Mike Longhurst McCann-Erickson Advertising Representing The European Association of Communication Agencies (EACA) Your Excellencies, ladies and

d 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 for new trends and ideas on which to base creative messages. They are also very sympathetic towards issue related subjects, which offer them opportunities 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 the other. Even if we have to accept that in advancing sustainability it is the supply side that has by 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 offtake. I have only to look through the Chairmans 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 a receptive environment in which more detailed or action oriented solutions like literature, 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 a campaign in Northern Ireland called Wake up to Waste in which schemes at community 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 do that. 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 scheme designed to educate and enable positive response at the same time. For any scheme to be successful it has to recognise fundamental consumer realities. It has 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 often required 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 need leadership before they will let their concerns for the planet influence their urge to consume, 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 cant be the most important thing if governments in developed markets only choose to put 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 either governments have to divert funds from more parochial issues, or better still devote new 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 normal product advertising. Issue-related advertising, as I have said is a welcome opportunity for agencies to demonstrate their creativity. But so too is tourism advertising and may I say that ecotourism, adventure tourism and the other forms discussed today fit an established trend we have already observed towards experiential travel and travel for selfimprovement. 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 in image development and secondly for investment to be too tactical. This happens when 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 dont build image. Thirdly the task of promoting tourism to these areas will have to draw on all the skills of the advertising and marketing communities. We recognise many distinct consumer types 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 and agencies 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 little evidence of demand for more sustainable products or lifestyles. This was resulting in low 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 that more than the process we went through with our client sector partners in producing the 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 following it we have carried the process of developing initiatives further within the agency sector. 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 is fair 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 can help us to build brand image and even sell products. The format we created for this in London is now being followed in Holland and local association in other European markets are discussing similar actions. We have jointly authored between McCann and UNEP a brochure entitled Can Sustainability 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 in advertising. 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 Champions for Sustainability and to make it an active part of their brand and product communications, 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 from NGOs. Yet I am convinced that we will never find brand champions if we do not create a conducive environment in which companies will feel secure in openly proclaiming their sustainable principles. And if we dont get to the point where consumers receive leadership from brands, then the whole burden of promoting sustainability will fall on governments. The Chairmans Text for this conference calls for greater labelling of sustainable products and the consumer certainly needs signposts both through advertising and packaging. 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 is supposed 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. This will then go with consumers instincts to trust a brand rather than asking them to do what 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 on the back. The second action point we have established is to incentivise ourselves with awards for sustainability advertising. We are sector obsessed with award schemes and in fact there is some controversy in our business about advertisements that are created by agencies just to win awards. Many are designed to support issues like we are discussing, 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 be cheaply adapted locally to support almost any cause in markets which cant afford to create their own.

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The artists rights issues are immense, but we will discuss feasibility with all stakeholders. 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. We will make every effort to see if this can become the first bank of recyclable advertising. Our third measure will be to create Communications Toolkits in co-operation with UNEP. This will have all that governments need to start successful education campaigns 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 local success 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 conspicuous consumption of years ago that credit cards are still associated with. Fifthly we are working with expert consultants to create a Green Housekeeping Guide 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, either singly 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 a sector which is 100% dependent on funds provided by its clients and final decisions in all 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 selfregulation systems, which generally operate very effectively, but for credibility in many quarters rely on a strong ethical foundation. We will be combining with a new academically based organisation called The Institute 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 tiebreaker 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 towards achievement 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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