Digital engagement with 18-25 year-old pioneers: a ... · Focus groups: climate policy • Gvt. policies incompatible, contradictory, confusing • Knowledge & awareness of individual

Digital engagement with 18-25 year-old

pioneers: a presentation for Carbon Brief

13 August 2014

Introduction: what are we doing?

• Three-month social media pilot, engaging with 18-25 year-old

pioneers

• Ambition to run at least to May 2015

• New stand-alone youth brand and Twitter handle

• Community management to curate and create content

• Building understanding and awareness, encouraging greater

engagement

• Partnering with the National Union of Students to increase reach

Why now?

- Could see a political shift re: Climate Change Act / UK

government commitment to climate policy

- Young adults particularly disengaged and unlikely to vote

- Opportunity to re-claim as an election issue

- Opportunity to re-connect with policy-makers, increase ambition

and put on the agenda

Momentum: opportunity presented by the UK General Election May

2015

Why 18-25 pioneers?

- Will be affected by policies (and climate impacts) in their lifetimes

- Active interest in issue and propensity to engage

- Knowledge gaps, but appetite to learn

- Actively seeking solutions, ideas, knowledge

- Disengagement with political process – anger not apathy - but

large voting potential

- An opportunity to reclaim as an election issue

- Fit within the Institute’s positioning and remit

18-25 pioneers

• Confident

• Thirst for knowledge

• Innovation

• Playing with ideas

• Individuality

• Risk-takers

• People focused

• Love making new connections

• What you see is what you get

• See the unknown as fun

• Embrace complexity

• Believe in justice and equality

• Global in identity – not just

based on being British

Communicating with pioneers:

• Messengers: interesting or authentic rather than famous per se

– Musicians/poets/scientists/writers

– Or people known for protecting nature or upholding justice

• Not likely to be reached through big corporate brands – tend to

favour independents and anti-chain philosophy

• Communicate in ways that involve ideas, innovation, self-choice

or ethics

• Attracted to issues and contested ideas – and are hungry for

ideas & knowledge

• Like experimenting and exploring ideas, like trying things for

themselves

Focus groups: perceptions of climate

change

• Already find it “terrifying” and

“overwhelming”

• See as a self-evident fact

• A sense that “something must be done”

• Unclear on how the UK may be affected

• Want more personal relevance – talking

about symptoms of climate change

• Unclear on what the government is doing

or what needs to be done

“They should be telling us

about the impacts now!”

Focus groups: climate policy

• Gvt. policies incompatible, contradictory,

confusing

• Knowledge & awareness of individual renewables

picked up through the press

• Wind energy, fracking, support for coal

• Knowledge of policy options pursued by

government is low

• Few had heard of (or could explain) Climate

Change Act, Carbon Budgets

• Only 1 group member could explain 2 degrees

“There’s no real serious

intent, it’s not reaching

the urgency of where it

needs to be.”

“I’m tired of waiting

for these powers that

be to change

themselves”.

“I know they’re trying to

do stuff on carbon

emissions, but I

couldn’t tell you what”.

Key focus group findings

• Knowledge of UK climate policy is limited – but appetite to learn

• Low trust in politicians and disengagement with General Election

• Don’t want to support, want to challenge

– Want the ammunition & know-how to do this

• Want to see relevance to their lives and the UK

• Want to focus on solutions not science or scepticism– what can

be done

What do we want to do?

• To empower 18-25 year-old pioneers to participate in the public

debate about climate change

• To equip them with an understanding of how climate change

could impact the UK

• To build understanding of the policy solutions to prevent the

worst impacts and adapt to change

• Ultimately to promote implementation of (and commitment to)

the CC Act

• Encourage sharing with peers, conversations, further

exploration plus direct engagement (e.g. with MPs)

Campaign themes

• Risks of climate change for the UK

• Potential impacts of climate change for the UK (flooding,

heatwaves etc)

• Solutions (e.g. energy mix, cutting emissions etc) and scale of

action needed

• What UK government is already doing re: climate policy (what’s

in place) – AND what needs to be done

• Increasing awareness of the CC Act and Carbon Budgets

• Asking to challenge MPs re: future climate commitments

Brand recap: what our brand does do:

• Can comment on party policies in relation to climate change

• Encourages followers to engage with political candidates on

climate change issues

• Solutions-orientated, forward thinking, collaborative engagement

• Key moments, today’s topical issues

• Explaining the issues

• Making it relatable, surprising info, education

• Witty, not insulting (considered criticism)

Brand recap: what our brand doesn’t do:

• Not the platform for debate

• Does not advocate individual behaviour change

• Political campaigning – does not support one political

party

• Doesn’t promote GRI’s research for sake of it

• Does not engage in personal attacks

• Not used to promote the GRI brand or academic events

• Doesn’t seek a goal at any cost

• Not politically naive

Twitter brand values

• What we’ve agree by way of brief:

• Brand values: modern, positive,

active, approachable, tangible, trendy,

witty, human scale

• But not: alarmist, cynicism,

revolutionary, naively optimistic,

cliché (polar bears, forests, icebergs

etc.), bland nature pictures, generic

stock photo feel, fear, overtly

“London”

Name options going into testing:

Future Hackers @FutureHackers

• Makes it clear we’re forward thinking; hacker (in the programmer

world) implies innovation, cleverness and playfulness. Solution-

focused, looking to the future.

Doom Hackers @DoomHackers

• Hacker implies innovation, slightly subversive– undoing the

doom, changing the narrative, moving forward.

• Control New @ControlNew

• Starting over, a new story, connotations to technology

Avatar design brief: design directions

BOLD. STRONG.

Copy or icon based

• Graffiti, tagging, hand-drawn:

– Self-expression, youth and a DIY mentality

– Subtle connotations of vandalism

– Avoiding fragile, gentle or sketchy designs

• Clean/modern:

• Reflecting a contemporary, accessible aesthetic

– Exploring a clean, vector type design

– Clearly displays the twitter handle communicating positivity,

confidence, youthfulness

Collaboration & next steps

• Audience focus groups 13/08/14 to inform final brand

• Seeking partners for the following:

– Content

– accessible, explanatory articles written with appropriate tone

of voice

– short animations/infographics explaining concepts

– Time

– Community Management assistance – e.g. tweeting, building

followers, seeding content, new content ideas (1 hr/day)

– Shared resource options (e.g. social media intern)

– Shared expert training (with Public Zone)