Here’s the third excerpt from Clean Ocean Action’s “Giving Ocean” film that I like so much. In this bit, the group shows the viewer what they can do, makes them feel like they can make a difference, and assures them that if they try, they’ll be working together with a lot of other people instead of toiling in isolation. Even though they don’t use these exact words, they push all these emotional buttons.

And for what it’s worth, everybody who turns out for a beach cleanup is making an emotional investment in a healthy ocean and Clean Ocean Action’s success.

Here’s a second excerpt from Clean Ocean Action’s membership recruitment video, The Giving Ocean. It’s perhaps the most motivating description of polluted runoff that I have ever seen. The shot of the woman tossing her cigarette out the car window is classic. Viewers will get mad about that, and they’ll stay mad as they hear about things you really care about: Sediment and runoff from streets and parking lots.

Compare this clear, explicit, and compelling piece to the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper’s web video, Mud in the Run, on the same subject.

Very deft, Clean Ocean Action.

“Whipping and abuse are like laudanum: you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline.”
— Harriet Beecher Stowe

The author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin wasn’t writing about nature protection and pollution control experts — but she might as well have been. We pump out so much bad news, that we have to continuously crank up the alarm level to get the attention of our ever-more desensitized fellow citizens. Now there’s plenty of bad news that we have to deal with, but it is simply a lack of communications savvy that causes us to try so often to shock citizens into action with bad news, and so seldom to provide direction on what they can do, reassure them that others are doing their part, and encourage them that together we can make a difference.

If you want evidence of the consequences of this bad habit of ours, check out the latest episode of Popular Science, which rates marine biologist as the second worst career in science. Why? Too depressing.

I believe the editors have got that flat wrong. I find my career in conservation to be very rewarding — and I have to pay for my own scuba diving. But we’ve only got ourselves to blame for the editors’ mistake. We’ve pumped out so much bad news in an effort to rouse people to action that we have ended up demoralizing and disempowering some people who would otherwise be sympathetic to us.

Hat tip to Mark at Blogfish for first noticing and blogging about the Popular Science article.

New Jersey’s Clean Ocean Action has posted their membership recruitment video on their website, and some parts of the script are just right on. In this 40 second excerpt, the group connects viewers’ childhood memories to their concern for future generations in a vivid and convincing manner. Here’s a killer line:

“Now it’s your turn to take your family to the same places. Will a healthy ocean be there for them to enjoy?”

This is great, because it touches on the past and spins it around into a question about the future. And the future is what people care about when contemplating nature protection and pollution control. The video is quite effective, too:

I’ll deconstruct a few more passages of this video in the weeks to come.