As much as I have optimism for mankind to change their carbon emitting behaviours, the realist in me knows that as a global community we’re not quite sophisticated enough to look beyond the ‘front door’ and embrace a truly sustainable and interconnected approach to living on Earth. A lot of people think they are, fewer actually are but on the whole – most of us aren’t unfortunately. But if we are to look at things on a more individual level – and surely that’s where we want to be heading in the hundreds of years to come – then the biggest problem holding back progress is a communication issue, and probably the biggest communication issue of all time.

For such a pervasive and ubiquitously relevant topic, the arena of climate change is a lot of hot air (pun not intended). Now, I know there are exhaustive resources which provide the information for people to become informed about anything and everything relating to climate change -  but that alone is not going to work. If we are to change attitudes and subsequently create long-term shifts in behaviour, then we can only get to that point by becoming ‘aware’ first. And this is where I think the problem lies.  Awareness (or a lack of it for that matter).

You might be laughing.

And I’d agree with you.. to an extent. On the one hand there is a hell of a lot of talk about climate change and you’d be very hard pressed to go a whole day without seeing or hearing some kind of reference to it in the media. We’re also getting more and more of it as time goes by:  (search –  ’Climate Change’ )

But it’s white noise. It’s cluttered. Despite a mountain of information out there, it’s a bloated and confused entity. Only recently I was watching a documentary on BBC1 that was saying that the  livestock industries were some of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions, to only then change channel and see an advert from the government saying that it’s everyday household behaviours such as leaving lights on and not turning thermostats down that are the biggest contributors. Then I look online and see an article slamming the aviation industry and how I should fly less…it’s all very confusing and it’s quite hard to know where to start.

And what happens when people get confused? They sit back, disengage and become apathetic. We are unfortunately a very lazy species.

So where do we go from here? Well lets bear in mind two features of climate change…

1) it is relevant to everyone

2) it is important for everyone

I don’t think there has been any global event or process occuring in modern history that can comfortably claim these points. Maybe the World Wars perhaps. Therefore it is absolutely paramount to form condensed guidance that can cut through the size, the clutter, the noise – to create clarity, simplicity and ultimately, closeness.

Be it through commerce or industrialisation, we as a planet in both the developed and developing worlds haved lived in an age where sustainability has never been accounted for in our hunger to consume resources, modernise and develop our economies.

Indeed – I quote our Prime Minster:

“Now this is a world downturn, it requires global solutions to global problems, as well as what we do nationally..”

Now, I don’t want to get too involved in politics but he’s totally correct here.

Global solutions to Global problems.

I love it. What a wonderfully simple idea. But in practice, maybe not so simple. There have long been barriers between countries and whilst we’re a very long way from tribes of past, we’re still a very divided world. There is however one universal language that consistently crosses boundaries and joins us together: Globalisation –  and more specifically, branding. Branding (arguably a  key pillar in the globalisation movement) is accountable for a lot of the worlds economy. Maybe all of it even.

So if branding is such a prevelant global phenomenon then perhaps climate change could learn a thing or two from branding? It’s a beautiful but slightly disturbing irony that the core foundations of globalisation may offer the very global solutions to help solve our global problems. Take Coca-Cola.

Coca Cola is one of the most recognised, used, talked about, hated, loved brands in the world. It is the quintessential global brand. Interbrand’s 2009 report :

Coca-Cola is 123 years old and shows no sign of relenting. It is the number one producer of sparkling beverages by volume and dollars. It has launched more than 700 products in 2008 around the world, and its edgy campaigns continue to push boundaries, showing the rest of the marketing community what it really means to manage a brand. Worldwide relevance is what defines Coke and it has successfully maintained its diversified portfolio in more than 200 countries. This year, the company expanded its Coke Zero brand to 107 countries and launched a new message for its marketing campaign. The campaign, “Open Happiness,” was targeted to consumers longing for comfort and optimism in a tough time.

It might be a bit of a crude comparison but if you could hypothetically open up someones head and have a look at all the words floating around inside, I imagine ‘Coca-Cola’ and ‘Climate Change’ would be bouncing about in very large type. But if you then looked inside their hearts, then ‘Climate Change’ would be barely visible. My point is, whilst we are very conscious about climate change, we seem to be unable to engage with it in a personally meaningful way. Which is understandable. It’s quite a horrifying idea that the world is going to ruin. And even worse that it’s our fault.

So whilst governments have their responsibilities to ensure and enforce changes in a legislative sense, personal responsibilities also need accounting for. We just need to make them more personal.

How exactly we make it more personal and the direction that would be needed – that’s the ultimate question.

Maybe this little chap has an idea?

This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.

This is the core idea underlying ‘The Fun Theory‘ – a green awareness/behaviour changing/feel good/virally driven move from VW. Of course its intentions are good and I wish them all the success – but a branding move it is nonetheless. But fair enough. Car manufacturers have all fallen to the way side to some degree  - it’s hard to truly pull your brand away from the focus of topics such as climate change when your brand lies in a category that is essentially a large part of ‘the problem’.

Despite my slight cynicism and distrust towards brands that preach but don’t practice –  I genuinely like this move from VW.

Firstly – I love the overall transparency of it. The core idea is defined, robust and very appealing – not to mention horribly in vogue –  and despite the VW branding saying its ‘their intiative‘ (surely people have probably been doing this for a while?) it still feels personable and relatively ‘brand free’.

Secondly, the several viral videos (courtesy of DDB Stockholm) that are driving the campaign really are quite neat. The Fly-on-the-Wall approach makes things much more human and everyday, which sits perfectly with the idea of the whole campaign. And these vids seem to have been tremendously contagious. The Piano staircase has been doing the rounds all over blogland and has notched up a staggering amount of views considering how long the  vid has been around for – apx. 5 million in less than a month.

Definitely more Passat than Polo.

A more recent video that has been uploaded by the team @ The Fun Theory – whilst not quite as good an execution imo, is still a lot of FUN either way and has a great sense of continuity with the other videos :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSiHjMU-MUo

So hats off to VW and DDB – think you’ve pulled this one off.

..you had to after having releasing this though. *shakes head*

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