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The world’s first climate ad aired at the Super Bowl earlier this year. What was it? How did it crash the world’s biggest stage for advertisers? And how well did it resonate? Here to explain how a simple but beautiful story about the power of a mother’s love managed to pull people’s heartstrings (and their purses!) is climate marketing professor John Marshall from the advertising firm for planet Earth, Potential Energy Coalition. Here’s how the campaign hit a home run for climate action.
Created by TEDxLondon
Executive produced by Josie Colter
Produced by Ben Beheshty
Hosted by Maryam Pasha and Ben Hurst
Communications by Tara Cooper and Issey Gladston
00:00 Introduction to Climate Quickies
00:48 Meet John Marshall
01:04 The backstory of the super bowl ad
02:02 The science moms ad
03:06 The impact and reception
03:26 The power of storytelling in climate marketing
05:34 Positive reception and future plans
08:06 Conclusion
Transcript
Introduction to Climate Quickies
Maryam Pasha: Welcome to Climate Quickies, bite-sized nuggets of Climate Goodness. From our TEDx London experts in under five minutes
Ben Hurst: in this week’s climate, curious, we are taking a look at how climate crashed the Super Bowl earlier this year between disc tapes, dance moves, and touchdowns. Something else pretty big happened.
Ben Hurst: The world’s first climate issues ad aired on the Super Bowl, the world’s biggest stage for advertisers here to share how they made this [00:00:30] happen and the behind the scenes reality of landing climate. On the big screen is climate Marketing Professor John Marshall on how climate crashed the Super Bowl.
Ben Hurst: Let’s head over to John to hear more. Stay curious.
Meet John Marshall
John Marshall: Hi there. I’m John Marshall. I, uh, I’m CEO of a new nonprofit called Potential Energy. We are a marketing firm dedicated to awakening the world, to climate change and dramatically accelerating [00:01:00] solutions, uh, kind of a marketing firm for Planet Earth to make it simple. Well, we’re, we’re very excited about it.
The backstory of the super bowl ad
John Marshall: It’s a. First, I think it’s the first climate issue ad ever run on the Super Bowl, and the backstory is that we had been working and have been working with a very innovative and thoughtful group at the Waverly Street Foundation who had the idea of investing in climate communications on a bigger stage, and it was their generosity that made this possible.
John Marshall: Our team helped guide the strategy and the media strategy to do something very big. But I will say also, in addition to it [00:01:30] being big, very economically efficient at this particular moment, and those of you who know me well, know that my, my tombstone will say he was economically efficient. So suffice to say that this was a very smart media buy with a focus on digital and a regional focus, and it wasn’t a Budweiser size Super Bowl investment, but we did get.
John Marshall: We hope, what we hope is Budweiser sized impact and reach. The other part of the backstory was that while Waverly was planning the effort, the fires in LA broke out, and that’s when we, in Waverly, quickly decided that this particular science [00:02:00] moms ad that we ran would have the highest impact for this moment.
The science moms ad
John Marshall: And so for those of you who don’t know, science moms are a group of female climate scientists who are also moms. Their mission is to educate on the issue in a way that really connects the dots for regular people. And so we chose over the last few weeks this ad, which was actually one of our very highest performing ads.
John Marshall: We’ve done thousands of message tests, and this is the very top one, because we thought it was a way to really educate people at the moment that extreme weather was hitting. And the essence of it is how do we talk about cli [00:02:30] the human consequences of climate change in a way? That resonates for real people and their lives.
John Marshall: And so one of the key parts of it, uh, in addition to educating folks on climate change, was to also help raise money for the victims of the LA wildfires. And so we partnered with a group called the California Community Foundation and actually use this in addition to being an educational ad to raise money for the victims of the LA fires.
John Marshall: This climate change is maybe the biggest [00:03:00] challenge humanity has ever faced. And so why not put it on humanity’s biggest media stage? And so, um, that was the plan.
The impact and reception
John Marshall: Um, here’s what the data says though. When you look at, uh, at climate and. You know how regular people are thinking about it. The biggest challenge is that they’re not thinking about it enough and they don’t know what’s at stake.
John Marshall: And so we chose a message that we thought was most effective at really awakening the world in a big and emotional way, in a way that we could really get people to care.
The power of storytelling in climate marketing
John Marshall: And throughout all of our research over the last few years, we found we need to shed the [00:03:30] complexity, get rid of the economic concepts, the decarbonization, the net zero scope three mumbo jumbo, and talk to humans like humans.
John Marshall: Talk to ’em about things that matter. You know, the matter to people like love and what we love. And so the ad that we ran is called by the Time and it traces a story through little anecdotes of one of the most important things in a person’s life, raising a child. Uh, so on a timeline alongside how the world will change as a child ages, it’s also a timeline of how the [00:04:00] climate will age.
John Marshall: It’s a story. That appeals to a parent’s desire to do all they can do to make the world a better place and to protect their kids. And so it’s a very simple story of a girl growing up and how the world around her is changing, uh, and what it will be like at that pivotal moment when she leaves home. It’s one of the most powerful and emotional things that we’ve done.
John Marshall: Um. And we thought it was the right kind of emotional heft to land on the Super Bowl stage. We got, uh, ranked a top 10 Super Bowl ad by the New York Times. Uh, and so that was exciting for our [00:04:30] team, particularly ’cause we beat Doritos, which was great. And so what makes a good ad for that? I think it’s something that tells a, a great Super Bowl ad to something that tells a true story in a way that appeals to something that people care about.
John Marshall: Um, and our message was about, uh, about the kids that we love. Interestingly. The way you usually win the Super Bowl sweepstakes is you get yourself a great spokesperson, Catherine O’Hara or Roger Federer, and you do something that’s really funny, but also really insightful, or you have a talking baby. Um, [00:05:00] and climate change.
John Marshall: Isn’t that funny, is it? And so what, we didn’t have the, the spokespeople when we didn’t have the talking babies, but what we did have, we thought was a story that deeply resonates. We all love our children. Uh, so this is a uniting idea. And I think most importantly, and the data says this. Bigger than politics, bigger than special interests, something that, you know, really appeals, you know, to something we all hold deeply and apparently bigger than our love of salty snacks.
John Marshall: And so it was a very effective ad. Um, and I think effective because, [00:05:30] you know, what is great marketing? Great marketing is a story about the truth that’s really well told.
Positive reception and future plans
John Marshall: Um, and so what’s the reception been? So we’re still gathering all the data. Uh, and for those of us, for those who know us, we spend a lot of energy calculating the actual economics of every dollar we spend.
John Marshall: But I think the short answer seems to be phenomenal. Um, what I, what I can say right now is the reception has really stunned us. People love the message. Um, those of us in the media world know that the key to these things, like the Super Bowl ad is not just what you buy, but all the free extra reach that you [00:06:00] get outside of the game.
John Marshall: I. And it looks to us like about over 50 million people were exposed to the ad for free because of the energy of sharing and spreading it around and influencers who shared it and basically the, the virality that we were able to be achieved. And the second thing we’re really psyched about is it looks like the sentiment for the ad, which you could, you can measure on social media, is about 94% positive.
John Marshall: So those of us who worry that climate change might be polarizing or political, that’s not what we see in the data we see. [00:06:30] 94% of, uh, of all the sentiment was really, really positive. We’re very excited about the reception and look forward to getting more data in the coming weeks.
John Marshall: Yeah, so we’re, we’re a nonprofit that’s entirely supported, uh, by the generosity of our funders. And I think one of the things that’s happened over the last five years is that the funding community has really woken up to the value of investing in communications. And so we have a number of generous donors that help support potential [00:07:00] energy.
John Marshall: In this case, the Waverly Street Foundation is, um, you know, a real visionary when it comes to thinking about the role of communications in educating citizens, but also sparking. And motivating and uniting, um, the movement inside of communities. And so Waverly was a partner and supporter and really catalyst behind this whole effort.
John Marshall: And they’ve, uh, they’ve made a really big difference. And we, um, were excited about that. We had a brilliant director for this piece, a man named Spencer Craig, who really knows how to, you know, [00:07:30] really touch humans in a way that touches their heart and captures emotions that I think we all feel, and that was the, that was the essence behind it.
John Marshall: If I learned one thing about this. We need to be way bolder. And we, I was just so heartened by the reception we got from doing this, you know, through the thousands of messages we received. My, my phone is lining up with texts. Just a feeling, there’s a feeling in the community that, um, oh man, this is hard.
John Marshall: But when you do something big and bold and people get behind it, it makes you feel like, oh, I, you know, we can do this [00:08:00] together. We believe in humanity and we tell human stories to each other. We actually can, can make progress. So we’re excited to do more.
Conclusion
John Marshall: If you go to science moms.org, you can see the ad, uh, the ad is called by the time, uh, and you can learn more about our organization@potentialenergycoalition.org.
Ben Hurst: Thanks for listening to this quickie.
Maryam Pasha: This episode was created by our superstar podcast team at TEDx London. Until next time,
Ben Hurst: stay curious.
