Leading to COP15: Understanding China’s position on Climate Change – An Edelman Paper

admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:58:38 +0000

COP 15 is now few weeks (if not days) away, the clock is ticking. But the recent Singapore announcement did not help in bringing some hope, as, confirming doubts that had been growing for months, the world leaders in attendance at APEC — along with Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen — announced that a legally binding deal on climate change would be impossible to achieve at the U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen.

With no tangible COP15 outcome in sight, many eyes have turned to look at China, whose position on climate change got widely debated. But often, as many other commentators noted (here and here), much of this debate has been based on misinterpretations of the domestic drivers behind the climate change issue in China.

Therefore, with my colleagues at Edelman Shanghai, we developed an Insights Paper on China’s position on climate change (that you can download here) with the aim of providing a more “holistic” picture of what the issues are on the ground in China, how these are influencing China’s climate change diplomacy, and how, from a communications perspective, better engaging Chinese stakeholders (government, consumers, companies) on this issue by actually re-framing the debate (and the terms of the debate, for a deeper analysis, check this out).

I don’t usually publish agency or client-related content on Sustainability Conversations, but the aim of this blog is to take part to existing conversations and share insights, and COP15 is for sure part of this. Of course, please let me, and my colleague @ilsevs, know your comments and thoughts on this paper.

Thanks again to all the people who contributed time and insights to this project (here, here, here and there) and furthered (I hope!) our understanding of a critical, yet extremely complex issue.

To download the Insights Paper, please click on the picture above or here.

As a PR & Sustainability communications professional, what do I learn from marketing and advertising?

admin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 08:40:21 +0000

The other day I realized that, on this blog, I often tend to write more about advertising and marketing, than public relations, which can potentially seem quite shocking surprising to some of my peers. PR pros indeed love looking down upon their advertising & marketing counterparts for not getting what the ‘conversation age’ is all about, i.e. for still largely operating in a ‘push paradigm’, and not a ‘pull’ one through engagement and two-way dialogue.

Well … as the communications disciplines are converging today, I believe it is important to being ‘less territorial”, but instead being open to learn more from advertising and marketing, including insights that can be extremely useful for Sustainability and CSR communications campaigns.

Here’s is what I learn from marketing and advertising, and why:

1/. Creativity & Ideas

Creativity is by far the reason #1 why I am always looking at the latest PSAs or non-commercial ads available online, such as these ones here, as they smartly leverage cultural references, social trends and emotions to get their messages and big ideas across. Needless to say that in order to cut through the clutter, creativity is a MUST for sustainability/CSR communications, as 1) the average consumer sees more than 3,000 messages a day, and 2) audiences like to be entertained, not pitched!

2/. Research & measurement for ROI

For many in the PR field, and especially in digital/social media communications, ROI measurement is a ‘holy grail’, and here, marketing has a lot to offer with an extensive set of research approaches (pre- and post-campaigns), measurement metrics and objectives. It particularly makes a lot of sense when it comes to CSR & Sustainability communications as the budgets for such programs are often cut due to budget constraints and doubts over their capacity to achieve business objectives.

3/. Messaging and target audiences

Finally, as the success of any communication campaign always depends on the right definition of target audiences/key stakeholders and messages, marketing research and studies are a gold mine of insights about people’s perceptions and related-behaviors for all things sustainable in an always changing environment.

Do you see anything else that PR & Sustainability Communications consultants can learn from advertising and marketing?

Or vice-versa?

Sustainability Conversations » PR

Leading to COP15: Understanding China’s position on Climate Change – An Edelman Paper

As a PR & Sustainability communications professional, what do I learn from marketing and advertising?