Numerous tools exist to communicate in general, the key here is to pick the ones most suited to what you have to say and, of course, to your audiences. So, instead of listing them all, I have selected some of them I find particularly efficient for a communication about the environment. Here is my recipe and it is not only about using recycled paper;)
Rethink your product
The first media you use to communicate to your customers is… your product itself. Lacoste, the well-known sportswear company, understood this particularly well and turned its polo shirts into a masterpiece in terms of environmental communication. Lacoste dropped its iconic crocodile logo in a limited edition range of polo shirts. In partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the brand released 10 different shirts embroidered with animals at risk of extinction. Only 1,775 polo shirts were produced according to the amount of those species remaining in the wild.
This daring campaign was a huge success and durably made Lacoste a champion of the environment . But not everyone has an iconic logo linked to an animal, you may say. True but you have many options to convey an environmental message via your product, starting from the choice of your packaging (or its reduction) up the use of well-known eco-friendly labels such as the ones below:
Digital tools to educate
Reducing our environmental footprint will require a great deal of education and behavioural changes for your customers or consumers. Use all the digital tools at your disposal to explain or even co-create your actions and manage the changes required.
Your website will obviously be the hub of your digital communication. Enrich it by using infographics, videos, interviews, webseries and, of course, use social media to broadcast your message.
Optimise your mailbox
I recently read that an email is costing an average 10 g of CO². You might as well optimize your emails to customers or consumers to convey how you reduce your environmental footprint. You can even turn very administrative correspondence such as invoices into an image-building tool by introducing an eco-friendly messaging. Keep it simple and graphically understandable. And you can consider changing topics on a regular basis, for instance, highlighting your organic range one month, and the results of your energy-saving policy another month.
A pinch of humour
It is true that we have spent all our resources and that the Earth lives on credit since August 1st according to the Global Footprint. But if the environment is a serious matter, should we avoid a touch of humour in our communication ? On the contrary! The energy sector has been quite creative to help people change behaviour showing how not changing is going to impact our world. Of course, you need to be cautious when using irony about such a topic as it can quickly back-fire. However, when handled with humour, the message becomes positive and impactful. As an example, the French Electricity Compagny (EDF) started a series of campaign in 2015 with a well-known comedian. The series made a hit and today features 9 ads. See below my preferred one (probably because my husband is crazy about planes). This is how they advertised the use of an application to control your electricity consumption:
As it is in French, here is a quick sum up of the storyline. A woman asks her husband why the house electricity consumption is getting sky high, her husband replies from his flight simulator that she is always drying her hair and that’s why the electricity invoice has reached 3600 euros.
Implementing nudges as a means to influence the choices of your audiences can be considered too within your communication. But this will be the subject of a future article:)
As you can see, for an efficient communication, you will need to be creative, consistent and use various channels to really be effective long term. Now, if you are interested to set up an impactful communication linked to the environment, feel free to contact Evergreen.
Have a great summer!