Last month, we hosted an online event to share information about sustainable media planning, how brands are taking active steps to reduce carbon emissions and outline their green credentials, and how OOH is well placed to facilitate these messages in a public way and become a catalyst for change.
We were joined by WPP’s Sustainability Strategy and Innovation Manager, Alexandra McGee, as well as Shahin Ejtehadi, Kinetic’s AdNetZero rep for GroupM, plus a panel of top OOH media owners, hosted by our Chief Client Officer, Nicole Lonsdale.
You can watch the full session here, or read on for the highlights:
The scientific evidence for warming of the climate is unequivocal. To stay within what has been designated a ‘safe limit’ of 1.5C and avoid the worst climate impacts, global greenhouse gas emissions will need to drop by half by 2030 and reach net-zero around mid-century.
Real-world responsibility is set to be a big trend in 2022, as growing awareness of our impact on the environment results in great changes in our personal lives and in business.
Climate change is important to consumers and vital to brands’ success
We know from our recent trends report that consumers want to engage with brands that align with their own values and can help drive change. And they are increasingly influencing this through their wallets and even their careers by moving to brands embedding environmental, social and governance (ESG) at the heart of the way they do business.
Closing the value-action gap
Brands perceived to have a high positive impact on society have two and a half times greater brand value. So, it’s important for brands to understand the potential barriers consumers face when it comes to choosing between personal values and action.
Kantar’s latest #WhoCaresWhoDoes study found that globally 65% of people try to buy environmentally friendly packaging but only 29% actively avoid it. The three biggest barriers to closing this gap at the point of purchase are:
- Money: 82% prioritise saving money over buying more sustainably
- Information: 70% lack the information they need to make a switch
- Time: 67% are in a rush when shopping or are too busy to think about it
This reinforces the need for brands to lead the way in reducing their impact on the planet. But it also highlights the role our industry – and creativity – can play in closing the value-action gap. We have seen this in recent years with the Blue Planet effect – efforts to eliminate single use plastics have accelerated with the projection of some excellent storytelling and shifts in consumer demand.
How OOH can play a key role in communicating brand sustainability strategies
Around the world we’re seeing the rise of sustainable cities, with OOH a central part of the infrastructure. Serving communities by improving the quality of public life has been part of OOH’s DNA for many years.
50% of OOH revenues go back to local authorities where they’re used to help fund development in public infrastructure, transport networks and the wider economy. Many OOH media owners are investing in making formats more environmentally friendly. Living walls and bus shelters, water harvesting units, bee hotels, solar panels to name a few. These initiatives mean OOH continues to benefit and serve local communities and enables brands to facilitate this too, in a very public way.
This investment presents enhanced opportunities to communicate sustainability messages through OOH. And we see four main opportunities for brands:
- The medium and the message can work together to reinforce a brand’s commitments and actions
OOH offers a unique opportunity for the message and media to work together to reinforce a brand’s commitments. It shows public pledges from brands on a public medium. And because OOH is a publicly consumed medium, it’s trusted.
- Brands can use the public nature of OOH media to encourage and normalise sustainable behaviours
Many brands keen to communicate their sustainability credentials use OOH due to the power of cultural imprinting. As a public communication channel reaching 97% of the UK population every week, OOH is uniquely placed to normalise and encourage behavioural change.
- A wide variety of eco-techniques and innovations can enhance creative messaging in a sustainable way
At Kinetic we believe OOH is the home of creativity. As such, sustainability can and should form the bedrock of this creativity. As well as different eco-friendly banner coatings, we’re seeing upcycling and repurposing, as well as brands literally making their adverts greener.
- Harnessing data and tech to drive impact and facilitate change
Brands can also capitalise on the increasing data and technology available in OOH, which can inform both placement of messaging and creative.
Campaigns can be optimised to reach eco-conscious audiences and overlaid with digital frames that run on renewable energy tariffs. Importantly, we can also use data to target areas where people are less eco-conscious to educate and encourage sustainable behaviours.
Live data, such as pollution data, can be used on a national level via API feeds, to activate contextually relevant messages across digital screens at scale. Vehicle detection technology can identify passing vehicles and serve them relevant ads. For example, a car brand can serve EV (Electric Vehicle) ads to cars with higher emissions. Particularly pertinent as we see the growth of low emission zones in cities like Birmingham and Manchester.
Further investment, innovation and technology means that the OOH industry can lead the way in sustainable advertising delivery. And continued commitments from media owners will provide more avenues for brands. We have an opportunity to rethink the purpose for OOH, by making purpose the central pillar of communications when targeting the diverse people that OOH can help brands reach.
OOH: The Sustainability Edit Panel
Hosted by Kinetic UK’s Chief Client Officer, Nicole Lonsdale, our panel was made up of speakers from four top media owners: Louise Stubbings (Clear Channel), Samera Mohmoud (Global), Chris Dooley (JCDecaux) and Phil Hall (Ocean Outdoor).
Get into the detail by watching the recording of the event here.
Highlights from the panel included:
Commitment to net zero
It may surprise you that many OOH media owners have been buying solely green energy from renewable sources for years. For example, Clear Channel have a robust Carbon Net Zero roadmap, based on scientific targets and underpinned by the 100% renewable energy they buy to power their sites in the UK.
Alongside working with councils and blue-chip landlords already dedicated to green power, media owners continue to search for ways to reduce their impact. This includes partnerships with environmental charities, such as City of Trees and Hubbub, as well as releasing digital screens that use 50% less emissions, and reducing the running time of digital screens in the small hours. This lowers emissions further with little to no impact on audience numbers.
Introducing new sustainable formats/Innovation in tech
A big shift in infrastructure to drive sustainable changes in OOH is predicted. Think fleets of electric vehicles, bus shelters that actively pull pollutants out of the air, solar panels strong enough to power digital and classic screens. OOH is already thinking about how to make a tangible difference in the next 15 – 25 years.
But media owners are also making moves now, to protect the planet going forward. As well as encouraging people and businesses to keep sustainability in mind, renewable energy is being harnessed to power a large percentage of screens. And new bus shelters made from recycled materials are fully recyclable themselves at the end of their life.
Collaboration with councils and communities
The panel shared how media owners work closely with councils and communities to help achieve sustainability objectives. In the general OOH community, councils are seen as partners, not just commercial relationships. This is proven by media owners signing sustainability pledges alongside councils, as Ocean Outdoor have done with Manchester City Council and Global with Canary Wharf in London. Councils big and small look to media owners not only to support local and national messaging, but align their businesses, e.g re-wilding greener spaces around digital screens and prioritising benefits to local communities.
Transparency around energy use
The panel are all proud to be accredited by Planet Mark, a sustainability certification for every type of organisation. Audits of all formats and screens are being completed to understand and tackle their carbon and power usage on a screen-by-screen basis. This allows interrogation of an OOH campaign like never before. The hope is that in time, we’ll be able to report on the carbon generated by a campaign and its offsetting, as well as its reach and frequency.
The panel were proud to explain how they’ve reported on progress over the years and been accepted into global climate groups, such as JCDecaux and the Carbon Disclosure Project. Perhaps uniquely to OOH, the control over the delivery of a campaign from planning through to display in public, means accurate reporting across all operations is possible in a way that isn’t in other digital channels.
Sustainability in advertising is not a fleeting trend. Consumers, brands and media owners are actively making changes to policies and processes to future-proof the planet on local and global scales. We know OOH still has work to do. But while we’re not delivering carbon neutral campaigns yet, OOH is investing heavily in sustainability and the environment. At Kinetic, we are learning more about what a sustainable campaign looks like from start to finish, to influence and incorporate into our media planning. We’ll be doing more in this space over the coming months. And we can’t wait to share it with you.
