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š How do we change behaviour (sustainably)?
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You are listening to the Summer Edition of the FutureStrategies Podcast - A show about where marketing, strategies and sustainability intersect. I am currently taking a break from interviews. So you will get 5 short episodes over the summer, where I will lead you through the most read postings of my newsletter. Interviews will be back in autumn 2024.
And this posting about changing behaviour with all links is right here.
About the FutureStrategies podcast and your host:
Iām Florian Schleicher, a marketing strategist. I help brands gain clarity, spark momentum, and turn strategy into something that actually moves people. In 2022, I started my marketing studio FUTURESTRATEGIES. to do exactly that. I currently work with corporate clients from 11 countries.
If you want more, check out my FutureStrategies newsletter ā weekly inspiration on marketing, strategy and sustainability.
And if somethingās blocking your brand from doing its best work, letās talk.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Focus
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, my name is Florian Schleicher and this is the Future Strategies Podcast, a show about where marketing, strategies and sustainability intersect. You're listening to the Summer Edition, where you will get five short episodes where I will lead you through the most read postings of my newsletter. So over the next couple of weeks, you will get a best off with me. And if you want to read them all, you can sign up anytime with the link in the show notes. I will be back with more exciting interviews from inspiring leaders in autumn this year. So now you can just relax, enjoy, and we'll jump right into it.
Marketing's Role in a Greener Future
00:00:40
Speaker
How can we use marketing to bring about a change towards a greener future? Big questions. And I too spend a long time looking for the right answers. I would like to share a few of my answers with you today. So let's start with the first question. How do we actually change consumer behavior? To do this, we need to understand one thing at the outset. People don't like change. Or most people. We are biologically conditioned to see change as a danger and a threat. And the paradox is, although we know that humans have become so dominant on our planet, precisely because we are best able to adapt to our environment, we fundamentally dislike change.
00:01:27
Speaker
For example, there is always resistance to change when there are new technologies. Being afraid of technology is not a new phenomenon. People literally hid from electricity. In the 1890s, people were so worried about the bicycle's impact on society that they made up a medical condition to deter women from cycling. But as forward-looking people, we want to make a difference. But how do we take other people with us on this journey? First of all, we need a clear understanding of who our target group is and what moves them, what challenges they face in their everyday lives. So we need to ask questions like, who are they? Who and what is their environment? What do they feel? How do they feel?
00:02:19
Speaker
And once we have understood this in detail, we can move to the next step, concrete behavioral change.
Understanding Behavior Change in Marketing
00:02:27
Speaker
A couple of weeks ago, I found Jonathan Haidt's exciting approach in Chip and Dan Heath's book, Switch, and it's called The Elephant and the Rider. This model assumes that we all have two sides inside of us, two currents and motives within us, a rider, a rational consciousness, and an elephant, our emotional subconscious.
00:02:52
Speaker
Our rider is rational and goal-oriented. She has a direction in which she wants our elephant to go and tries to steer it in that direction. It looks as if she's in charge because she's sitting on top and holding the reins. The elephant represents our emotional thinking, which is based on intuitive impulses that we, like all animals, have developed. This part of our thinking is not analytical, but based on emotions. In fact, our elephant's emotional reasoning is stronger. When the rider and elephant disagree, the elephant almost always wins. Some examples. In the evening, we think we want to get up early in the morning, so we set the alarm clock for an early time. In the morning, however, we feel tired and push the alarm clock away and snooze.
00:03:48
Speaker
For the new year, we might decide that we want to exercise more and eat healthier. A few weeks later, however, it is very tempting to sit into the couch and eat comfort food after a long day. We understand that we should pursue a more sustainable lifestyle and to do something about the climate crisis. But on a day-to-day basis, it's complicated to research sustainable products and then it costs even more. These are all examples where our two sides come into conflict.
00:04:25
Speaker
We believe that we make rational decisions that are free from our influence and our emotions, intuitions, and moral concerns, while we are often not aware of their influence. And consumers and decision makers feel the same way when they want or have to decide on something new, something different and innovative. Most marketers and founders are good at appealing to our inner riders and listing reasons why a change or a product or a service is a good decision. But in doing so, many forget about the emotional side of our elephant. Don't get me wrong, both roles are important to us.
00:05:07
Speaker
Chip and Dan Heath wrote, the rider provides the planning and direction, and the elephant provides the energy. So if you reach the riders but not the elephants, people will have understanding without motivation. If you reach elephants but not riders, they'll have passion without direction. In both cases, the flaws can be paralyzing. A reluctant elephant and a wheel spinning rider can both ensure that nothing changes. But when elephants and riders move together, change can come easily.
00:05:42
Speaker
So to bring about real change, we need to reach and move both. If the two sides are not in harmony, the elephant wins, our brain switches to autopilot, and the path of least resistance is taken. And this is exactly what happens all too often when it comes to sustainability.
Consumer Complexity and Emotional Engagement
00:06:00
Speaker
Second, how do we create change for a more sustainable lifestyle? Our fellow human beings and target audiences have a very complex life. Consumers are under constant pressure to be vigilant when it comes to saving for the future, protecting their health, and avoiding climate catastrophe, in response to a culture of relentless self-optimization, not to mention a feeling of powerlessness in the face of an uncertain future. Consumers are taking back control by living life on their own terms. Instead of doing what they should do, they're doing what they want, no matter the consequences.
00:06:41
Speaker
This is from a report from the Forsyte factory. And any change towards sustainability requires not only good arguments, but also clear emotions. We need to deliver both in order to bring about change. If we don't do this sufficiently, people will become defensive, as Jane McGonigal describes in her book, Imaginable. There are four things how people can react. First, distancing. So answering the call to seriously imagine a future this way. That's a long way off. We don't have to think about it now. It won't affect me personally. It's someone else's issue. Second is denial. Things like, that will never happen. If it happens, it's not going to be a big deal.
00:07:28
Speaker
Third is fatigue. There are people say, I have too many real problems today to worry about a hypothetical future one. I'm burned out from trying to get other people to pay attention to the risks. I can't do it anymore. And fourth is surrender. There people say, I can't personally do anything about this. It's beyond my control. Others should do it. So why bother? So we have to take people on a journey, understand them and the problems in order to really convince them. We need to address the elephant and the rider. As is so often the case, this works best with stories.
00:08:08
Speaker
Third, how can we use marketing to create a transition to a green future?
Effective Sustainability Messaging
00:08:14
Speaker
The problem we nowadays have is that sustainability is rarely formulated in a simple and positive way. There is bad news everywhere. We see crisis and everything that doesn't work. And our inner elephant immediately thinks too hard or too big. Thomas Klafka has also written a great article about this and I will link to it in the show notes. we need to make sustainable solutions tangible, positive and simple. An example of this is described by Chip and Dan Heath in their book.
00:08:46
Speaker
How do we get people to drink healthier milk? The first consideration is that we make sure that the better milk appears in the refrigerators of our target group. Because people will drink anything that they have at home. So basically the problem is even simpler than expected. We don't need to change drinking behavior, we need to change buying behavior. Bill Rager and Booth Butterfield launched a campaign in two communities in the US and ran ads in the local media for two weeks. Unlike the bland messages of most public health campaigns, their 1% milk campaign was powerful and specific. One commercial pointed out that a glass of whole milk contains the same amount of saturated fat as five strips of bacon.
00:09:38
Speaker
At a press conference, the researchers showed local reporters a tube full of fat equivalent of the amount contained in half a gallon of whole milk. So next time you're in a dairy ale of the grocery store, reach for a jug of 1% milk instead of the whole milk. Shock convinces our elephant. And this is one of the reasons why Oatly tends toward attention grabbing and absurd advertising formats. They want to shake people up. And it's less about facts and more about emotions. What was the effect ah of the milk campaign that I mentioned? Before the campaign, the market share of low-fat milk was 18%. After the campaign, it was 41%. And six months later, without any additional advertising, it was still at 35%.
00:10:30
Speaker
So changing behavior has to be simple and start where it really matters at the core emotions, especially in sustainability and green marketing. We often work with big numbers and important statistics, but in the end, we need emotion.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:10:46
Speaker
That's the only way to create real and sustainable changes in behavior.
00:10:54
Speaker
That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. If you have enjoyed this episode, please give me a rating and forward it to a friend. This means the world to me because I pour my heart into the production of these episodes. If you're looking for an easy way to learn the basics of strategic and sustainable marketing, check out the Simple and Sustainable Marketing Academy. This is my online group learning format for founders and future marketing experts. Or you can sign up to my newsletter where I write about marketing strategies and sustainability with a lot of examples and methods that you can use yourself. And finally, if you want me to help you with the project, please just reach out to me through LinkedIn or my website with the link in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening and I look forward to sharing more with you in the next episode.