climate change

Marketers need to stop ostriching on climate change

Many years ago, when my hair was mostly brown with a few gray strands instead of the opposite, my wife and I took a vacation in Asia. We went to Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and, because my wife wanted to see Bali, we stopped in Indonesia as well.

In order to get to Bali via the deal my wife wangled, we had to go through Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta. I have to say that at the time, it struck me as unbelievably banal and boring, one of the dullest capital cities I’d been in.

I wish it were as dull and boring today. Instead, it’s rapidly sinking underwater. The cause? Melting polar ice caused by climate change.

If you’ve never been to Indonesia, I don’t expect this will mean much to you. You’ll probably file it away in a mental folder called “Things to be concerned about when I have time.” But if you have, it’ll be very real to you. A place that used to be land is now sinking under the ocean.

Now: What the hell does all this have to do with marketing?

As marketers, we’re in denial, to one degree or another. Our rationale up until now has been that we have to be, in order to survive. We have to think about billings, clients, briefs, quarterly goals. There’s only so much room in our brains.

But now, faster than we know, the situation is flipping.

Now, in order to survive, we need to not be in denial.

For example, if you’re in the marketing department of an airline that flies to Indonesia, its sinking into the ocean is a pretty big deal that’s going to cut into your business. The same is true if you work for an international company that markets to Indonesian businesses or consumers. Are you a designer, art director or copywriter for a concern that makes things in Indonesian factories, like clothing or sneakers? You might be in for a bumpy ride.

Because now, global climate change isn’t something we can ignore, or donate to once a year, or pay lip service to with products named Rainforest Renew and Coral Reef Sparkle.

It’s something that should factor heavily into every decision we make, every day.

Our survival depends on it, not just as marketers but as human beings.

Dave Dumanis is a 25-year San Francisco Bay Area copywriter, creative director and advertising veteran.

Sunlight is born.

A few short years ago, I came to the conclusion that advertising is really just a bunch of noise unless it also involves helping our rapidly unraveling planet. It could have been the urge to make a better world for my teenage daughter, or just the daily news about penguins and polar bears, but I wanted to do my part.

It was around that time that I came up with the idea for Sunlight: An advertising and marketing organization–”agency” is too strong a word–focused entirely on marketing renewable and green technology to a world that needed a little kick in the rear to adopt it.

The timing wasn’t right then, but maybe it is now. Hence, a new virtual marketing group. A collaboration. A collective. An idea: Sunlight.

For now, I’ll continue to pay the bills via contract work. I’m lucky to have some great clients who encourage me to push boundaries and do what I do.

Meanwhile, more and more roofs are going solar. Teslas are everywhere. People are commuting to work by electric bike, electric kick scooter, electric hoverboard.

Maybe this whole alternative energy thing isn’t as crazy as it sounds.

We still aren’t adopting it fast enough, so there’s a lot of room for a group with a strong voice to do effective work. And while much of the work done is still nonprofit, more and more profitable companies are emerging on the backs of these technologies, making a a marketing agency a viable proposition even when social media companies are sucking up most of what used to be ad media revenue.

Over the years, my own work in this area has included ridesharing, solar panel and electric car doohickeys such as analog-to-digital components, software that automatically turns off huge numbers of computers, and paperless agreement technology. But the (petroleum-free) ride has just started.

Get in touch if we should talk.

Dave Dumanis is a 25-year San Francisco Bay Area copywriter, creative director and advertising veteran.