🌐 Breakthrough Climate Tech Marketing: Rising Above a Sea of Same

Entrepreneurs building climate tech companies are convinced their solutions are vital to the world's future. They believe in their products so deeply that they feel anyone who hears about them will instantly believe in them, too. In their minds, investors and customers should immediately back them or buy their products to save the planet before it’s too late.

I know. I’ve been a climate entrepreneur for twenty years. I’ve operated under this self-delusion on several occasions. 

Some investors argue startup founders must operate in a state of delusion because it’s the only mindset that can overcome the overwhelming forces arrayed against their success. 

There is an element of truth in that perspective. However, the reality is that the world doesn’t just bend to any entrepreneur’s will. Even the best climate tech startups must build great products and excel at communicating them.

Whether a startup offers electric robot lawnmowers (see Greener, ep. 6), state-of-the-art geothermal heat pumps (see Dandelion, ep. 14), novel sewer heat recovery systems (see Sharc, ep. 2), or building materials made from grass instead of trees, like Plantd, the company I co-founded and ran as CEO before Supercool, climate tech startups must master marketing communications.

Here’s why:

1. Time is always against climate tech startups. Climate companies frequently require large rounds of funding to reach commercial scale. They are constantly under-resourced and must race to hit the next milestone before the cash runs out. 

2. Climate tech products are unfamiliar. If truly world-changing, climate technologies are far different from the conventional status quo products they aim to replace. Their value isn’t always obvious.

To succeed, climate tech companies must quickly and consistently:

1. Generate brand awareness

2. Educate the market about product features and benefits

3. Build credibility in the product and the overall company

4. Create trust that the switching costs are worth the risk of going with an unproven option

If that sounds hard, it is. 

But climate tech startups have an ace up their sleeves: a mission to solve the greatest challenge confronting all humanity: climate change.

Communicated effectively, mission and vision—together with all the other brand attributes—can pierce through risk-averse corporate cultures and entrenched business practices to gain decision-makers' attention and get deals done.

Not all climate tech startups act this way; many don't prioritize marketing communications. Yet, those who are bold and communicate well tend to win or at least shift the odds further in their favor.

Bloxspring, a "B2B marketing agency for visionary brands radically changing the future of our buildings, cities, and planet," is betting on bold. Adam Malik started Bloxspring in 2020 after a career in the marketing and advertising industry. Though colleagues advised him against launching an agency targeting construction industries known for resisting change, Adam and his co-founder, PJ Appleton, saw an opportunity.

They also saw that concerns about climate would increasingly compel large companies to seek innovative climate tech solutions. So they set out to help those young companies get noticed and grow, to play bigger and stand out.

Today, Bloxspring counts 36 companies across 15 countries as clients. Headquartered in the UK, Adam’s team also works with clients on both sides of the Atlantic, which affords him a unique lens into how these markets are developing, their similarities and differences, and why now is the moment for bold marketing in climate tech.

Take me to the podcast:

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Number of the week: 39,634

That’s the number of comments posted on YouTube about Jaguar’s new 30-second electric vehicle commercial in the past 12 days. The ad has sparked emotions ranging from curiosity to outrage, with many stating that Jaguar has lost its marketing way.

One poignant commenter, imagining the C-suite conversation at Jaguar HQ, wrote:

“Are you sure this will help us sell more cars?”

“Cars?”

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Quote of the week:

“Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking it’s time for some decarbonization. They’ve got other problems. So, it’s a product that requires deeper insight to be able to get people engaged. But it’s fulfilling because it works. Marketing works for everything, right? We’re moving people. We’ve increased the size of the suburban women population who are strong supporters of climate action by 25%. It’s working.”

- John Marshall, Founder & CEO of the Potential Energy Coalition, a marketing organization addressing the climate challenge. Marshall’s team co-created the Science Moms campaign, a group of non-partisan client scientists who are also mothers, to combat climate misinformation and build support for action.

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Related Stories

Effective Climate Communication Focuses on Solutions, Says UN

The United Nations is the leading global convener of climate scientists through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and climate negotiators through the UN Conference of the Parties (COP). Rarely does it heed the advice of its own Global Communication Department, which says:

 “Explaining the scale of the climate crisis is important, but it can seem overwhelming, leading people to lose interest and tune out…A good way around disillusionment and “crisis fatigue” is to convey a hopeful message focused on the solutions, helping people feel empowered and motivated to engage.”

We agree.

Corporate Communicators Are Advised To Stop Saying “ESG”

Not stop doing Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), just stop saying it. That’s the advice from communications consultancy Maslansky and Partners in a research report titled “The Language of ESG is Killing ESG.” Instead, use language with more favorable associations like “Responsible Business.”

3 Climate Solutions Ads, 3 Different Approaches

Jaguar’s approach to climate marketing is to blow up its brand foundation and heritage in exchange for something new. We wish them luck (we’re also curious to see how it turns out). Here’s how three other brands approach brand content and ads.

A. Plantd: This one is personal because I tasked our marketing team with creating a social media video of a 24 Hour Moisture Competition.

Here’s the creative brief:

Objective—Product feature highlight: When building materials get wet, they lose structural integrity. Plantd structural wall panels are more moisture resistant than competitor products.

Insight—Construction workers drink a lot of Mountain Dew.

Brand Positioning—Plantd is the clever counterweight to business-as-usual common to residential construction.

B. General Motors: The company turned to Will Ferrell to bring humor to the EV conversation, arousing consumer interest in the announcement that its lineup of electric vehicles was on the way. Will and company weren’t going to let Norway, the #1 country in the world for EV adoption, hold that title for long.

C. Volvo: The company recently posted a three-minute, 25-second commercial on TikTok. It rushed cinematically through shots foreshadowing a couple’s soon-to-be daughter’s life, tugged on all the emotional heartstrings, and played on — in a rather unexpected way — what Volvo’s cars are most famous for: safety. The unspoken message: though we’re moving into an EV future, we will continue to put the safety of your most cherished loved ones first.

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New Feature: Ask This Week’s Featured Podcast Guest A Question

On Monday, December 2nd, I am interviewing Ritu Narayan, founder & CEO of Zum. 

Zum works with school districts across the country to modernize student transportation to make it safe, sustainable, and accessible for all. Earlier this year, the company implemented the nation's first 100% EV school bus fleet in Oakland and its Vehicle-2-Grid technology that uses the buses' batteries to provide power to the energy grid during peak demand hours.

In 2024, The Financial Times ranked Zum on its list of “The Americas” Fastest Growing Companies for the second year in a row.

If you have a question you’d like me to ask Ritu, email me at josh@getsupercool by Monday morning at 10am ET.

The episode will air on Wednesday, December 4th.

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