Environmental messaging has minimal impact on ad effectiveness

Environmental messaging in advertising does not seem to impact the advert’s effectiveness, according to a new report by ITV.  

The report states that brands have a lot of work to do to ensure their green related ads are more effective and engaging. This comes off the back of findings from the report that show that only 8% of ads included an environmental message. This is despite roughly 80% of UK adults expressing concern about climate change and there being increasing public demand for climate action.

The research suggests that those adverts that do include an environmental message usually focus on the wrong thing. The main focus of such ads being on waste reduction. Whilst Ipsos and the Environmental Research Letters state that waste reduction is only 60th in importance for reducing carbon emissions. 

So, what can advertisers do to ensure their environmental messages have an impact?

Well, the report suggests that advertising needs to focus on proactive, easy measures that have an uplifting tone. Consumers naturally respond less favourably to messaging which is downbeat, lecturing and are thus less likely to change their behaviour. 

The report also indicates that advertising should focus on real people or recognisable characters, thus helping to make the topic of the environment seem more real. This would consequently help make green behaviours seem far more achievable. Using brand characters that recur across ads can also help build familiarity and effectively convey messages.