by: Joel Makower
It’s no wonder, then, that the environment ranks near the bottom of issues about which Americans are concerned. And it explains why environmentally proactive political candidates don’t run on those issues — and why conservative politicians, as a rule, can run roughshod over the planet with impunity.
A group called ecoAmerica — "the first environmental non-profit with a core expertise in consumer marketing" — is looking to change all that. Armed with a half-million dollars in market research and out-of-the-box — for enviros, at least — thinking, the group hopes to engage "environmentally agnostic" Americans to support green causes "as a personal and public policy priority."
I’ve just attended the group’s briefing on the high-level findings of its extensive study of Americans’ environmental attitudes. It’s fascinating stuff, but it also points up the serious obstacles faced by activists — as well as green marketers in the private sector — in getting Americans to align their actions with their innate desire to make the world a better place.
Over the past year, ecoAmerica and SRI Consulting developed a 240-item mail survey that focused on measuring Americans’ attitudes. It used the VALS classification system, which "explains the relationship between personality traits and consumer behavior," according to its creator:
VALS uses psychology to analyze the dynamics underlying consumer preferences and choices. VALS not only distinguishes differences in motivation, it also captures the psychological and material constraints on consumer behavior.
The findings of the research are too detailed to do justice here. But here are some big-picture takeaways:
The environmental community — and most green marketers — lean pretty strongly toward the communal, WITT side of the house, a position at odds with the political zeitgeist, at least as practiced for the past quarter century by the YOYO Republican Party. Clearly, there’s a need for more "macho" (in Lakoff’s terms) marketing — the notion of man as protector, and of personal responsibility to protect families, communities, and the planet.
As a result, activists and marketers need to shun intellectual discussions and not expect people to make big behavioral changes today in order to gain environmental benefits tomorrow. It’s important to demonstrate the "cost" of environmental problems to individuals, families, and communities, and to show how problems can be addressed through simple, incremental changes in behavior — if, indeed, that is a realistic solution.
One potential pathway for messagers and marketers is to help consumers understand the hidden costs in products and services that are not environmentally friendly, such as incandescent light bulbs or inefficient cars. This is admittedly tough — it’s harder to sell something by pointing out the shortcomings of the competition — but it could help make environmental issues relevant and understandable.
There’s more. The ecoAmerica research found that even the most environmentally sympathetic Americans have competing priorities; that environmentalism is hampered by anti-science and anti-intellectual attitudes; and that men and women have very different environmental concerns — three additional challenges for those trying to reach Americans with environmental messages.
The bottom line, says ecoAmerica: "We have an image problem." Environmentalists seem disconnected from most Americans. Indeed, many Americans view the environmental movement as traditional, dated, and somewhat out of touch with current society.
That’s ironic perhaps. Many environmentalists I know believe they have a better understanding of the state of the world than do other people. And they might. But that’s of little consequence. The millions of Security Moms and NASCAR Dads who haven’t yet tuned into how climate change and fisheries loss might mess with their kids’ future aren’t about to be beaten into submission by the latest arguments or evidence. They’re not about to make purchase decisions based on a maybe-someday rationale for stemming environmental problems. They want to know: what’s in it for me, today?
So, big news: Americans are shallow, misinformed, self-interested, and unsophisticated. But they’re our neighbors, our colleagues, and our relatives. And they’re likely your clients, customers, or constituents. If you want to move them toward greener behavior and actions, you’ll need to deal — carefully and creatively — with all of these sobering realities.
Original Post: http://makower.typepad.com/joel_makower/2006/10/witts_yoyos_and.html
