Sell the beach

Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change thinks we approach activism wrong.

“Sell the beach”. As a way to kick off our blog, this seemed a pretty perfect story. Because it pretty much sums up in three words our whole philosophy at Social Storylab.

It comes from a comment by Steven Guilbeault when he was recently a guest on The New York Times’ First Person podcast. Guilbeault is a former extreme climate activist who became Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change. And over that time, his thinking has evolved about how to engage the public about the importance of acting on climate change:

 “…a friend told me some time ago — he said, Steven, you guys need to learn to sell the beach.

“And what he meant by that is, you look at an advertisement from travel agencies and airlines, and they sell you those packages to go to the beach. But when people buy the beach, they don’t think about the security checks at airports and the long lineups and your luggage ended up in Europe when you’re going to Cancun. No. They sell the beach, and that’s what people buy.”

Guilbeault was talking specifically about climate activism, but it applies just as much to motivating support for any social cause.

Change is already scary for most people. Because it involves the unknown. And the unknown brings the risk of losing something which, if you think about it, is at the root of all our fears. So you already have your work cut out for you if you’re asking people to change their life in any way for your cause. Not because their bad people, just because they’re human.

So if you want to motivate people to act, you need to give them a reason to believe that the future you’re offering is a good one. And that starts with showing them the better destination you’re taking them too, rather than effort to get there.

Don’t lead your story with the bad news. Lead with the beach.