Trump, Truth & Net Zero
Time to Rethink 'Green' Marketing
So much to learn for communicators this week. And a big takeaway for this audience: a net zero transition may only be possible if it is an outcome of economic advantage, not ideological will.
These are just some of the things rattling around our heads:
It is almost impossible to find the ‘truth’ with research (viz. another massive delta between polls and the ticks in those boxes)
The way macro-economic conditions filter into consumer ‘feels’ may trump all other consumer insights
‘Facts’ continue their decline as motivators in communication
Net zero needs economic, not ideological, drivers
Firstly, let’s get the politics out of the way now the extent of Trump’s solid popular majority is clear. Anyone here with liberal defaults should fully embrace this ice cold water to face from historian, Adam Tooze, speaking yesterday:
“That’s America, there’s no flinching from it. A substantial chunk of Americans chose not to vote at all in this election and of those that did, the majority voted for that man. If you’re looking at this from the outside… that’s the thing to take in. […] A narrow Harris win, like the (previous) narrow Biden win, would have left folks still clinging to illusions about what the nature of modern American political culture is and this outcome robs one of that possibility.”
Once again, polls proved consistently out-of-touch with cultural truths on the ground and failed to record how much America was hurting from inflation, among other factors. What does this mean for us in an industry that - when it can afford the luxury of research - tends to treat it like gospel? And when bespoke research is off-the-cards we simply defer either to the most recent indicators from mainstream studies or - at worst - a popular consensus established from the tide of what are often commercially-motivated and thinly sampled data.
Perhaps we have to acknowledge the truth often stays within people, out of our reach. That if the data is telling you something different from the ‘feel’ of the moment, people’s lived experience, it has to be questioned. It appears, at least in some degree, that the Democrat vision of ‘culture’ in relation to issues of gender, ethnicity and identity, left the full scope of American attitudes out of their view. And if studies of popular attitudes to sustainability have taught brands anything in recent years, it is that this is hardly a commercial silver bullet.
This newsletter has to ask itself if the truths we see with rare clarity in this moment, invalidate the notion of such a thing as a ‘net zero culture’ all-together?
After all, climate as an issue barely touched the campaign trail - despite the election coinciding with a natural disaster that wrought hundreds of billions of dollars of damage on the US. The research tells us only 11% of Trump supporters identify climate as a significant issue on the ballot. It's likely even less.
As we look forward, a Trump government with Elon Musk in a significant role suggests America will be equally happy to do fossil fuels or green technology without ideological interest, simply in pursuit of the most profitable outcome. (Whether it can compete with China on the latter remains to be seen). And, let’s not forget, it was under Biden that it doubled-down on oil and gas, anyway.
However, we’d argue that the indifference to factual communications we see in the embrace of everything from vaccine conspiracy to climate, make it doubly important that businesses' role in driving clean technologies succeeds. In Trump's America neither facts nor ideology will get in the way of 'the deal'.
If the facts tell your CEO that your green business model will succeed, it is the CMO’s duty to drive that success in the most effective way possible. This may have little to do with notions of ‘environmentalism’.
So, this is a great time to reassess the beliefs of any brand that thinks its proposition is on the right side of history:
Is your research blind to cultural truths on the ground? Can you really treat it as fact?
Even if your positioning works now, is it robust enough to survive what comes next? For many sustainable brands the possibility of a genuine European consumer recession, for example, is surely unthinkable
And, most importantly, are you settling for a niche impact when a different approach might win your brand way more of the popular vote?
Snooze on this stuff at your peril. The route to net zero won't be paved with good intentions, but with profit margins. Brands that grasp this reality will survive the culture wars ahead.
Links
No need for references this month, but if you enjoy the free-thought forum of either podcasts, newsletters or other trusted new communications networks, please drop-in on this excellent article from Substack: