Why marketing and advertising are at fault over climate change and what we can do next

It’s easy to apportion blame, a lot easier than pointing the finger at yourself.

This article originally appeared at EuroNews.Next, you can read it there too.

Climate change didn’t happen yesterday.

Like winter, it’s been coming. We caused it and we know how to stop it. We just haven’t...yet. Let’s hope COP26 finds an unexpected breakthrough in global solidarity.

I heard Paddy Loughman from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change sum up our situation in the phrase “climate change is the new context for everything”. And he’s right.

It’s easy to apportion blame, a lot easier than pointing the finger at yourself. So I decided to start there and ask myself the question - am I the problem?

Modern consumption is unsustainable

I work in an industry predicated on creating demand in an economic model that’s led to an oversupply in pretty much every category (until recently) and choice paralysis for those who have a choice.

Of course, trade is an honourable endeavour, as old as history itself. And marketing by extension isn’t evil – showing goods and services off in their best light to the people most likely to buy them.

But the marketing cog is integrated into a demand creating machine that was perhaps unconsciously destructive and is now more clearly unsustainable in its current form.

The industrialisation of demand creation over time has fed a dissatisfaction and insecurity with what we have, where we go, who we’re with and fundamentally, who we are.

In our industry, people are even referred to as consumers as if that’s the ultimate measure of our existence. But I’m complicit because one key part of my job is to create demand.

Weirdly it even appears to make us ill and unpopular. Industry publication, The Drum reported that 92 per cent of people in agencies have suffered with mental health issues, compared to 62 per cent of the wider population.

The climate change tsunami is still coming. It’s time for the industry to think about its role because the reality is we are part of the problem. Can I make a difference and become part of the solution?

Ian Bates, Firehaus

At the same time, we’re destroying trust with the very people we’re selling to, with advertising execs ranked lowest in the 2020 Ipsos Mori Veracity Index and data and insights company, Kantar reported that 'consumers (that word!) are suffering from ad fatigue, with bombardment and over-saturation putting the UK ad industry at risk’. Up to one billion people are using ad blockers.

In a recent article, broadcaster Adrian Chiles makes a heartfelt and witty case for people to stop buying stuff saying “this madness must stop, but I don’t see our lunatic addiction to stuff addressed in the plans to get to net zero”. He goes on to suggest an ad campaign for ‘Stop Buying Stuff’ that kills the industry.

The signs are there but we seem destined to keep the machine turning until the wheels fall off the planet.

Photo by Mike Erskine on Unsplash