City Marketing Campaigns Can Change Behavior. Here’s How.

January 4, 2018 | Cities, Climate Innovation Laboratory Cities, Consumption Reduction, Reports, Urban Transformation
by Pete Plastrik

It's no secret that cities implementing sustainability efforts often need their residents and businesses to change their behaviors--and this can be very hard to do. A few years ago we noticed that New York, Boston, Washington, and a few other cities had put together a number of sophisticated marketing campaigns aimed at changing behaviors, so we suggested that someone--Roya Kazemi, then in NYC government--put together a guidebook for other cities.

Now, with a grant from the Urban Sustainability Directors Network and contributions from Baltimore, Flagstaff, Fort Collins, San Jose, Tacoma, and Washington D.C., USDN has released "Marketing for Action: A Guide to Marketing Fundamentals for Urban Sustainability Offices."

"Marketing for Action" lays out the marketing fundamentals for  creating and shaping strong environmental behavior-change campaigns using best practices in marketing. It offers a practical how-to, with or without big budgets, for cultivating voluntary action by city residents. It provides real-world examples from U.S. cities leading this practice.

Roya, who headed GreeNYC, the marketing arm of PlaNYC, for five years,has started her own business, Vision Flourish, to work with cities and NGOs to develop successful behavior change strategies.

(Access to USDN's set of innovation projects)