The document discusses using marketing techniques to drive cultural transformations towards sustainability. Some key points: 1) Marketing and advertising industries understand psychology and how to influence behavior, which could help drive cultural changes needed to address climate change and environmental degradation. 2) A basic marketing model was presented: create a vision of a "Pain Island" current situation and an appealing "Pleasure Island" alternative future, then provide ways ("boats") for people to transition between the islands. 3) Specific techniques like telling new stories and using positive language, images and narratives could help shift dominant worldviews around growth, consumption and environmental issues by engaging people emotionally.

1. Using marketing for
cultural transformations
presentation by
Gillian King
Sustainable Jill
to
Students of Sustainability
Flinders University
12 July 2015

2. 1. Introduction
2. Culture & Communication
3. Advertising & Marketing
4. Effecting Change
5. One Model
6. Envisaging Exercise
7. Conclusion
Program

3. 1 Introduction

4. About me
• Sustainability facilitator bringing together
people, information & ideas
• 20 years Aust Gov’t policy, management
– environment (particularly climate change), industry
& ageing
• Long-term interest in climate change & urban
planning
– scientist, policy-maker, community member,
activist
– interested in systemic change, game-changers

5. Transforming Culture stream – assumptions
• Human civilisation ∝ transform dominant world culture
– rapid
– reassethe biophysical realities within which we live
– promote culture sensitive to & respectful of nature & its limits
• There is still time to take effective action to minimise disruption to
human society
Detrimental to human prosperity, health &
wellbeing
Degradation of natural environment
Human activity

7. Image: http://www.newscientist.com/special/ocean-to-ozone-earths-nine-life-support-systems

8. Human activity  degradation of natural environment
 detrimental to human prosperity, health and wellbeing
Human civilisation ∝ transforming dominant world culture
• rapid
• reassert the biophysical realities within which we live
• promote culture sensitive to & respectful of nature & its limits
Still time for effective action to minimise disruption to human
society
Transforming Culture stream - assumptions

9. • How to bring about the cultural
transformation needed for long term
survival of humans?
Sustainability – Core Question

10. 2 Culture & Communication

11. Culture & Communication
• Culture is communication
• Meaning requires emotion

12. • Narratives we tell ourselves
• Those narratives become our
identity
• New stories can replace current
stories
– What is needed, not what is possible
Culture & Communication

13. 3 Effecting Change via
Advertising & Marketing

14. Effecting Change
• Psychology
• Advertising and marketing
• Project management
• Campaigning
Effecting Change

15. Why advertisers & marketers?
• Behaviour change industry
• Use psychology to influence behaviour
• Evidence-based
• Creative

16. Shaping Public Opinion
“develop a message and strategy for
shaping public opinion on a national scale”
(internal fossil fuel industry memo)
– ‘This manufactured campaign found a receptive
audience among many citizens who would
understandably prefer not to acknowledge the
existence of such a frightening and potentially
overwhelming threat as global climate change.’
Gore, A. 2009. Our Choice, p. 358

18. What can we learn from the
commercial world?
1. Psychology
2. Models for influencing

19. .
Ferrier, A. & Fleming, J. 2014. The Advertising Effect: How to change behaviour.
Oxford University Press: South Melbourne.

20. Adam Ferrier

21. Advertising, Psychology & Systems Thinking
How do we replace them?
What do we want to replace them with?
What are the dominant images, stories & words in our
culture?
‘Mere exposure effect’ (Zajonc 2001)
Every time we see a picture, hear a story or read words,
it makes an impression on our brains (Heath 2001)

22. 4 Effecting Change

23. Some ways of getting change
• Fairy tales – ‘outsourcing’:
Prince Charming will rescue us
– eg Whitlam, Rudd, Obama, Abbott,
technology
• Empowerment movements
– eg Divestment, Kitchen Table
Conversations, March Australia
• Marketing

24. Psychology of behaviour
Feelings
Actions
Thoughts
Behaviour

25. Change – how?
Change thinking  change behaviour

26. Change thinking  change actions
Feelings
Actions
Thoughts
Behaviour

27. Change – how?
Change thinking  change behaviour
Change behaviour  change

28. Change actions  change thinking
Feelings
Actions
Thoughts
Behaviour

29. Why focus on behaviour?
Action changes attitude
faster than
attitude changes action

30. Asian Wisdom
Tell me, I forget.
Show me, I remember.
Involve me, I understand.
- ancient Chinese proverb

31. Six Principles of Influence
1. Reciprocity
2. Commitment & Consistency
3. Social Proof
4. Liking
5. Authority
6. Scarcity
Robert Cialdini. 1984. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

32. 5 One model

33. Basic Sales Model‘Selling’ change

34. ‘Selling’ change – why?
• ‘Reframing is social change.’
(George Lakoff. 2004. Don’t Think of an Elephant, Scribe Publications: Melbourne)
• If you don’t know where you’re going,
any path will take you there

35. ‘Selling’ change
Pain
Island
Boat
Pleasure
Island

36. Language,
Words, Stories, Images
1. About what?
2. To whom?
3. How?

37. Pain Island
• Anthropocene
• Anthropocentric thinking

38. What are the dominant images, stories & words in our
culture?

39. What are the dominant images, stories & words in our
culture?
Economy, financial eg $, buy, sell, share market, exchange
rate, commodities, prices, GDP, Work hard and (eventually)
you can be rewarded (eg by retiring)
Growth, more, building, improvement, fast, better = good
Celebrity, fashion, design, appearance, food – fast,
engineered, ‘perfect’
Man-made objects (eg cars, buildings, food, fashion, faces,
bodies)
Refinement = improvement: natural = primitive = bad
Extrinsic value
Dehumanising, objectifying, abstracting
I/me, you, status, ownership, control, closed, fast

40. Pleasure Island
• Sustainocene
• Ecocentric thinking

41. What do we want to replace them with?

42. Environment eg GSP
Humanising: People, relationships, personalising
Feelings, spirituality eg GHP
Sustainable, enough, less, natural, experiencing, caring,
mindful = good
Growth, more, building, develop, improvement, fast = bad/
neutral
Intrinsic value
Humanising, personalising, concrete
We/us, commonality, caring, sharing, openness, slow
What do we want to replace them with?

44. How do we replace them?

45. How do we replace them?
Jack Proctor, Native Fishing Boat at Sea, 1942 , Blue Mountains Local Studies, Blue Mountains City
Library, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

46. How do we replace them?

47. Summary (1)
• Culture is about communication.
• Language, stories and images that resonate
with us emotionally are the key.
• Psychology and marketing can provide
invaluable help with transforming culture.
• A bold, vivid and clear alternative that
engages us emotionally is the key to change.

48. A. Marketing
 change attitudes & behaviour
 useful
B. One basic marketing model: Pain Island, Pleasure
Island, Boat
1. Pleasure Island – imagining different futures (scenarios)
2. There are boats to get to Pleasure Island
3. Pacific colonisers – get on boats without knowing
destination
C. FFF can help people imagine different future
 help get people get on boats that may be legal
Summary (2)