MC/BC Advertising Stands For Mindset Change And Behaviour Change Advertising

Science has long provided clear evidence about our deteriorating world and we have run out of time for further procrastination. One thing is clear, we don’t have that much time left to change our relationship with the natural world, 2030 is seen as a tipping point.

MC/BC advertisements on LynnJohnson.News are simply visual statements to show how the big issues we are collectively facing are in reality very personal to each and every one of us. As the UN Secretary General recently stated, “We have a collective choice. Collective action or collective suicide”. 

Mindset Change and Behaviour Change Advertising will be scattered throughout the LynnJohnson.News site to trigger reflection on what needs to change to help rebalance our relationship with nature and mitigate environmental collapse. These adverts will be created to reflect the level of urgency and the scale of change needed.

We hope MC/BC Advertisements will help you make conscious and informed decisions about how you shop, eat, vote, invest, where you work and the entertainment you choose, including where and how you travel.  

MC/BC Advertising has also been created for people who wanted to get clarity on how they create a freedom to act in accordance with their values. This goes beyond raising awareness of current and future issues.

We can’t promise that these messages will be always painless. Sometimes we will certainly point to greed, selfishness, or apathy. There is a belief in many circles that all messages should be positive, don’t upset people, people only learn and change when they feel positive, are having fun and are engaged. This mindset is pervasive, naïve and just plain wrong.

If this were true, then from a media perspective why don’t anti-smoking adverts show happy people playing with their children and saying, “I have much more energy to play with my kids because I don’t smoke” or road safety adverts with drivers saying, “Home again safe and sound because I don’t drink and drive”. Do you think such adverts would reduce the smoking rate or the incidences of drinking and driving?  Do you think such adverts would have worked? No, me neither.

The reality is, some people are motivated into changing their behaviour for positive reasons, but many need to feel discomfort to trigger them into action to do something different. This is used in the media to great effect.

MC/B Advertising challenges the pervasive belief that positive messages have a greater impact (they do with ‘some’ people, but not with ‘all’ people). As a result of this belief, in the education system, we see an ‘every child gets a prize’ mentality. In the workplace many HR departments and HR people want all professional development to be EnterTrainment. They are worried that people may get upset in a learning and development space; particularly if those people are senior managers. Similarly, many managers don’t want to have robust performance management conversations with staff who demonstrate inappropriate behaviours. It is because of the pervasive belief that all massages must be positive that our societies and workplaces have barely nudged the dial on sexism, racism, bullying and much-much more.

So, should those that consume too much of the world resources be given the status of influencers or seen as pariahs? Similarly, is being someone who is a ‘rusted on’ voter for one political party actually helping or hindering progress; is it time to tell politicians you are a floating voter? Can something really be called an investment when it is driving biodiversity loss? Is sustainability without the corresponding transparency just an ideology because without transparency there is no proof? Will change ever happen while progress is still measured as Gross Domestic Product? Can we stop environmental collapse while corporate crime gets nothing more than a slap on the wrist, at best? MC/BC Advertising reflects on these questions and more.        

MC/BC Advertising will also provide a call-to-action. Sometimes these actions will be one small, simple step and on other occasions these calls-to-action will point to a more profound change being needed.  All this is about moving away from a human centric mindset to a nature centric mindset, and balance; from ego to eco.

For parents and grandparents, Mindset Change and Behaviour Change are even more personal. In wealthy countries kids are seeing little evidence of a willingness for their parents to change their lifestyles and purchasing behaviour. Anxiety is on the rise as young adults and children feel that they are being educated for a world that won’t exist.

The message to all of us is that “We not only inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children”.

Returning to the words of the UN Secretary General, “We have a collective choice. Collective action or collective suicide”. 

The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it. In the countdown to 2030, are you ready to make some personal changes? If not you, then who? And, if not now, then when?