I have begun the year by saying that 2025 ought to be the year for innovations, and my blog is celebrating 25 years of the 21st century which have really been all about innovations. So, how about I start with some innovations of my own?
I had written at the end of last year a blog post on raising private capital for climate change as it seems to be one of the UNFCCC’s biggest and most pressing needs. In that post, I had suggested several ideas, one of which was to leverage the power of a climate change brand for the UN.
Well, now I think the time has come for us to think about such a brand. As an old advertising professional, I have never found myself in a situation where I am free to dream up a brand entirely on my own. What luxury! In fact, in this case it requires me to even think up a new product on my own. Wow!
I am not going to pass up an opportunity for blue-sky thinking, like this promises to be. And what I will be sharing in this blog post are my thoughts and approach to creating a new climate change brand for UNFCCC as well as the brand strategy for it. I decided to start, the way one always does in advertising and brand communications. With an objective – what are we trying to achieve here? For this exercise, I wrote: To raise funds for climate change from individual citizens and corporations for the UNFCCC.
I soon realized that this is not like any other public cause or charity advertising to raise money, although many would tend to make the comparison. For they are already operating a charity, and in this sense, the product or service already exists. Here, I am having to envision an entire operation of fundraising for climate change and then build a brand out of it.
There is another very important sense in which this task differs from most philanthropic activities. I realized this when I began thinking about how we should think of climate change in the first place. There are many reasons why climate change doesn’t receive the kind of attention and funds it needs, and chief among them is the fact that the benefits of any action are not always tangible, and too far away in the future for most people to care about. This resistance or barrier to responding to climate change appeals or calls is what I thought I must address in the fundamental way that the product is conceived and its brand strategy.
What if we didn’t think about climate change as fighting or combating something, but as an opportunity to create something afresh? A chance to renew the earth, to create abundance, to cleanse it and fill it with new life. Of course, in the ultimate analysis, each of the UNFCCC’s climate change initiatives are about mitigation, adaptation and minimizing the threats of climate change, but if we approached the task as a chance to create something anew, we might have a better chance of being heard. After all, we are talking about replenishing earth’s natural resources and creating a cleaner future, aren’t we?
Next, I had to think of a way to make people – both citizens and companies – contribute, and this is where the product starts to take shape. It has to be an effort that individuals and companies engage in, but in different ways suited to their own capacities to help, with the UNFCCC coordinating and channeling all the efforts with both audiences. The product, as far as citizens are concerned, is a chance to contribute what they can as a donation to any UNFCCC climate change initiative. For purposes of clarity and focus, it would help if the UNFCCC prioritized its main climate change initiatives, numbering not more than five, for both individuals and companies.
Here again, if we were to take the usual approach of a direct donation towards a cause such as reduced emissions or decarbonization, it might not be very effective. But if I were to make you think of your donation as a way to make life better for someone you know and care about, we might just be starting a conversation. There is even a plan to include a monetary reward for the beneficiary in whose name donations are made!
For corporations and other organisations, the product is about the UNFCCC engaging with them directly at a global level, helping them make specific commitments to climate change, setting targets and achieving them. The product and the brand take shape and grow as customer engagement increases, as companies achieve more in their efforts to tackle climate change and as everyone is able to see progress being made. In this regard, it is extremely critical that the UNFCCC provide accurate and updated information to the hour on each of the climate change initiatives and how much closer we are to achieving targets.
You may read my thoughts on the UNFCCC climate change brand and its strategy in the document below. I am not a designer or art director, but I have created a few branding options with designs to set the direction. These are not logo design recommendations. The document also has my designs for a product sample – the Thank You message and receipt for the donation, as well as the Gift Certificate for the beneficiary – to give you an idea of the product interface with customers.
The later stages in the life of the brand when it comes into its own, are when it can be licensed by UNFCCC to companies in order for them to build their own brands and businesses. I have shared my thoughts on this as well in the document above. And, I think it would be possible to use the same brand for the global UNFCCC debt fund idea that I had suggested in my earlier blog post. In fact, it might make for a more compact and cohesive effort on the entire fund-raising exercise by the UNFCCC, if they were to have the same brand.
While all of this might seem a mammoth and daunting task – which it is – I would urge you to consider how much easier it is today with the help of technology. While working on this exercise, I was reminded of UNICEF greeting cards and what an effective way they were for the UNICEF to raise funds. I don’t know if they offer them as digital greetings online now, but I wish they would. The UN managed to find a group of wonderful artists from all over the world to create these artworks for them and year after year, these would be mailed out from one corner of the world to another. I am sure the older among you readers recall receiving and sending UNICEF cards at some stage in your lives. I certainly do. And I can’t help thinking what a massive exercise it must have been all those years ago. Today, similar and even more complex customer relationship management programmes can be achieved through specialist CRM companies such as Salesforce and other large technology firms.
Next month, I hope to be able to share the second part of this UNFCCC climate change brand exercise in the form of a brand communication strategy and creative ideas.
The suggestions for brand identity in the document use design elements from Canva and Pixabay and I am thankful to them.
Peripatetic Perch 