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McCANN-ERICKSON 1

Mike Longhu rst – McCann-Erickson Advertising

Represen ting The European Association of Comm unication Agencies (EACA )

Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.

I am delighted to have this opportunity to talk about the role of the Advertising

Agency sector in helping to promote sustainable consumption ideals.

Advertising agencies are change-oriented organisations that are constantly looking fornew trends and ideas on which to base creative messages.

They are also very sympathetic towards issue related subjects, which offer themopportunities to establish a reputation for creativity so often denied by the constraints

of everyday product promotion.

To my mind, the interests of sustainable development and of the advertising sector run

on parallel rails. The future success of each is to a large extent dependant on theother.

Even if we have to accept that in advancing sustainability it is the supply side that hasby far the most critical role to play, it remains obvious that as more sustainable

products and services come to market, marketing communications in all its forms, of which advertising is just one, are needed to ensure consumer acceptability and off-

take.

I have only to look through the Chairman’s text for this conference to see obvious

areas where communications can and must play a role in achieving success.Prevention of AIDS, Health Literacy and promotion of Alternative Energy Sources

are just three that require what advertising does best: the creation of awareness and areceptive environment in which more detailed or action oriented solutions likeliterature, education or events can succeed in getting what is often a very complex

message across.

It is this working together which achieves success as we are currently seeing with acampaign in Northern Ireland called “Wake up to Waste” in which schemes atcommunity level to solve the problem of land-fill sites are working under the

umbrella of awareness advertising created by my own agency.

The key in all of these issues is not to expect advertising to do the whole job of changing behaviour or consumption trends, it simply is not powerful enough to dothat. Lifestyle trends and overall consumption patterns are set by forces far more

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fundamental than advertising. However, advertising can be the most visible element,

and I hope steal most of the credit, when integrated into a multi-layer schemedesigned to educate and enable positive response at the same time.

For any scheme to be successful it has to recognise fundamental consumer realities. Ithas to understand why consumers are not already doing what we might think they

should.

Research has often shown high consumer interest in environmental and social issues,but this concern has rarely shown through in consumption behaviour. This lack of pull-through by consumers has led to a vicious circle in which manufacturers are not

rewarded for the massive investment in research and development that is oftenrequired to make real sustainable advances.

On behalf of UNEP and the European Association of Communications Agencies,McCann-Erickson carried out a study in 2001 through our global Pulse consumer

insight programme. We found that consumers, and especially young consumers needleadership before they will let their concerns for the planet influence their urge toconsume, and they are very clear where this leadership should come from.

They expect it first of all from governments. As they see it, environmental issues

can’t be the most important thing if governments in developed markets only choose toput their advertising funds behind road safety or the need to fill in tax forms. These of course are very necessary and we as a sector are proud of the work we do to assist

them.

But if the overriding aims of sustainability are to be achieved, then eithergovernments have to divert funds from more parochial issues, or better still devotenew funds to promoting sustainability issues.

There is no cheap easy solution by, for instance, expecting media with other priorities

to do the job, or expecting to be able to re-direct demand by regulating normalproduct advertising.

Issue-related advertising, as I have said is a welcome opportunity for agencies todemonstrate their creativity. But so too is tourism advertising and may I say that eco-

tourism, adventure tourism and the other forms discussed today fit an establishedtrend we have already observed towards experiential travel and travel for self-improvement.

Advertising of course will be important in promoting this, but we will have to guard

against three dangers: Firstly the tendency of tourism destinations to under-invest inimage development and secondly for investment to be too tactical. This happenswhen too much of the responsibility is left to tour operators or carriers, whose

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interests may be very different. They tend to be tactically focused and don’t build

image.

Thirdly the task of promoting tourism to these areas will have to draw on all the skillsof the advertising and marketing communities. We recognise many distinct consumertypes within tourism to long-haul or developing destinations and communications

have to meet their needs exactly.

But beyond support for these initiatives, what more can advertising in general andagencies in particular do to help further the cause?Well the dilemma that first prompted UNEP to contact our sector was, as I described

earlier, that despite high consumer interest in sustainability issues, there was littleevidence of demand for more sustainable products or lifestyles. This was resulting inlow incentives for manufacturers to look for product breakthroughs and consequently

few products being promoted on a sustainability platform.

I said at the beginning that we are running on parallel rails and nothing illustrated thatmore than the process we went through with our client sector partners in producingthe Advertising Sector Report to the World Summit, which addressed this problem

amongst others.

Thinking and working as a single sector was new and stimulating for us and followingit we have carried the process of developing initiatives further within the agencysector. We have in fact developed a seven point plan to involve the sector fully in

these issues.

Our first task has been to embark on a process of awareness building. I think it isfair to say that agency people are as aware as any other of sustainability imperatives,but until now they have had little idea what they could do to help apart from the

process of producing advertising when asked.

We have already held a first conference at which we looked at how sustainability canhelp us to build brand image and even sell products.

The format we created for this in London is now being followed in Holland and localassociation in other European markets are discussing similar actions.

We have jointly authored between McCann and UNEP a brochure entitled “CanSustainability Sell?” This is designed to encourage the whole sector to see

opportunities in sustainability, rather than threats.

But you might ask, what will creating awareness in the sector actually achieve? Well,it will expose agency people to the possibilities of using sustainable themes inadvertising. It will sensitise them to environmental and other motives amongst

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consumers and it will convince them that sustainability can sell. It will then be up to

each of them individually to find the opportunities.

We also want to do as much as we can to persuade advertisers to become Championsfor Sustainability and to make it an active part of their brand and productcommunications, instead of just hiding it away in corporate websites. Many of course

would be happy to do so if it were not for the fact that they would risk criticism fromNGO’s.

Yet I am convinced that we will never find brand champions if we do not create aconducive environment in which companies will feel secure in openly proclaiming

their sustainable principles. And if we don’t get to the point where consumers receiveleadership from brands, then the whole burden of promoting sustainability will fall ongovernments.

The Chairman’s Text for this conference calls for greater labelling of sustainable

products and the consumer certainly needs signposts both through advertising andpackaging.

I think in fact brand owners will come to see that all eco labelling is a threat to brands.It is a threat because it encourages consumers to look at the back of the pack to decide

what to buy, when to the brand owner it is his name on the front of the pack that issupposed to make the selection process easy for them.

I believe the threat is that eco labelling will reduce brand differentiation unless the

brand owners take action to first earn the right, and then communicate the message,that to consume sustainably, all we need is to look for the name on the front. Thiswill then go with consumers’ instincts to trust a brand rather than asking them to dowhat they show little sign of wanting to do and have a moral debate with themselves

every time they buy something.

The eco label of the future must be the name on the front of the pack, not a symbol onthe back.

The second action point we have established is to incentivise ourselves with awardsfor sustainability advertising. We are sector obsessed with award schemes and in fact

there is some controversy in our business about advertisements that are created byagencies just to win awards. Many are designed to support issues like we arediscussing, so we will explore with award show organisers whether there is an

opportunity to legitimise this practice for the sake of encouraging creation of a bank of advertising that could be used by whoever needs it.

We might imagine in the future a free-to-air creative bank of advertising that can becheaply adapted locally to support almost any cause in markets which can’t afford to

create their own.

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The artists’ rights issues are immense, but we will discuss feasibility with allstakeholders. I can say that to celebrate our centenary McCann-Erickson is planning

to create advertising at our own expense in 50 countries to support good causes. Wewill make every effort to see if this can become the first bank of recyclableadvertising.

Our third measure will be to create Communications Toolkits in co-operation with

UNEP. This will have all that governments need to start successful educationcampaigns on any topic.

We have recently completed one with UNEP on protection of coral reefs.

Our fourth measure will be to create case histories of successful campaigns on

sustainable themes. Each conference we organise will be designed to uncover localsuccess stories like that of Kia cars in the UK or MasterCard, which is promoting

expenditure motives in over 80 countries that are far away from the conspicuousconsumption of years ago that credit cards are still associated with.

Fifthly we are working with expert consultants to create a Green HousekeepingGuide for advertising agencies and this will draw on best practice in similar sectors.

Our next measure will be to look seriously at joining the Global Compact, eithersingly or collectively and last but far from least, we will create a Code of Ethics for

advertising agencies.

This might seem overdue, but there has always been a question mark over whether asector which is 100% dependent on funds provided by its clients and final decisions inall cases by them, can claim to operate with a separate morality.

I am convinced that we must do so and if nothing else it will reinforce the role of self-

regulation systems, which generally operate very effectively, but for credibility inmany quarters rely on a strong ethical foundation.

We will be combining with a new academically based organisation called TheInstitute of Communication Ethics to conduct a multi-stakeholder review of ethical

issues.

The long-term aim of our sector is to do all we can to assist the process of moving

sustainable attributes from being added value to a purchase, through being a tie-breaker when all else is equal, towards a “must have” feature in purchasing decisions.

Our commitment for the future is to continue to work with UNEP towardsachievement of this goal.

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Thank you.

Mike Longhurst is a Senior Vice President at McCann-Erickson EMEA and Board

member of EACA responsible for Sustainability

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