Leveraging Hunter-Gatherer Instincts for Successful Green Marketing

Few aspects of human nature are as challenging to green marketers as the human bias to value the present over the future. This trait developed over millennia to serve survival needs, and remains deeply entrenched despite its tendency to lead us into behavior that over the long term may be destructive of ourselves and our species. For example, researchers show that asking people to consider the needs of coming generations as well as their own is largely ineffective. And our brains are just not wired to respond to slow-moving, novel dangers: for example, climate change doesn’t get us moving the same way that large animals do.

So where are the leverage points for getting those instincts to work for, rather than against us? One is “life history theory,” which suggests that people who live in a dangerous, unstable environment tend to be more impulsive and discount the future more than those in more stable and predictable environments. The implication: Don’t paint pictures of a scary, unpredictable future if you want people to act responsibly. In the face of uncertainty, people will reach for the short-term payoff (for example hoarding, and increasing resource use) over their long-term interests. This implies that strategies emphasizing a recognizable future are more likely to encourage behavior that takes the needs of the future into account.

Read more:

http://greenresearch.com/2012/10/12/leveraging-hunter-gatherer-instincts-for-successful-green-marketing/