more ideas, less stuff

I've slightly foolishly agreed to participate in the D&AD President's Lecture 'Branding And Environmental Issues Forum'. As is normal with these things they've not given me any clue about what they'd like me to talk about but I thought I'd better start thinking about it.

I signed up for this, not because I'm a huge expert in Branding And Environmental Issues but because I think I should be. I think we all should be. And this seemed to be the kind of kick up the arse I'd need. So I'm going to try and spend some time thinking and writing about these things and hopefully we'll do some thinking about it together.

Given this is such a contentious, highly emotive issue maybe I should lay out some of my starting beliefs, though I'm sure they'll change once I actually learn something.

So. In an ideal world I think a benevolent race of super-beings should arrive from behind the moon and make us do the kinds of stuff we actually need to do to avoid environmental catastrophe - specifically start consuming vastly less energy. But, in the absence of benevolent aliens, we're going to be limited to what we can persuade people to do themselves or to vote for. And given what people are like that's a bit more constrained. Obviously as climate change gets worse people will do more and will need less persuading but, right now, our best chances for mitigating climate change are by substantially re-adjusting the priorities of our consumer economy not by trying to make people revolt against cars and fridges.

That will probably strike some people as horribly cynical and insufficient but it's what seems do-able to me now.

Here are some things that seem like interesting starting points:

John's been thinking about this for a while, and he obviously knows his brand onions, so he's well worth listening to. His speculation that our consumption mania will suddenly just disappear in the way 'Victorian values' disappeared in the 50s and 60s would be nice to believe. It's possible. I can imagine it in bits of Western Europe. There is a sort of logic that we'll all pop out of the top of Maslow's Heirarchy Of Needs and return to simplicity, but I suspect unfettered capitalism is cannier than to allow that. And I'm also reminded that a slice of the affluent middle-class has always longed for a return to a simpler, less materialistic lifestyle. As long as they don't have to go without fine cheese. So if this anything new? I'm not sure we can combat climate change by dragging the whole world up through Maslow in a kind of accelerated lifestyle gentrification, but there might be something in it. And John's much smarter than me so if he says it's happening I'll just capitulate and agree.

There's also a big pile of should-be-read conversation here.

Innocent talk about Fast Moving Sustainable Goods. And I think their combination of ambition and conscience is probably the most effective route for your average consumer brand at the moment. You can't achieve a lot if no-one's heard of you or no-one buys your product. (Assuming all the reality caveats above.) Quite a few brands are doing the same thing - trying to create new products without consuming irresponsible amounts of energy.

But I've been wondering if there's a way of satisfying that nagging consumer impulse merely through the supply of ideas, not through the supply of new stuff.

Our fundamental issue, I guess, is that people are consuming too much. By which we mean too much stuff. Physical stuff. Stuff that requires energy to be made and un-made. So we wouldn't mind people consuming per se, if they consumed less actual stuff and consumed more that was made only of ideas. Which, of course, is what a lot of branding tries to do - and is often criticised for - we try and add value to a product by adding abstract, non-physical stuff; ideas, associations, images, memories. And the transmission of these things involves some energy, but less than creating a lot of physical stuff.

So I'm wondering whether we can persuade people to consume more branded ideas and less branded stuff, in the same way we might sometimes be able to substitute connected technology for cars.

Think about packaging as an example. At the moment we try and sell stuff by wrapping it in an expensive, wasteful but desirable bit of packaging. What if the packaging could be kept to a minimum but the sales imperative could be served through a desirable idea embedded in the product, with a minimum of physical stuff? (And yes I know the ideal solution here is not to encourage the consumption of more products but see reality caveats above.)

Perhaps the next stage is to wonder whether all those base consumer habits can be served just through the exchange of ideas. Can an old product be made to feel new through some kind of brand mechanism - so that no energy is consumed but someone still buys something and someone sells something. Does that make sense?

A t-shirt might be a good example. How do we make this work with a t-shirt? How can a t-shirt company satisfy your consumer need for a new t-shirt without having to actually make a new t-shirt, package a new t-shirt or transport it to you? Can we persuade you to be happy with your old t-shirt or somehow refresh your old t-shirt so it feels new? And can we make money doing so? Can there be some exchange of value?

Can we create a brand world built with more ideas and less stuff? Can we stop using ideas to sell more stuff and use ideas as a substitute for stuff?

I'm probably being hopelessly naive, but it's a thought

(And, while we're at it I should also point at two bits of essential reading; World Changing and Bruce Sterling's Viridian Design Movement which I think is offering the most persuasive thinking in this whole area - 'Creating Irresistible Demand For A Global Atmosphere Upgrade'.

Like I say I'm just thinking outloud, but I'm hoping to learn.

Comments

[Erik Larsson]

I think the London company LiveWork is stumbled upon something with their concept of creating service envy:

"Products help us identify ourselves through a complex product and brand language. If we want to make people desire services more than products, then services will also have to communicate these values.

If we want to make people desire services more then products, we have to create services that help people tell each other who they are. Our major challenge is to enable people to express who they are through the use of services instead of through ownership of things. We must create "service envy".

It's leaning toward "More ideas, less stuff", in this case, "more services less stuff".

http://www.livework.co.uk/

[John Dodds]

On the Maslowian point, it's worth investigating how neuroscience shows that we inevitably move toward self-actualisation as we reach middle age. The movement of the boomer bulge into this age-range may help JG's prediction come to light - though, of course, in developing nations the demography is very different (as capitalism will notice).

[Nina]

Package Design magazine has an annual supplement of editorial this month on sustainable packaging, which may be of interest: http://www.packagedesignmag.com/

[flb]

i keep thinking about how people do business - green or sustainable products and brands are great, but what about how we all do what we do. 5 years ago, as a planner, i had to rely on phone calls and my friends and acquaintances and ability to network around the world to find out what was happening in tokyo, because no one was going to pay for me to get there. we learned great stuff.

now, as a qual researcher and brand consultant, i'm on a plane all the time. my colleagues have to print tabs to read them. there's nowhere to park a bike one might theoretically ride to work. we don't even recycle soda cans.

we're dispersed, disconnected and developing a serious addiction to carbon. how can a business built on talking to people, thinking and generating iMovies and .ppt presentations create such a huge carbon footprint?

anyway - change starts at home, right?

[amber]

World Changing is a fantastic book; i just bought it as a gift for someone, and wound up reading it myself before i gave it to them - shh.

Futureproof/ed -- http://www.futureproofed.com/ -- provides a good way to explore sustainable products , and how design and technology can reduce future waste.

[John Grant]

The comments about a swing to simple living were partly based on what really happened in China several millennia ago. Mary Dougles quoted a study showing that people swung between ostentation and a kind of puritan simplicity throughout most of Chinese history every few generations or so. Our last puritan generation were the postwar cohort ("never buy on the never never"). But of course you cant argue this WILL happen, and what the f*** do any of us know about great sweeps of world social history so it's just speculation.

When I last gave a speech on consumerism to a bunch of environmentalists my argument was that it is a mixed bag. There are bad trends (eg 4 wheel drives) and good ones (mountain bikes). Things like eBay and retro (reviving a second hand market in the US) are arguably more influential in the mainstream than eco warriors.

Do check out the Green awards too. there were lots of surprising examples and clever ideas.

:J

ps on books check 'design for the real world' by victor papanek from the 70s. It's the daddy. This is the guy who - when US motor manafacturers said that car bumpers would take millions and many years to implement - strapped a load of beer cans and a plank to his car and drove at speed into the wall outside a congressional hearing.

[Organic frog]

Hi Russell,
here are a couple of links which may be of interest:
http://www.cfsd.org.uk/
http://www.sustainableproducts.com/index.html
http://www.squidoo.com/groups/thegreenweb
Hope it helps

[Roy Evans]

We've got three kids under four and following a recent visit to Costco the sheer enormity of our nappy land-fill mountain was plain for all see. We don't get any satisfaction from these purchases, but they serve a purpose. Its expensive and wasteful but in the real world pretty unavoidable for most families.

[Organic frog]

check out StopGlabalWarming.org

'There is no more important cause than the call to action to save our planet. This is a movement about change, as individuals, as a country, and as a global community. We are all contributors to global warming and we all need to be part of the solution. Join the 605,237 supporters of the Stop Global Warming Virtual March, and become part of the movement to demand solutions to global warming now.'

Disel is involved in this
http://www.diesel.com/index2007.php?s=COLLECTION
then click on 'Global warming ready'

[Mayo]

'Hello, D&AD'
'Hi, I'd like to book two tickets for the talk on the 28/3'
'Sure. May I ask how you heard about it?'
'Err... a blog post by one of the speakers'
'Ah. Would that be russel davies? We've had lots of people call in response to that' (she sounded a little bemused)
---
Thinking aloud is good. see you at RIBA in March.

[claire]

Hey Mayo & Russell.

I wasn't bemused at all: more a-mused.

Enjoy the forum - and Russell, I'm sure whatever you say will be well-received.

[Mayo]

Hi Claire,
I did wonder if the person who was at the end of the phone would read what I wrote here; hello :)

[Seb]

Maybe it's not a "woo"-point but I think Apple is a quite good example here. Nearly everybody today has an iPod or one of its clones. Mainly you own one because it's a cool gadget to have and you got all your favourite music with you. But here is the point: Thanks to iTunes Store you can buy and store all your music and all your films digitally. No need to buy and produce CDs and DVDs anymore. Sure it's not the main point about it but a quite ecological side effect.
And maybe that's a good point to start: Make others aspects be the main reason and letting the ecological thing just be a good side effect.

[chris ashworth]

I've been scratching my head about the interplay of social, political, consumer, brand and other factors at play here.
I'm finding it really hard to see that the world is going to pop out of the top of maslow any time. However I wonder if stage 1 comes when purchasing decisions made by the few can force the many to accept the results.
As an example, Tesco might sell most of the Jeans in the UK. A few people start to revert to simple living. But the majority still want to consume. They pick up on some of the messages though, and demand for organic jeans pick up. A brave product manager at Tesco's see's an opportunity to force market share, so switches all of their buying to organic jeans. This forces production to switch to organic methods in China, and demand goes up. Pretty soon noone has a choice - everyone in the world ends up buying organic.
Vastly oversimplified I know, but the model of small numbers of people making a decision, which is partly followed by a larger group, and so on with ripples spreading around the world cumulatively dragging everyone up the hierarchy of needs, is interesting.

People end up taking on parts of ideas that are digestible, and the forces of consumerism drive change rather than holding it back.

I guess the trick is in developing ideas that can be broken down with each part being relevant and causing change.

[andrew Smart]

I have a lot of respect for you commiting to this because you feel you should know more.

I think it's a great example to set and a really healthy approach to life. Personally, I hate people who pretend to have all the answers.

There aren't enough hopelessly niave people around.

This speech by Mark Bardon really inspired me to launch myself at the issue head first.
Maybe you'll find some stuff in there that will help you.

http://www.authenticbusiness.co.uk/archive/changeamerica/

[Jonathan Jeter]

Here's a great interview with Amory Lovins from the Rocky Mountian Institute that might be worthwhile. Some interesting ideas on a few simple shifts in corporate thinking to make going green profitable and how to tackle the big barriers (politics, corporate bottom lines, design strategies) to change

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4569577556800822039

[Jon Alexander]

Another place you might want to look at - www.longnow.org.

The assertion that as climate change gets worse, people will do more is probably true up to a point, but I worry a bit about it. If you think about it, if you believe a problem is unsurmountable, that things are getting irrevocably worse, what are you likely to do? Probably take what you can while you can. Whereas if you cautiously think things are improving, maybe you invest more in the future...

My point is this - as you work towards your contribution, it might be worth thinking about the role of optimism; of making people feel like there's something they can do, rather than just telling them how much they've f*cked everything already, which seems to be what most brands have done so far.

[Richard Oliver]

Ray and Charles Eames were worrying about this issue way back in the 60s. Their solution goes beyond Live/Works "service envy" to one of creating a kind of "can do envy".

"Charles talked about this idea at length in the Norton Lectures, describing a humanity that had sort of painted itself into a corner "where information and imagery- and I think it's largely through television - [the world] has gotten so completely homogenized so that, in many respects, everybody has been getting the same. [And] it has been one of the things that there is and exists today a universal expectancy in which every person feels he has the right to everything everybody else has."


Charles felt this development created a number of problems. For starters, there were so many consumer goods out there that one no longer neeeded to go through the trouble of selectivity. In fact, on the level of effort, even the most expensive product was cheapened because no real effort (beyond paying for it) was asked of the would-be owner. But Charles and Ray also saw a practical (one might even call it environmental problem): if our standard of success is onwing, say, a Mercedes, then we have doomed most of the world's population to failure because it will be phyically impossible to make enough of those cars with the Earth's limited resources.


The solution the Eameses proposed, the New Covetables, would have certain characteristics: 
"It can't be too easy to get them. 
You must be able to have them. 
You must not be able to have them without first wanting them. 
The price must really have a price. 
It must be a real price, but...the coin in which that price is listed must be available to everyone. 
Now, the question is, what kind of things would qualify?"


In other words, the "coin of the realm" is not money, but effort, hard work. There is another quality: "The point is that these things will not diminsh as they're divided. They're endless." 

So what sort of things qualify? Charles listed some examples: learning to read a map; learning to speak Chinese; learning to ride a unicycle; graphing mathematical functions; getting to know a city; or even a story like "King Lear, the model of the inevitable situation which you can apply.""

Thanks to raefried beans for the digital quote
http://raebean.blogspot.com/2004/12/new-covetable-quote-from-eames.html

The paper quote is on pages 125 to 126 in Eames Demetrios's "An Eames Primer"

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eames-Primer-Architecture-Design/dp/0500283206/sr=8-3/qid=1169834435/ref=pd_ka_3/202-4852623-1195034?ie=UTF8&s=booksie=UTF8&s=books


[Charles Edward Frith]

erm.... in case anyone is still dropping by. I Just noticed that Noah has asked for something special for his birthday. It's great.

http://www.noahbrier.com/archives/2007/02/birthday_2007.php

[Charles Edward Frith]

In American it's quite often the case that people shop when they don't need anything. Something like a retail fix. I quite like this idea of swapping cool junk for cool junk. It's an idea and it involves no production.

http://www.e-cr.co.uk/crblog/nice-people-swap-nice-things/

Thanks to creative review

[Charles Edward Frith]

More ideas less stuff.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/made-in-england/~3/101118197/