By B.L. Ochman Asi Sharabi of No Man’s Blog sent a bunch of marketing-focused bloggers an email this morning asking us to contribute “marketing, creative, media, branding, strategy, simply ANYTHING” to create a great common pool of marketing ideas for every ethical/environmental issues/campaigns.”
Let’s start by not calling people “stoopid” Asi. It’s the governments who make lousy policy decisions that contribute to global warming the most. People will do what’s right, given the chance.
Seth Godin notes that Global Warming is a terrible name, and he’s absolutely right. “If the problem were called “Atmosphere cancer” or “Pollution death” the entire conversation would be framed in a different way.”
Teach the children
As any marketer knows, you have to engage the hearts and minds of future customers long before their habits become ingrained. Little children will lead the action on environmental issues, because we adults have certainly blown it.
– As I watch my neighbors with children standing outside smoking because they don’t want to expose their kids to second-hand smoke, I realize that the kids learn about the dangers of smoking in school and come home and ask their parents not to kill themsleves by smoking. Many who don’t stop smoking at least stop smoking in the house. I think education about global warming has to start in elementary school.
– Kids need to be taught what they and their parents can do to help prevent global warming They’ll go home and bug their parents. Kids are smart, they get it, and they want to do the right thing when issues are explained to them in terms they can understand.
– Environmentalists need a whimiscal, non-threatening mascot, like Smokey the Bear, who can encourage kids to do the right thing.
– Producers of products and shows aimed at kids need to feature that mascot in their advertising, on their packaging, in public service messages, online in instant messaging and blog ads — so kids are saturated with the message.
– Tell kids 10 things they can do now, and reward them with product discounts, badges, t-shirts, etc. for accumulating points each time they do something to save the planet.
Marketing Global Warming: A Small Child Shall Lead Them
BL Ochman | June 28, 2006 | Permanent Link | Comments (5) | TrackBack (
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Thanks so much!
A.
The Problem with Global Warming
In a recent post, B.L. Ochman echoes the concerns raised by Asi Sharabi about global warming and why it continues to fail to motivate broad-based social action. Asi issued a challenge on his blog for marketing professionals to step up
You’re right about needing a mascot, but the famous tagline from Smokey the Bear was incorrect..they stopped using the ‘Only YOU can prevent forest fires’ So I guess just find something that works and is accurate.
Think your absolutley right about the importance of marketing to children, but I disagree with you on one aspect.
Global warming needs to separate itself from the environmentalists or it is too easily conflated with “save the whales”, “organic food” and other movements that people generally care less about. Is there a way to teach the children without focusing on planet earth and the environment so much? Make it more about humans?
Further thoughts here:
http://invisiblehandinyourpants.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/conflationary-effects/
One excellent solution to future population concerns as well as alleviating many of the effects of potential global warming is the proposal for the construction of the “Trans Global Highway”. The proposed Trans Global Highway would create a world wide network of standardized roads, railroads, water pipe lines, oil and gas pipelines, electrical and communication cables. The result of this remarkable, far sighted project will be global unity through far better distribution of resources, including heretofore difficult to obtain or unaccessible raw materials, fresh water, finished products and lower global transportation costs.
With greatly expanded global fresh water distribution, arid lands could be cultivated resulting in a huge abundance of global food supplies. The most conservative estimate is that with the construction of the Trans Global Highway, the planet will be able to feed several billion more people, using presently available modern farming technologies. With the present global population of just under 7 billion people and at the United Nations projection of population increase, the world will produce enough food surpluses to feed the expected increased population for several hundred years.
Thomas Robert Malthus’s famous dire food shortage predictions of 1798 failed to take into consideration modern advances in farming, transportation, food storage and food abundance. Further information on the proposed Trans Global Highway can be found at http://www.TransGlobalHighway.com .