Transforming the Climate Conversation Through Social Video

Originally published on Greenbiz, June 5, 2014

Over the last two decades, non-profit organizations have tried to influence U.S. consumer belief in anthropogenic, or human-driven, climate change. During that time, many high profile campaigns have been launched, from the Evangelical Environmental Network’s What Would Jesus Do? campaign in 2000 to Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection’s bipartisan We Can Solve It campaign in 2008 to 350.org’s Do the Math campaign in 2012.

While each campaign recorded its own successes, consumer data suggests that their collective impact on consumer beliefs has been nominal. Today, only a slim majority of Americans (57 percent) believe that climate change is caused by human activity, a percentage largely unchanged since Gallup’s Environment poll started in 2001.

Of course, there are many reasons why such campaigns might not have had broader impact. The campaigns may not have reached enough skeptics of anthropogenic climate change, or if they did, may have delivered messages that did not resonate or were discounted relative to counterarguments made by media organizations such as Fox News.

Former hedge fund executive Tom Steyer is already planning the next climate campaign through his super PAC NextGen Climate Action. NextGen intends to influence voting behavior in the midterm election, with the goal of electing public officials more likely to pass climate change legislation.

Taking a page from Obama’s 2012 reelection playbook, NextGen plans to connect one-on-one with voters — including skeptics of anthropogenic climate change — through tailored messages believed to have the best chance at swaying votes. While this latest effort is laudable, NextGen faces challenges similar to previous climate campaigns, namely, motivating skeptics to listen to its message and trust in the messenger that delivers it.

Advertisers face similar challenges in influencing consumers today through traditional advertisements. A recent Nielsen study indicates that, for Americans, “recommendations from people that [they] know” is, by far, the most trusted form of advertising (84 percent, up 6 percentage points from 2007.)

What this suggests is that the best way to influence consumer beliefs on climate change is to have trusted family and friends deliver the message, not advertisers. But to do so, an advertiser still faces high hurdles in motivating some people to watch messages delivered directly from the advertiser and then share them, whether by email, text, social network or word of mouth, across social circles. Such shared messages are impactful, not just because they come from a trusted source, but also because they come with an endorsement — implicitly or explicitly — from that person.

So, how do advertisers motivate consumers to share ads?

Leading global advertisers such as P&G, Samsung, Chrysler and Ford have delivered repeated success by engaging hundreds of millions of consumers through choice — or user-initiated — video. This is how it works: video ads are placed amongst native content on publisher sites across the web. When consumers find them relevant to their experience, they click and view them. To an advertiser, choice video is still an ad. But, to a consumer, it is content — and content that consumers choose to watch, and share if compelled to do so.

Non-profits and green brands such as Seventh Generation and Method also have leveraged choice video to engage consumers. Advertisers leverage choice video not just because it generates media efficiencies as shared (or earned) views are free, but because it also drives real impact, as demonstrated in multiple brand studies conducted jointly by Visible Measures and Insights Express, a leading research company.

Let’s take a closer look at some successful non-profit campaigns. One example is the Kony 2012 campaign launched by the non-profit organization Invisible Children. This campaign featured a 30-minute, documentary-style video that engaged viewers with a gripping story of a boy forced into being a child soldier fighting for Joseph Kony, a brutal rebel leader in Africa. In all, more than 229 million viewers have watched this video, making it one of the most viewed video campaigns of all time.
The campaign’s success not only was measured by its viewership, but also by how many viewers felt compelled to share it.
So the question becomes how does an advertiser motivate viewers to share a video, even one with a storyline as dark as this? The answer is straightforward: viewers share when they feel rewarded for doing so.

In the case of Kony 2012, the campaign was positioned to viewers as a way to build awareness for Joseph Kony’s atrocities in the hope that by making him famous, governments would come under pressure to take action to stop him. Viewers readily shared and engaged with the video across their social networks and, in return, gained a sense of personal satisfaction in knowing that their actions were helping to bring Kony to justice.

Most social videos, fortunately, tell a more positive story than Kony 2012’s. One recent example is a video campaign launched by Thai mobile operator TrueMove H, Giving Is the Best Communications. This gripping three-minute video tells the story of a storekeeper’s generosity toward a small boy that is repaid 30 years later. It has garnered over 16 million views to date from around the world — many of them generated through social sharing.

Viewers watch this video because it tells a universally appealing story that transcends cultural and language barriers to emotionally connect with viewers. Arguably, viewers have been sharing it because they get satisfaction from inspiring others — or perhaps even bragging rights of sort from being the first in their social group to share it. Regardless, the sharing of this video comes with an implicit or explicit endorsement from a trusted source to watch it.

Now, a similar opportunity exists to leverage choice video to influence consumer beliefs about climate change. Success of such a video campaign hinges on at least three things.

First, a campaign must craft a compelling story that all viewers — climate change believers and skeptics alike — want to watch. There are many ways to do this creatively, of course, but those that tell a universal story may have the broadest appeal.

Second, a campaign must distribute content to influencers and audiences across the web in order to spark social sharing. While earned media is free, most campaigns spend significant dollars building social momentum.

And third, viewers must feel rewarded for sharing. People enjoy compelling stories. But it does not mean that they automatically share them. People need an incentive for sharing in larger numbers and more often. Certainly, it can be based on a sense of personal satisfaction from taking social action as in the Kony campaign, or from inspiring others as in “Giving.” There is no reason why a climate campaign could not be awe-inspiring or feature a celebrity in a way that would enhance the reputation of those doing the sharing as trendsetters.

Choice video is a powerful medium by which to influence consumer beliefs on climate change. It not only has the potential to engage climate skeptics, but also to influence their beliefs, especially when the message is shared from a trusted source. This is one medium that climate campaigns — including Steyer’s super PAC — should give a chance.

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Driving Engagement and Viral Impact in the Green Space: Part II – Original Content

While creating and sharing user-generated content is an effective way to facilitate consumer engagement and viral marketing, it is not the only approach that marketers can take.  Professionally produced original content is another proven way.  Increasingly, agencies or production studios create and seed content on behalf of their clients for consumers to view and share online.

 

One such shop is Free Range Studios which has produced several original videos that have generated significant buzz and viral impact in the green space.  Calling its approach “socially conscious viral entertainment”, Free Range tries to “distill a complicated message into a fun or moving short story” while engaging its viewers by allowing them “to write the end of that story by taking action or donating.”  Stories are distributed not only through paid advertisement but via video sharing sites such as You Tube and, more specifically, RiverWired, emPivot and LivePaths in the green space.  They are also distributed offline at concerts and events.

 

Recent Free Range videos with eco-themes including Grocery Store Wars, a Star Wars spoof about a “small band of organic vegetable puppets” including Cuke Skywalker, Ham Solo, Chewbroccoli and Obi Wan Cannoli that do battle against Darth Tader and the Dark Side of the Farm.  

 

Most recently, Free Range released The Story of Stuff, a 20-minute video that explains the environmental impact regarding the “stuff” we consume.  The video has been a huge hit, recording more than 3 million viewers on The Story of Stuff microsite alone. Moreover, the video has received acclaim by winning the SXSW Interactive Award for its contribution as an educational resource.

 

Marketers should recognize that there are certain trade-offs made in producing their own original content themselves versus encouraging users to generate it for them.  For example, with original content, upfront costs are likely to be significant higher.  Yet, for getting a complex message across to consumers, original content may be a marketer’s best option to hit a home run.

Driving Engagement and Viral Marketing Impact in Green: Part I – User-Generated Content

Tapping social media to engage consumers as well as facilitate viral marketing has the potential to generate significant results for marketers.  Not only can this drive greater brand impact but it can significantly increase reach to a receptive audience at little, if any, incremental cost. 

 

Today, more and more marketers are trying to launch campaigns that have the twin goals of increasing consumer engagement and viral marketing impact.  For many marketers, it often appears that achieving these goals is more a matter of art.  Yet, platforms such as Brickfish are emerging that are rapidly turning such an approach into a science. 

 

Brickfish is an online marketing platform that rewards participants for engaging with brands.  The idea is quite simple: participants come to the Brickfish site and choose which campaign they would like to participate in.  They have an opportunity not only to create content but to review and vote on existing content as well as to share with others through email and IM and across multitudes of social media sites.  Behaviors are rewarded directly or through a chance to win prizes for “most popular” or “most viral” entries. 

Several eco-friendly brands have launched campaigns using the Brickfish platform including Origins, North Face and Honest Foods. 

 

 

 

What is interesting is the transparency by which Brickfish reports campaign results.  While most agencies are beholden to their clients for their results that they generate, it is rare that such results are shared openly outside of corporate marketing circles.   In the case of Brickfish, visitors can track total activities conducted on the site including user-generated content entries, reviews, votes and views.  Moreover, visitors can rank content by user preference as well as viral reach. 

 

Impressively, Brickfish provides users with a visualization of each viral campaign enabling marketers to understand how content is shared between users from one application to another.

 

 

Green marketers should consider such a platform.  Not only is this a efficient way to engage consumers (clients pay on a cost-per-engagement basis), but the results provided by Brickfish are impressive, as the company claims that their “viral marketing approach…has proven to be 5 to 10 times more effective than traditional online marketing methods such as display ads or search optimization.”

 

Moreover, campaigns for green products should naturally align with this type of marketing as it empowers users to engage with and share brands that also represent a cause.   As such, consumers’ association with a product is actually an expression of themselves in terms of what they believe and how they live their lives (or at least how they like to be perceived).  As a result, green products are ripe for viral marketing campaigns.

 

Marketers seeking an edge should seek out new ways to reach and engage consumers.  Brickfish provides a compelling approach for green marketers and the results to back it up.