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Your customers should understand sustainable refrigeration just enough to care

by on 25 July 2015in Blog

First published in Fresh Thinking July 2015

The difference between mediocre communication and compelling communication lies in your message’s credibility, appeal, relevance, and distinctiveness. However, just like in refrigeration, when you fail to look at the whole picture, you wind up changing certain elements only to bring others out of whack. You lower your head pressure to save energy, but in doing so you lose heat reclaim capacity, which uses more energy, which brings you right back to square one. Similarly, in communication, overdoing it on one element, like distinctiveness, makes it harder to achieve another element, like credibility. In other words you can’t look at the pieces in isolation.

In the first three installments in this series, I addressed the challenges involved in communicating with supermarket customers about refrigeration and the environment, and I offered some simple DOs and DON’Ts for success. This article covers the factors that make some messages more compelling than others and gives some examples from the refrigeration world that can help to strengthen your communication.

I feel I have to insert a codicil here about some of the made-up marketing terms I am going to use, like believability (the extent to which people find your message to be credible) and likeability (the extent to which your message makes your brand or company more appealing to customers). Before you are tempted to make fun of me, I ask you to ponder the words “product shrinkage.” It too is a strange phrase that makes it easier to discuss a wordy concept, develop strategies to prevent it, and then measure our success. It means something very different to regular people. If you don’t make fun of me when I use the word likability, I (probably) won’t make fun of you when you talk about shrinkage.

Perhaps the most critical factor when communicating about sustainability is believability. This is where the vast majority of claims about sustainability fail. Believability doesn’t just encompass the concept of a truthful message; it also encompasses the idea of understandability and the concept of “buy in” or acceptance of your message.

There are so many “green” claims out there from every type of company that people have become cynical and distrustful of tales of environmental good deeds. We expect companies to say good things about themselves, because they are trying to sell you something.

There is a solution that cuts to the chase of this problem: Let someone else do the talking for you. The organization lauding your environmental good deeds should be seen as the ultimate independent expert in environmental issues, with no reason to exaggerate claims. In other words, it needs to be clear that the organization has no financial stake in your business. The organization must be trusted to tell the truth about your record and performance on the issues. Can you think of an organization that meets all of these criteria? That’s right: the EPA, specifically GreenChill.

The distinctiveness of your message is what grabs attention and makes an impression — it should make them say, “Wow, that’s really special.” The most common method used to make a message seem distinctive is to use words like innovative, new and improved, ultra, or version 2.0. Not only are these terms overused, they also don’t tell your consumers anything that is really useful. Just because something is innovative doesn’t mean it is better. Version 2.0 is not inherently better than the first version.

Counterintuitively, the lack of information and communication about refrigerants may actually make your job easier. Because most customers haven’t heard a lot about the subject, a message about refrigerants is going to make you stand out. And it’s fairly easy to impress people with environmental progress in this field. A good refrigeration system can have the same positive effect on climate as if the store shut off its power for the entire year. You don’t hear a claim like that everyday.

Awards are great for distinctiveness, as long as the award is from a respected and well-known organization and the award is real, important, and impressive. For instance, an environmental award from the EPA for the best refrigeration system in the nation has distinctiveness built right into it. By definition, you are the only one who can make that claim. This is another area where the GreenChill Store Certification Program and the GreenChill Partnership can be very helpful.

Awards also help with the likeability factor. But let’s face it; you don’t really have to try that hard to make sure that your environmental message increases your appeal to customers. The only way a message about environmental progress could hurt your appeal is if it inadvertently leads people to believe that it’s going to make prices go up. You’d think that this is easily avoided by telling people that your environmental achievement also saves money, but in my experience, stores never want to claim that because they imagine all their customers asking them when they are going to lower their prices.

The last factor that is crucial to a compelling message is relevance. This is a tough one because supermarket customers don’t think much about refrigeration, and supermarkets are usually happy about that. Supermarkets want customers to focus on the products they are selling. But the bottom line is that people want to do business with companies that share their values. They want to feel good about where they shop, and it makes them feel good to know that their grocery store is addressing climate change, the most pressing environmental issue of our time.

It is essential that all communication with customers be compelling. The purpose of a supermarket is to sell groceries for a profit. Everything a supermarket does needs to further that goal, including communication. Communication with customers is only worthwhile if it helps persuade supermarket customers that they should shop at your store, rather than someone else’s. You are trying to affect customers’ decisions, so your message better be compelling. If your communication is not compelling, you are wasting your money. It’s that simple. In fact, that’s probably the only thing that is really simple about compelling communication.

Read Part 1
Read Part 2
Read Part 3

 

Sustainable Refrigeration: Tips for simplifying a complex topic

by on 15 July 2015in Blog

First published in Fresh Thinking July 2015

In Parts I and II of the series on sustainability and refrigerants, I listed some of the reasons why it can be difficult to communicate with grocery shoppers about sustainable refrigeration. This third installment provides tactics for clear, simple, and compelling communication — as well as tips to avoid common mistakes.

First, I need to address readers who expect a fill-in-the blank communication template that works for everyone and every topic. Stop reading now. You are going to be disappointed. The truth of the matter is, there is no universal formula for communication. If there were, and I knew it, I’d sell it for a lot of money, buy my own island, and leave the whole refrigeration world far behind. You’d never see me again.

I’m still here. Enough said.

While I can’t give you a formula, I can offer suggestions for making things easier and tips on what to avoid that are based on my own trial and error. And believe me, I’ve tried, and erred, and tried again. Slowly but surely, I learned what works with supermarket customers and what doesn’t.

Let’s start with a discussion of common mistakes that I see over and over again, because it’s always easier to hone in on what not to do.

Keep it simple

One of the most common communication mistakes I see over and over again in our industry is that we make our messages too complicated. Complexity is the enemy of successful communication. Complexity means that your audience has to work to understand you, believe you, and be persuaded by you. There are few people who have nothing better to do with their time than work to understand what you are trying to tell them.

Avoid words that the vast majority of your audience (the general public) does not understand. That sounds obvious, right? Well, if your press release or speech to grocery shoppers uses words or phrases like ozone-depleting substances, metric tons of CO2 equivalent, transcritical, refrigerant emissions, HFCs, HCFCs, R-22 (or the combination of the letter R and any other number), carbon footprint, cascade, distributed, rack, compressor (or the name of any other component), advanced technology, TEWI, or charge size, hit delete and start over.

Ask yourself after each sentence whether there is a simpler way to express your thought. This can increase your word count, but what good is a short press release if it is off putting? Instead of refrigerant charge, use the term “the amount of refrigerant used.” Instead of emissions, use the word “leak.” Instead of ozone-depleting substances, use the phrase “chemicals that harm our ozone layer.”

One exception…

If your press release is meant for the trade media, then you are not targeting regular grocery shoppers. That doesn’t mean it is okay to use complex messages, but it does mean that your audience will be familiar with some of the before-mentioned words and phrases.

Ditch the jargon

Don’t use jargon, especially jargon about sustainability. For instance, don’t even use the word sustainability. Jargon about sustainability makes you sound like the type of person who spends too much time talking about sustainability and not enough time doing something to achieve it. Jargon in general makes you sound pretentious. Do you like listening to pretentious people? Does anyone?

Though this isn’t an absolute no-no, I would avoid getting into details about climate change, global warming, and ozone depletion. Why? Because most people who use those words don’t really understand what they mean. Try the following exercise on your own: explain global warming. Don’t just think about it for two seconds and reassure yourself that you could do it; get out a piece of paper. Try to write a paragraph explaining it, or use your cell phone to record yourself while you explain it.

The reason I suggest you try this on your own is that you’ll likely be embarrassed if you try it in front of others. We all think we know a lot about refrigerants and the environment, right? There is a good chance that every single one of you has referred to global warming. Most regular shoppers haven’t spent the amount of time on this issue that we all have. They don’t have a reason or desire to understand our issues at our level. So if we don’t really know what we are talking about, why would we expect shoppers to understand what we are talking about?

Stay “on message”

The good news is that shoppers don’t have to understand the complexities of global warming, climate change, and ozone layer depletion to understand that you are doing something good for the environment. And in the end, isn’t that all you want to get across: that your store or your company did something really good for the environment? If you pinpointed the one message that a store wants shoppers to understand after reading a press release or listening to your speech, wouldn’t you be happy if they walked away with that idea embedded in their brains?

Of course, every person and every entity in existence nowadays is claiming to do something good for the environment. So how do you separate yourself from them? By doing it better than everyone else does. I get frustrated when I hear people say that you shouldn’t communicate about the good things your store is doing for the environment because everyone else is making the same claims. Imagine if every company that sells laundry detergent in your store stopped saying that it gets your wash clean, because their competitors also claimed to get wash clean. Those laundry detergent companies don’t say, “oh well, that’s that.” They work harder, and they do it better than the competition.

Very simply stated, a compelling message consists of three parts:

  • Some kind of insight that tells the reader or listener why he or she should pay attention to you
  • A benefit, i.e. the answer to the question “what’s in it for me?”
  • Some kind of proof or reason the listener or reader should believe you

What turns a good message into a compelling message is the subject of part IV of this series on communicating with customers about sustainability and refrigeration. Yes, that’s right, I’ve added a fourth installment to what was originally a three-part series. It will go into the specifics of making your message relevant, believable, appealing, and distinctive. Until next time!

Read Part 1
Read Part 2

Just Because It’s Difficult Doesn’t Mean We Shouldn’t Try

by on 26 June 2015in Blog

First published in Fresh Thinking June 2015

This is the second article in a three-part series on sustainability and refrigerants.

In part I of my series on communicating about sustainability in refrigeration with consumers, I discussed why it is difficult to make refrigeration relevant to stores’ consumers. Notice I said difficult – not impossible. Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be a challenge. And if there is anything we all love in this industry, it’s a challenge.

I received my first lesson in the relevance of supermarket refrigeration to consumers at my very first GreenChill store certification event. I was giving out a gold-level award to a glycol secondary loop store. I was proud. The supermarket company was proud. The store employees were proud. The equipment manufacturer was proud. The people standing in the parking lot listening to the speeches were…bored out of their minds. They just wanted to get into the store to buy their milk.

I was lucky that the equipment manufacturer representative gave his speech before I gave mine. He spoke about all the things that I found fascinating in my new career: reduced charge sizes, low leak rates, glycol on the sales floor instead of thousands of pounds of refrigerant, and easy identification of leaks in the machine room. Babies in carts cried. Mothers became irritated and said, “They’ll be done soon. Knock it off.”

Having had a successful first career in marketing strategy, I used my significant and hard-earned marketing expertise to look around and realize, “This is going to be a lot harder than selling deodorant to people who smell.”

I did my best to change my speech on the fly and spoke about the ozone layer and how important it was that this store had invested in technology that was good for the environment. A few people clapped, probably because I was so overly excited and enthusiastic that they felt sorry for me. The fact that I used every inch of my vocal cords to speak over the traffic on the highway next to us won me an A for effort, I’m sure.

As I drove home I pondered whether there was a way to make consumers care about the harm that refrigerants cause to the environment, and even if there was a way, was it worth the effort?

Though I didn’t convince myself during that trip that the answer to both of those questions was “yes,” I did eventually recognize that, not only was it worth it, it was vitally important that we get this right as an industry.

I have come full circle and now think that we are actually lucky to have sustainable refrigeration as a communication topic. Many other environmental issues require consumers to change their behavior. How many times do you realize at the supermarket cash register that you forgot all your cloth bags in the car again? Or the solution to the problem costs the consumer extra money. How much thought do you put into whether you really want to pay extra for the paper towels that are made from sustainable forests? Or the issue is just downright uncomfortable to speak about in public. Can you imagine trying to talk to consumers about solid waste? If there was ever an environmental issue with an image problem, it’s got to be solid waste. Or the environmental issue has had its heyday and nobody cares anymore. Does anyone ask their car dealer anymore if a new car has a catalytic converter?

Our issue doesn’t require shoppers to change their behavior. It doesn’t cost them extra money, and they get to feel good about doing something about what is touted as the most important environmental issue of today: climate change. Better yet, we actually have solutions to prevent the harmful effects of refrigerants on the environment. This is an issue we can DO something about, as opposed to standing around and talking about it.

So the answer to the question of whether we should communicate with consumers about sustainable refrigeration is a resounding affirmative. The answer to the question of whether we should communicate the same way as we do about plastic bags and sustainable seafood is a hearty no, but that’s the topic of part III of the series.

Given these facts, and given the enormous progress that many supermarket companies have made in reducing the environmental impact of their refrigeration systems, it’s logical to ask why more companies aren’t communicating with their customers about refrigeration.

Read part 1

Read part 3

Natural Refrigeration is a Challenging Sustainability Issue for Consumers

by on 16 June 2015in Blog

First published in Fresh Thinking June 2015

This is the first article in a three-part series on sustainability and refrigerants.

In this day and age, most supermarket companies recognize that their customers care about the environment and their communities. Customers want to spend their money at businesses that share those values. They want to feel good about where they shop, so they want to know that their grocery store is helping to make their community a better place.

Given these facts, and given the enormous progress that many supermarket companies have made in reducing the environmental impact of their refrigeration systems, it’s logical to ask why more companies aren’t communicating with their customers about refrigeration.

Why do supermarkets communicate about sustainable seafood, energy efficiency, plastic bags, and reduced waste, but not about refrigeration?

The challenges that supermarkets face in communicating about environmental progress in refrigeration are best demonstrated by looking at other environmental issues. Let’s take, for instance, sustainable seafood. I imagine that there are several reasons why people are interested in sustainable seafood. There are those who understand the web of life and the concept that the destruction of one part of that web leads to the larger parts of the web collapsing. There are people who have moral and religious concerns about the concept of humans wiping entire species off the face of the earth forever. Finally, there are the people who care about fish simply because they like to eat them, and they want to continue to be able to eat them. The point is that most people, for one reason or another, have thought about sustainable seafood. It is an issue that is relevant to them.

Now let’s compare that to refrigeration. How many people do you know who think about the significance of refrigeration? If you find anyone outside our industry who has pondered the importance of refrigeration, it’s usually in the context of the freezer in their own home and the miraculous nature of ice cream. There are probably people with a philosophical bent who look around Las Vegas and wonder at the miracle that allows an entire city to grow and thrive in the desert, but there are few people who go so far as to consider the environmental effects of refrigerants and our reliance on them.

You can’t see refrigerants or touch them. They don’t stink up the neighborhood or reduce property values. It’s a shame that customers can’t see refrigerants leaking from cases in their stores. If refrigerant emissions were visible, the industry wouldn’t have the problem that it does.

Unfortunately, you also can’t see or touch the ozone layer or watch the negative effects that refrigerants have on it. People don’t look out the window when they get up in the morning and say, “Oh dear, the ozone layer was thicker yesterday.” It’s not relevant to peoples’ daily lives.

So does that mean that it’s impossible for supermarkets to create a compelling story about refrigeration and the environment? No, it’s not impossible. It’s just a little trickier than communicating about other issues.

In part two of this series on sustainability and refrigerants, I’ll look at ways to make refrigerants and refrigeration relevant to supermarket customers.

Future-Proof Your Refrigeration

by on 2 June 2015in Blog

First published in Fresh Thinking June 2015

People ask me all the time if the EPA is ever going to get off their backs about the refrigerant they use. My answer is always the same: The only way that will happen is if the industry stops using refrigerants that harm the environment.

For the first time since the EPA started regulating refrigerants in supermarkets, it is possible for a supermarket to operate using 100% natural refrigerants. With the use of CO2, we have a refrigerant that is safe for the ozone layer and for our climate.

The EPA’s refrigerant regulations for supermarkets were originally intended to reduce the harm that these refrigerants did to the earth’s ozone layer. More recently, the regulations have been used to minimize the global warming impact of refrigerants used in supermarkets. However, refrigerants that help the ozone layer are very potent greenhouse gases, so many grocers fear they are just substituting one environmental problem for another. And more importantly for some, this means that they are doomed to an endless cycle of EPA-mandated refrigerant phase-outs in the future.

There is only one way to be sure that you won’t ever have to go through another refrigerant phaseout: Use natural refrigerants in your store. The natural option that most people are turning to is CO2. Why? Because it’s a good option.

Besides the advantages that have been documented in hundreds of stores throughout the world, as well as the low cost of the CO2 refrigerant, the refrigerant has other pluses. What is the financial value of future-proofing your business against yet another refrigerant phaseout? How much is it worth to not have to worry about Section 608 compliance in a store that uses CO2?

Though it’s hard to say what an average phase-out and the resulting retrofits cost a company, it’s safe to say that it is usually in the millions. If you have enough stores, it can easily be in the hundreds of millions.

The value of not having to worry about Section 608 inspections in your store is more a question of peace of mind, rather than an actual quantifiable monetary savings. Let’s face it, you’ll probably continue to keep refrigerant leak records on your CO2 stores because that is a part of good financial management. But don’t underestimate the value of peace of mind. It’s hard to even imagine what it’s like to not worry about EPA compliance. Regulations have been in place for decades, so a good percentage of people in the refrigeration industry today have never experienced a world free of worries about Section 608.

We can’t retrofit our way out of the world’s refrigerant problem. The only way to solve the problem is by building stores that use refrigerants that don’t cause these environmental problems.

Yes, it’s true that if we rely on new store construction to solve the problem, it will take several decades for existing stores that use harmful refrigerants to reach the end of their lifespan. But we can’t continue to use the same harmful refrigerants forever. And in the grand scheme of EPA phaseouts, 20-30 years is not a long time.