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It would be difficult to think of a more climate-threatening, high-carbon product than coal. Yet, for all that, coal doesn’t seem that bad to many people. (Please excuse our artistic licence since it looks to be wood-fire, rather than coal-fire, in the picture.)

The main message of the advert is:

Coal turns houses into homes; can your low carbon product do that?

This headline addresses what, we feel, is the key implication of our analysis. Whilst very few houses now use coal directly for heat – it is still used in power generation, which relies on public acceptability (particularly in the USA). It also demonstrates what kind of consumer connection can be achieved with heating products. (Think what a good job Aga has done over the years – my Mum loves them!) An important challenge for new, low carbon, domestic heating products is to try and create a branding connection with consumers; building on the nice emotional feelings which users can get.

Consider how coal is already used in advertising …

and in the branding of a new restaurant chain …

So, as part of our Environmental Choices monitor (wave 1), we wanted to measure the associations that people had with ‘coal’ (with an open-ended question), and the emotions these associations evoked (from a structured list of both positive and negative emotions).

As we described the research, within the advert:

The fact is, a lot of people feel good about coal. Our research shows that for many people, it reminds them of cosy fireplaces, warmth and/or childhood.

The results we described in the advert only refers to the English sample. It is worth mentioning that the results are somewhat different for people from Canada, England and the USA. As we might expect, our cultural heritage makes a big difference in how we think of coal.

In the research we presented the word ‘coal’ using a 2-second tachistoscopic test. Here are the main categories of association that English people have about coal:

We then wrote:

There is even dissonance amongst those who have negative associations about coal: up to a quarter still find it evokes positive feelings of nostalgia.

Here is the data, showing first-mentioned associations (respondents were allowed to make upto 3 associations) to support this:

Only a small proportion specifically associate coal with climate change – but at least people in this group are much more likely to believe that coal should be replaced as a power source.

We can see that in all countries we surveyed, especially in Canada and the USA, those who associate ‘coal’ with ‘climate change / fossil fuels’, are more likely to believe that ‘Every effort should be made to avoid more coal-fired power stations being built’.

We then wrote:

Associations and feelings are intrinsic to purchasing decisions; how can you get people to feel better about their home being low carbon?

To support this last paragraph, here is some further reading:

About associations and emotions in advertising effectiveness – (p28/29) Selling Sustainability (2008), NESTA

About how all associations have an emotional component – (p25) The First Idea (2004), Greenspan & Shanker

About ‘The Affect Heuristic’ which describes how ‘affect-laden imagery was highly predictive of perceived risk from nuclear power and support for (or opposition to) that technology’ – (pxxxii) The Perception of Risk (2000), Slovic

About tachitoscopic research – (p.366) The Mental World of Brands (2001), Franzen & Bouwman

A very readable book about this whole area – How We Decide (2009), Jonah Lehrer

Whilst we have had no direct contact with the market research agency Brainjuicer, and the responsibility for the questions and analysis are totally with us, I feel it only fair to say that it was some of their work which gave us the idea of how to ask the coal question, and how to represent the data.

You can read our press release, or visit the ‘Power Generation‘ part of the Haddock Research website, for more information.

Please use info@haddock-research.com if you would like to discuss any of our analysis.