Archive for March, 2009


Earth Hour 2009: Lost Opportunity

Published March 31st, 2009 in green marketing, sustainability | No Comments »

Well, Earth Hour 2009 came and went, and it was a huge opportunity lost. Sure, it rallied more than 4,000 cities in 88 countries, and Googling it brought up over 49 million results. But, like Joel Makower and countless green bloggers, I wonder why there wasn’t communication from event organizers about what people can do during the other 8,759 hours of the year.

Watching the lights of San Francisco’s city hall and the Bay Bridge wink out from a darkened flat in the Mission district was a bit anticlimactic: the city still looked too well lit. Prior to the event, “Mean Clean Tech” posted on Treehugger, “I will probably have everything off except the TV (ncaa tourney). Like others said, an hour is great but many of us try to reduce our use of energy on a daily basis 24/7 365.”

MCT’s post points up a critical dichotomy: people only change their behavior if it’s convenient, yet they want to be able to save energy all the time. That means, among other things, that communications should inspire action, show people what’s possible, and provide concrete actions.

One company, Toronto Hydro, had a great idea for Earth Hour with its “How Low Can We Go T.O.?” contest. But as of today, there’s zip on the website about who won or how much Toronto saved during Earth Hour—and nothing about what consumers can do every day to save energy or how to extrapolate the Earth Hour savings to sustained results. Ikea, famed for its sustainability practices despite its big-box business operations, participated in Europe, but had nothing going on the United States. Why not? Even the sponsoring organization, the World Wildlife Fund, doesn’t have much about the event results yet. 

Maybe next year?

Sustainability: It’s All in Our Heads

Published March 17th, 2009 in communications strategy, sustainability | No Comments »

The more analyses I read about how this or that technology won’t deliver the kind of energy (or whatever) we need, or can’t deliver enough of it, the more I think the primary challenge we face in pursuing sustainability is not technology—it’s how we think about solutions. (I’m not alone; there’s a recent book on the topic, The Power of Sustainable Thinking, by Bob Doppelt. If you’ve read it, please chime in.)

The negative conclusions of these analyses are often based on the assumption that we can’t—or won’t—change the way we do things. Because we don’t want to, or powerful interests don’t want us to, or it’s just not convenient. But, as venture capitalist Vinod Khosla points out in a recent interview, radical social change is hardly unprecedented (he cites the mobile phone, e-mail, and personal computers), “It just feels improbable before it happens.”

The upshot for communicators is, we need to make change seem possible as well as desirable. We need to make change seem exciting, fulfilling, status-enhancing—whatever it takes. (And yes, those are all emotional concepts, because our “rational” rejection of change often comes from an emotional fear of it, played upon by those with an interest in maintaining the status quo.) Not so long ago, a lot of people were chanting “Yes we can!” We need to keep chanting that—about more than a presidential race.

Be Upfront About Your Challenges

Published March 11th, 2009 in alternative transportation, communications strategy, renewable energy | 1 Comment »

For companies introducing advanced technologies, one key to credible communications is honesty about the challenges you face—market barriers, infrastructure gaps, and the like. People often think they can head off market skepticism by putting on a brave (problem-free) face, but that can backfire.

  • People who understand the challenges may assume that you don’t—or that you don’t have a plan for overcoming them.
  • People who don’t understand the problem may develop false expectations, and feel misled when they learn the full story.
  • Your silence leaves skeptics free to exaggerate the problem.

Real courage calls for facing up to challenges. Do that publicly, and you’re more likely to be perceived as trustworthy and farsighted. The best approach: bring up known issues yourself, so that you can describe your plan for overcoming them, or show how the positives outweigh the negatives, or talk about why the negatives don’t apply in your case.

For Whose Convenience?

Published March 1st, 2009 in communications strategy, marketing | No Comments »

“For your convenience.” Just contemplating that phrase generates a flare of irritation and bad memories. “For your convenience, we no longer offer phone support.” “For your convenience, you must now walk around the building to enter.” “For your convenience, we can offer you a four-hour appointment window.” And so on.

I assume businesses and institutions do this because they imagine that telling us something is convenient will make us believe that it is—even if that notion runs counter to our direct experience. (I assume that because the only other alternative is to assume that they want to make an annoying situation doubly annoying by presenting it as a favor.) This is delusional, bordering on moronic.

Lying to your customers—or implying that your definition of their experience trumps theirs—is never the way to get them to support, or at least accept, new practices or difficult changes. I can’t believe I feel compelled to point this out, but the phrase appears to have become a convention—and anyone who uses it should know that it will inject an odor of bad faith into the entire customer relationship.

If you need to make a change that people won’t like, be honest, and explain why you need to do it. (Even “For our convenience …” would be better, and might generate a laugh.) If it will benefit customers in the long run, say so—as long as you have a credible case. People may still be annoyed, but at least they won’t be insulted by your dishonesty to boot.