Why targeting 4 human emotions is key to marketing sustainability

By focusing on the correct human emotions, the message of sustainability could have a deeper impact

The link between neuroscience and consumerism could hold the key to a sustainable future. Photograph: Sebastian Kaulitzki / Alamy/Alamy Photograph: Sebastian Kaulitzki / Alamy/Alamy

While brands have been remarkably successful at feeding universal human drives, such as the desire for adventure, power or status, sustainability has not been seeing the same success in its messaging. What sustainability needs to create the same impact is a similar level of insight into the best way to embrace the full range of human emotions. Because it's human emotion that's at the heart of what motivates us.

Though marketing is often derided by many as the reason why consuming more is so woven into the fabric of modern life, it is also undeniably the front line for responsible business. Global corporations such as P&G or Unilever are ahead of the consumer market in their corporate point of view about how sustainable business practices will ensure future success. As marketing-led organisations however, their ability to act on this is limited by the extent to which they can make it an immediate driver of success for their brands. They now face the same challenge as progressive policy makers and NGOs: to promote sustainable lifestyle choices, despite the fact this is not something most consumers are actively asking for.

The latest thinking around behaviourchange and sustainability as put forward byCommon Cause,a think tank funded by Oxfam, Public Interest Research Centre, and WWF-UK, is that the key to encouraging sustainable living is to align it to core values. Its argument is that a less wasteful lifestyle will only be adopted if it fits closely with the identity and sense of self of the individual involved. However, the rub is that some of those values are painted as positive and conducive to a better life - often called inner-directed values, while others are portrayed as negative and undesirable, leading naturally to selfishness and greed - called outer-directed values.

The argument goes that sustainability engagement techniques must focus on remaking social values in order to encourage sustainable outcomes. While this seems to be a noble aim, at first glance it does not provide a comprehensive answer to role that companies and brands should play. At Given London, our research to try and close the gap between marketing and sustainability led us to the conclusion that this approach needs to be challenged. Firstly, it seeks to change what our research suggests are fundamental human drives and fails to recognise that all of these drives can be channeled in a positive way. Secondly, andin a more practical sense, this narrow view of desirable human traits often leaves brands that do not have the nurturing, wellbeing and collaborative part of the spectrum at the heart of their story behind.

The Brand Substance Wayfinderis a tool we developed to respond to the feedback made by many marketers during our research; that using corporate values and responsibility to build brands is a niche tactic. This is not suitable for everybrand: it's great if you are Dove or Innocent, but not for more masculine or performance categories. Effective neuroscience identifies four basic human drives aligned to a handful of neurochemicals in the brain. These four drives each have their own useful role to play in promoting human survival and out of these have emerged the full range of human emotions:

Contentment - to minimise harm and probability of bodily destruction

Nurturance - to facilitate familial and social bonding

Seeking - to reward curiosity, survival abilities, achievement and excitement about achieving the desired goals e.g. food and stimulation

Assertiveness - to overcome restrictions on freedom of action

This insight presents a more balanced view of consumerism and how brands meet our basic needs - a new mother is not buying extra baby products because of an outer-directed motivation to demonstrate her status in the world, she is buying them because of her innate drive towards the nurturance of her child. Rather than trying to change us, brands have worked out what makes us tick. They successfully appeal to our full range of drives; our sense of freedom, home, playfulness, power or sensuality.

The Wayfindertool demonstrates twelve strategies that show how any brand can use sustainabilityto build on its core story. There are already some strong examples that show the opportunity for doing this. Take electric car manufacturer Tesla, which appeals to 'status through substance' to offer a potentially more desirable alternative to the super-car, or a brand likeNikewhich can strive for a 'values victory' over its competition to bake sustainability into its obsessive will to win.

The Wayfinder tool was developed to encourage all brands deliver on the business opportunity of sustainability, by making it a core part of their unique story. However, along the way, it has revealed some insights for how the sustainability industry at large must be wary of making sustainable change a values judgment, and the political sub-context this brings.

Toughness, individuality, a sense of adventure, even a desire for power, when positively channeled, can be just as useful today as when they were first being etched into the human psyche. Brands cottoned on to embracing the whole person some time ago, now it's time for sustainability to catch up.