Branding and climate change

Brands live in people’s heads. Brands are not the physical product; or the service offering.

Brands are all to do with what these products and services mean to people. So, we need to know how the brain works, and how people create brands in their minds. We need to know what causes people to act – and advances in the neurosciences have demonstrated the importance of emotion in human decision-making.

Neuroscientists have also profoundly challenged some key assumptions that have been implicit in the way that market research has been, and is being, practiced. Specifically, it challenges the notions that we are (fully) conscious of all the significant factors which contribute to our decisions, and that we make decisions on a rational basis.

So, when asking people about climate change, we should be wary about asking why they do something, or why they do not. We should be wary of asking them to rationally deconstruct their decision-making (such as with an ACA conjoint). Instead, we need to understand, and measure, the associations and attached emotions people have to climate change and relevant high-carbon/low-carbon brands.

We need to know how to create compelling emotional and rational incentives for action. And we need to know what action should be measured, and to understand the interaction between action, beliefs and feelings.