Sustainability claims can have an amplifier effect

Effective corporate sustainability messages can have a powerful amplifier effect that is able to increase brand reach and relevance by up to a third.

That’s according to Effective Sustainability Communications: A Best Practice Guide for Brands & Marketers, a research report from Edelman and New York University's Stern Center for Sustainable Business. Researchers partnered with innovation, sustainability and marketing teams from nine global brands in five categories to devise environmental sustainability claims for each. These were then tested on 2,700 people across the US to gauge responses and reactions.

Why it matters

It’s not just about sustainability claims, it’s about how those claims are framed. The strongest performing claims related to sustainability benefits for individuals’ lives, families and experiences. The report said the results showed “a wide range of consumers are attracted to simple, jargon-free sustainability messages that connect directly to them, their family, and the world around them”.

Takeaways 

• Consumers look for benefits that are germane to the category. Overall, category claims were the most compelling claims tested.
• Sustainability claims in advertising messaging expanded brand reach by between 24 and 33 percentage points by bringing in new consumers. 
• Consumers were notably less interested in the scientific reasoning behind a brand's sustainability claims, unless these were tied to a self-centered reason to care or related to the outcome of a specific action, eg “reduced air pollution for cleaner air to breathe”.
• With the exception of 100% recycled packaging claims, sustainable packaging claims did not resonate with consumers, absent an additional reason to care, such as “micro plastic-free packaging for human and ocean health”. 
• The top-performing sustainability claims had no demonstrable demographic, psychological or political preference differences in impact.

Key quote

“ If you communicate sustainability the right way, it will appeal across political affiliation, income, gender, education levels, and age groups. Sustainability is an amplifier and if brands embrace it, we can exponentially increase growth and trust”– Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman.

Sourced from Edelman, NYU Stern