Social Video Best Practices: Wasting Water Is Weird

comScore reports that Americans are watching 43% more online video content than a year ago. Businesses that use video ads are winning higher video views for their advertising dollar investment compared to display ads. Video is providing to be an effective engagement path for companies seeking to connect with Transformational Consumers and their $300 billion of annual buying power. These consumers are questioning what they buy and who they buy from. Now emerging are pioneering best practices for creating internet social videos that motivate consumers to change their behavior. Best practices example: Here is an example of one of the best (and funniest) such videos called Wasting Water Is Weird that was created by Shelton Group for Kohler and Lowes. http://youtu.be/GIMdUbiCMhQ 3 keys to using video to enable sustainable consumer behavior In the following exclusive video interview with Suzanne Shelton CEO of Shelton Group, conducted at Sustainable Brands 2012, Shelton outlines three key insights on how to craft a video for online consumption will engage a consumer to change their behavior: 1. You can't educate them into change Sustainability advocates often get trapped believing that if people just knew what to do they would do it. Wrong. People know they need to recycle, conserve water and use less energy. Educating them on what they know will not motivate them to adopt a sustainable action. 2. You can't trick or scare them to change If extreme storms and drought cannot motivate consumers to change then how will your video ad scare them enough to change? While we are learning the hard way through climate change that you shouldn’t fool with Mother Nature this also rings true for not trying to fool your customer. You are at great risk from a consumer backlash if you broadcast a video ad campaign profiling the crisis in polar bear habituate even though your company and product really is not creating a telling solution. 3. “Wake them up!” What does work, as evidenced by Wasting Water Is Weird, is a short, concise and funny video with a visual description of the desired consumer behavior change. http://youtu.be/4TyaO6leAhE Bill Roth is the Founder of Earth 2017. His book The Secret Green Sauce profiles the best practices of businesses making money going green. Earth2017TV is the leading library of video interviews with business pioneers making money using smarter, healthier and greener best practices.