[canvascritic]

Early in my career, essentially a lifetime ago, we were launching a new line of eco-friendly kitchenware. My team was divided on two messaging approaches. One camp believed in the emotional appeal: serene images of pristine forests, juxtaposed with families using the product, essentially proposing that using our product was akin to saving the environment. The tagline was something pithy to the effect of "embrace nature, one meal at a time."

The other approach was more socio-culturally driven. In particular, it focused on communities that had traditions rooted in nature conservation. the advertisements showcased local figures, elders if you will, using our kitchenware while sharing age-old wisdom about respecting the environment. the tagline was (something like) "honoring traditions, preserving tomorrow."

We ran both campaigns in a split test across multiple regions. to our surprise, the socio-cultural campaign outperformed the emotional one by a substantial margin, especially in regions with strong cultural ties to nature, like certain areas in the Pacific Northwest and parts of New England. Follow-up interviews revealed that people felt a deep, personal connection to the community-focused ads. They felt that the product wasn't just another item but a bridge to their roots.

All that said, even with that and other similar experiences over the course of my career, I'm bearish about completely sidelining the more automatic responses ingrained in us. While cultural imprinting and rational processes play significant roles in decision-making, it's probably a mistake to entirely dismiss our primal instincts and inherent biases. They've evolved over millennia and shape much of our intuitive reactions, long before conscious thought even enters the equation.

[bboygravity]

I'm not surprised by that, but for a slightly different reasoning: the "buy this product now to be good to nature" feels extremely fake, a bit dishonest and perhaps most importantly: unoriginal (every company seems to be pulling the "buy this to save nature/climate" kind of card).

The only product/consumption that could be saving nature is no product/consumption. To keep using your old kitchen stuff feels obviously better to nature than trashing it and buying more new stuff. No matter how "nature like" the new product tries to promote itself. Maybe this notion is obvious to most people? Maybe not...

The link to the past/elder/ancestors definitely feels less fake/bs to me.

[bigger_inside]

Is this more than just pattern recognition? I mean, what you're saying is that we're wising up to the fact that "buy this for nature/sustainability/etc" is just another way capitalism gobbles up and resells criticisms against it. Capitalism is destroying the planet? Well, just make more plastic stuff and slap a "sustainable" label on it, we'll sell the good conscience AND the plastic stuff all in one.

The past/elder angle is equally fake, it just sells traditionalism, another anti-capitalist current, as a product, only that.. it's not as played-out yet?

[hgomersall]

But I was very much of the understanding that cultural pressures are among the strongest influences there are. You don't exert cultural pressure by showing pictures of lakes, you exert cultural pressure by having people of a shared culture exerting pressure.

[_glass]

Also there are some classical studies in advertising, which show that humans are much more effective than plants, and landscapes.