how to respond to different types of audiences.
CHOOSE A FRAME
The frame you put around a picture can radically alter how people respond to it. A big, ornate frame can distract from the picture. No frame at all can make it harder to see the picture clearly as distinct from everything else. The same is true of the frame you put around your communications about climate change: how you frame the issue can make your job easier or more difficult. Consider whether to focus on;
· Promotion vs. prevention People typically have either a promotion mindset—let’s make city planning even more successful!—or a prevention mindset—let’s make sure our city doesn’t fall into a pit of disrepair. Including both in your messaging can help you engage a broader audience.
· Gain vs. Loss. Most people will act to minimize loss rather than maximize gain. Simple changes in phrasing—acting to avoid losing money rather than to save money—can make a big difference.
· Now vs. future. The present matters much more to people than the future, so focus on actions people can take now or effects they are already noticing rather than what will happen by the end of the century.
· Local vs. global. Just as the global economic crisis is much less interesting to most people than the economy in their own community, global climate change isn’t nearly as worrisome as local or regional changes. Essentially making it personal can make people a lot more interested or concerned.[2]
Beware the Voice of Doom
Most communication around climate change takes a “climageddon” approach, suggesting that the world and everything we love about it is doomed unless we stop climate change right this instant. While this does motivate some people, it leads many to ignore or deny the problem as a method of coping with what you’re saying. And claiming that climate change is the most important problem facing our world today can lead people to feel that you are dismissing the importance of other problems they’re dealing with, like unemployment or a poor economy.
· Limit the risks you want to address. People can only worry about so many things at once, and giving them a long list of all possible problems makes it harder for them to focus on the ones that are most important.
Figure 4. Don’t make climate change just another headache
· Acknowledge other concerns. Not everyone needs to have climate change as concern #1. Be respectful of other priorities, but make a case for why they should still care about climate change. Framing climate change in relation to their other concerns can go a long way. For example, if they care about invasive species, explore how climate change may exacerbate the invasive species issue. This makes climate change relevant to their core issue—invasive species.
· Keep the problem manageable. If people feel the problem is much bigger than their capacity to act, they won’t take it on. Presenting problems in tandem with suggesting solutions also tends to increase our likelihood to pay attention and take action.
OK, so on to your ad campaign. Remember that both what you say and how you say it are important, and if your goal is to get people engaged you’ll want more than posters and slogans. The Columbia Basin Trust’s Communities Adapting to Climate Change Initiative case studies contain some great examples of ways to engage unlikely audiences. For the purposes of this column and to not disappoint our readers, the Adaptation Mavens will stick to offering the following slogan ideas:
· Climate Change: We’re all in it together.
· Worried about flooding? You don’t have to be a victim.
· Just Adapt to it
· Catch the wave of the future: Adaptation
· Adaptation: For a better tomorrow, tomorrow
· Because Sheboygan has a way with A-D-A-P-T-A-T-I-O-N (and that’s not bologna!)
· Keeping our community strong: how would you do it?
· Smart planning for sane people
· Got ideas? We could use ‘em
Yep, we are not advertising professionals and we can’t even play them on tv. Good luck. Write us back and share your ad campaign ideas. Heck, if you’re reading this column and want to make a suggestion send it in through the comment box below. We’re all in this together so we might as well share our clever ideas. If you send us a good jingle the Mavens will record themselves singing for our next column.
Adaptively yours forever,
The Adaptation Mavens
[1] For more on the Six Americas, go to http://environment.yale.edu/uploads/6Americas2009.pdf
[2] Check out The Psychology of Climate Change Communication for more information on audience types, framing, and more. http://www.cred.columbia.edu/guide/
