Is your creative telling the full sustainability story?

Public attitudes towards sustainability are changing. Whether it’s increasing recycling, eating less meat or upcycling old furniture, society is making a conscientious decision to decrease their Co2 footprint and live a greener lifestyle.  

But when it comes to big life stage decisions, such as purchasing a new home, are people thinking sustainability first or are those good intentions left at the recycling bin?  

Evidence suggests that sustainability is an influencing factor when considering the purchase of a new home. In fact, according to our latest research produced by Fiona Booth, Research Director at Space & Time, 62% of prospective house buyers surveyed would spend more on a home that was built with sustainable methods and supported a sustainable lifestyle. These percentages start to differ when digging deeper into the types of homebuyers, their life stage, income, and budget. Unsurprisingly, the Sustainability & the Homebuyer report also discovered that 66% of those with budgets of £1million< are more likely to consider or care about a home built with sustainable methods versus just 47% with a budget of between £350k and £500k. 

When it comes to the most important factor in buying a new home, location remains the number one consideration. In fact, when asked in the research survey, only 4% of all respondents classed sustainability as their key motivator when looking to buy a home. But given we know there is an appetite to go greener, what efforts are being made by the industry’s leading brands to capitalise on this intent? 

So, how is the housing sector addressing this shift in consumer mind set and how can it democratise the benefits of sustainable building practices for the good of all new home buyers, no matter their budget? It is the role of marketing teams and their agencies to identify informative and engaging messaging aimed at driving awareness of sustainable features to ensure intent turns into action. 

Creative messaging needs to be at the forefront of your comms plan and align with media strategies to ensure the right audiences are getting the right sustainable messaging at the right time… And in the most engaging way. 

Space & Time’s Creative and Media Alignment auditing product (CMA) can help identify new ways to tap into the key motivators and barriers to ensure creative is telling the right sustainable story, without impacting on the other key USPs concerning the would-be homeowner. By aligning their media strategy with the consumer journey, brands will be able to express key USPs at every stage of the sales funnel, creating relevant and personalised messaging that will resonate with audiences and improve creative and media performance.  

But why now? 

The relationship between awareness and interest is clear: the higher the awareness, the more people are willing to pay for sustainable products but with less than half (41%) of home buyers surveyed by Space & Time, aware of government legislation around owning a sustainable home, education through creative communication will play a key role in the months and years ahead. 

What evidence is there to suggest that changing creative messaging to focus on sustainability or green USPs helps improve campaign performance? Working alongside Space & Time’s Media and Creative divisions, one of the UK’s top housebuilders recently ran a test using programmatic advertising to see what impact, if any, a sustainable creative message had on performance. When run alongside standard ad messaging around location and price, the client saw a 30% uplift in CTR and a 20% decrease in the cost per enquiry over a one-month period for advert creative that mentioned green USPs versus ad creative that did not. Although replicating this result with further testing would provide greater confidence, it seems clear from this initial case study that sustainable messaging can have a positive impact on campaign performance. With 2023 fast approaching and the advertising landscape rapidly changing, cookies crumbling and creative, particularly digital creative playing an even more pivotal role in marketing success, the time for action is now. Book a Creative and Media Alignment Audit (CMA) today, and ensure you are ahead of the game for 2023 and beyond.