The Course

The course was named „influence by design“ and was built around communication through design in highly controversial political debates. Thematically the course aimed at the climate change discourse, more specifically the pushbacks against efforts that could cool down the crisis.

Throughout the course we worked on two projects, a merely research focussed one to understand the sphere as a group of 10 and then our personal project resulting in a communication project based on extensive research and analysis. 

The research focussed project was pointed at the analysis of frictions around wind energy as a solution to climate change. A documentation can be found here: Blowing in the wind.

My personal project was pointed at the friction around heat pumps as a climate change solution. The detailed documentation and results can be found below.

Heated Debate –– Conveying information in a space of uncertainty and polarization

There are a lot of climate solutions out there. Climate solutions: That are technological, creative, communicative, legislative or any other solutions that stand against climate change, that are a solution for the problem climate change.

However, those solutions – like every change in society, economy, business – face friction. Sometimes there is small friction and the solutions are effective, however, sometimes the friction will shrink the impact of the solution to a minimum. Friction: That is any action, concrete or abstract, tangible or intangible, that is faced against that solution with the goal to defer or even avoid it.

I have looked at one concrete example of a climate solution and the friction around it. And I have asked myself: How can I use design to reduce that friction?

But let's start from the beginning. As most of us no climate change and the resulting warming of earth's surface temperature is caused by the excessive emission of green house gases, most prominently carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is emitted mainly by burning organic material made of carbon. We do that a lot: Gas, fuel, coal, etc. 

But who is we? I want to focus on the responsibility Germany has to take in this matter. Germany is currently (let's disregard historical emissions for now) emitting 22% of the EU's total emissions at 18% of EU's population. In other words: We are emitting 9.1 tons of CO2e a year per capita, while the average in the EU is 7.1 –– and the sustainable amount is 2.3.

So we need to get this number down, fast. But what actions are producing these emissions? In image three we see that 84% of German emissions can be accounted towards energy production. 

Why do we produce that much energy? In image 4 we can see that 2022 around 2 parts out of 7 of this energy are consumed by house holds – similare amounts are consumed by mobility and industry. While we are seeing efforts in both of the other sectors to reduce emissions households have not been talked about a lot until two years ago.

But households are a big factor so what are they using this energy for? 71% of household energy is going into heating. Energy per se is not a bad thing, but as we see in the last figure of the gallery currently nearly 90% of this energy is produced by burning fossil fuels: 50% gas, 25% oil and 15% district heating (which kind of can also be accounted as fossil fuel as it is excess heat of burning things for electricity).

Now we see one climate solution that is on the rise: Heat pumps. Heat pumps can replace fossil heating and work by compressing the heat of our environment (water, air and ground) to an extent that can heat our homes. The compression is done with energy from electricity, which is increasingly carbon neutral in Germany.

The technology can be so efficient that in terms of energy, we can receive an efficiency of 300% to 500%. This works because the pump takes the energy from the surroundings. Burning material will always just use the energy captured in that material. Efficient gas therms therefore reach an efficiency of close to 100% but cannot compete with that of the heat pump.

So what is the problem? 

After the new German administration has communicated to address this issue and promote and subsidize the heat pump while phasing out the fossil heating systems, pushbacks grew to an extent that the policy was watered down and the green party has not recovered from this fiasco since. But was it only the policy, or were the pushback addressing the technology?

All though it is hard to pull these two factors apart, I will try to focus on the technology, without leaving the political component aside completely.

We can split the pushbacks into a few groups

• Financial arguments
• Ecological arguments (green green dilemma)
• technological arguments
• convenience and wellbeing arguments

However, it is not easy to tell whether the argument actually represents the real fear or reasoning of the person who is placing it. An example is the the British gas lobby placing arguments on the media which influenced the discourse heavily: 

According to DeSmog’s analysis of google news – taking in tabloids, broadsheets, broadcast media and select trade press – this would mean the PR agency has generated two thirds of the high-profile negative content published about heat pumps in the 23 months to April 2023. – DeSmog

Is an argument, let's say „they are too noisy“, now reasoned by the fear that our heating system now sounds like our fridge? Or is the British gas lobby rather interested in spreading negative arguments to not see their own gas sales decreased? We do not know.

What we do know after researching for pushbacks is that we have three main concerns by private home owners: (1) Feasibility in existing or even old buildings, (2) investment costs and (3) operating costs.

Let's look at the numbers and see, wether those concerns are reals or not based on facts, because distinction this will highly influence the way we step into the discourse.

Starting with the financial arguments, namely: The investments costs. A survey found that only around 20–30% of home owners think that the new system is below 20.000 Euro with a small minority thinking it would be below 10.000 Euro. The vast majority thinks that the costs will exceed 20.000 if not 30.000 Euro (around 30–40%). 

Also we see that only around 30% of home owners think that the operation will be cheaper. In fact, the Fraunhofer Institut hast calculated that a heat pump would be cheaper not only in single standing home but also in apartments.

The question, whether knowledge existed that the heat pump is heavily subsidies (figure 3), 40% of home owners replied to with „no“ and that you could get 70% cash back by the state 86% of home owners did not know.

Also feasibility – the possibility to install a heat pump in your own home – is looked at very negatively. Only around 30% of home owners think that they can install a heat pump without a larger renovation, when, in fact, it is around 70% of houses. This number is only estimated correctly by around 15% home owners.

We see that the problem might not be exclusively the fear of high investments or operation costs or the non-feasibility of installing the pumps. Maybe the root of the problem is rather the large knowledge gap, the enormous differences between perceived and actual numbers.

This also makes sense thinking of the above mentioned article about the British gas lobby and the screenshots of the German newspaper landscape during the discussions about the new heating policy (GEG).

Below statistic proves that the trust in information regarding this topic is at an astonishing low. only 3 in a 1000 people still trust politicians on this matter. But the statistic discovers also a very interesting group: The installers. They are trusted by 56% of home owners regarding information on heat pumps.

We will come back to this later.

First we want to bring all this information into order. Who are the actors? Are there alliances? What are the dimensions of communication? What are the interests and feelings of those actors?

As mentioned in the section about pushbacks, we can split the topic in two entangled spheres: The political or emotional sphere and the financial and the rational sphere. We can assume that actors in the emotional sphere react intensively to the policy and those of the rational sphere might rather look at the technology itself. 

Let's look at the political dimension. Here we have to focus on the context the policy was communicated in. We are a society amidst an accelerating climate crisis in which every action and decision is judged, whether it is morally okay or not. Same accounts for the covid crisis. Again we have a topic where not only the state but also the society itself is highly present in each individual's decisions. With judgement on the individual site and with regulation and communication on the political site.

Political (and societal) self determination has thus become one of the main identity building factors, when it comes to political positioning. And there is a lot going on triggering the feeling that this self determination is taken away from the individual.

When we combine this feeling with fear, with economical stress (crisis 3) and a political discourse that is increasing diversion of the parties with every word that is spoken, we can grasp an understanding of the aversion to this new policy that takes effect right in our homes, a place that we thought, nobody would verbally or morally intrude into.

On the other side we have the rational side. Let's focus on finances here. We can split this dimension into two: The individual finances and the organisational finances. Of course changing your heating is expensive for every home owner. That cannot be denied. Therefore the policy and the enormous subsidies. But it is also expensive for organisations and probably way more existential of a problem as the one for home owners (if we dare to compare).

Let's look at municipalities for example: We can have an imaginary town in Germany. The municipality at one point decided to build housing and owns a large portion of buildings that people rent into. Back then they decided to take the efficient gas heating rather than the next best solution oil. The municipality also owns the gas grid and a large gas storage. Now if we decide to replace all the gas heating systems with a heat pump the municipality would not only need to invest in the devices in the apartments (which thy could probably roll over on the renters to a high degree), but they would also lose income from storage and grid, which in parallel would lose all it's value as an asset –– if we stay with gas heating: No profit cuts, no investments needed, no decreases in the balances.

(excourse: This could explain a part of the large interest in hydrogen heating by organisational players – we need storage, we need a grid).

The third system map in the below gallery tries to map those changes in finances and financial streams between all the relevant players in this transformation.

The systems analysis offers us many doors to enter the discourse. The most obvious one, would be the home owners. They own the heating system, they invest, they live with the new system. Action and consequences are bundled in one actor. consequences such as lower operating costs for example.

Other entities who own housing and could decide to change systems are municipalities or private housing corporations as well as private persons who rent out their flat. The problem here is that often one entity owns more than one building so investment will cumulate. Further, these actors do not profit from the consequences in a direct way (indirectly e.g. the value of the house will rise).

Another approach would be to address the generarl public with somewhat of an image campaign. This would be the direct counter part to the bad-image campaign that has been running in media against the heat pump since the policy was introduced.

Lastly, there is the installers. They do not have to invest themselves, but instead are trusted by the home owners that are consulted by the former.

We have seen a lot of efforts put into addressing home owners by larger companies and startups. An example would be enpal, who addressed home owners in various different ways in digital and analogue marketing channels.

However, this is mostly done to market solar panels. Heat pumps on the other hand do seem to have a worse image by now. Also we have seen the large knowledge gap about heat pumps. Therefore, the idea is to leverage the installers that are trusted by 56.5% of home owners to be the onws to turn them over. We indirectly address the home owners.

Each installer that we convince that the heat pump is the better solution also is able to turn over multiple home owners himself. We can therefore, continue into creation with the following theory of change:

If I convice more SHK of the superior technology of the heat pump, they will adapt their consultation towards home owners and recommend a heat pump more frequently, so that more home owners will choose to install them.

The installers are not a homogene group of people though. It would make a significant difference in strategy on whom we target amongst them.

As discussed in course, the majority of people in a group tend to be rather undecided on a polarizing matter. Even if the impression, mainly online, is that there is only radical opinions, it often makes more sense to address those, who have not drifted towards one end of the spectrum or another.

Therefore, also in this case, we want to address these undecided installers, who maybe have been suggesting gas systems for a while but feel unsure about their approach now, in context of transformation, new legislation and communication around the topic.

But how will we reach these people? We want to address one particular emotion: Pride.

Pride is a specific value of this target group, especially in Germany. Many campaigns, such as the image campaign by Das Handwerk already leverage this fact. This was also confirmed in a short interview with an electrician, who also works a lot among „SHKler“ (the people that are responsible for heat pump installment). 

Additionally we want to draw the picture of power by responsibility and role, which might enhance the feeling of pride. As in: „I can do it, and I need to do it –– and only I can do it“.

We follow the simple and well known theory of empowerment: When people believe they have power or control, they are more likely to take action, feel motivated, and engage with the subject matter.

But how do we place these feelings? What is our form of intervention? Here we clearly want to be loud. We want to capture attention, intervewne: “provocative, controversial, not forceful, room for interpretation” (Visualising Information for Advocacy, Techtical Tech, 2012, p. 47f) –– we explicitly do not want to explain or educate, the space is overloaded. Many people have been explained enough in the complex discourse of climate change. The information should rather be provided in a second step of the campaign, when attention is captured and interest is sparked.

It is important however, to not stop before providing information, this is why the campaign will be split threeways:

1. We will roll out a social media campaign. Two short interviews suggest that this channel is effective, reaching our target group
2. We provide a destination for interested readers/viewers: A landing page containing data, comparisons and further links. Available by tapping or clicking our social media posts.
3. Thirdly, we need to provide material. Analogie material that our installer can hand on. Flyers, booklets or more. Or even digital material that contains the same information. Let's not forget: Our campaign is only successful, if the installer plays along.

We will be focussing on getting the capturing attention part straight in this project. We will provide the target group with a small story, that irritates, connect and provocates a little. Also it should not be taken to seriously: The space is bursting with bland facts and numbers and moral-driven suggestions.

The storytelling technique in media res drops the viewer right into the epicenter of action, then taking a step back to explain the context and moving past our entry point to solve the story. This we want to use ...

... making super heroes the protagonists of our mini-story. Why?

Everybody knows them. And everybody knows what they usually do: Most of their time, they save the world. However, placing them into ordinary or odd situations creates the irritation, followed by attention that we are looking for. Other campaign have used this technique already, for example Gilette or DBL.

Presenting our three superheros: Superman, Batman, Wonderwoman – who are inviting you to take action:

Wann wirst du zum Helden?

Let's look at the whole gallery, before we dive deeper into the effect the single slides should achieve:

1. Superman is installing a heat pump. Text: Heroes of Heating Transformation.
2. Superman is consulting the home owner. Text: They know the best solution.
3. Superman is proudly standing next to the freshly installed heat pump. Text: Subsidies, prices, feasibility.
4. Suddenly it is not Superman standing next to the heat pump but rather an ordinary man looking into the camera. Text (bigger): When will you become a hero?

As mentioned twice before, this first image should capture attention straight away. It might, therefore, be the most important image. We want to irritate „why is superman doing that?“ and cause confusion and curiousness.

Another important aspect is the copy writing. We want to avoid the word heat pump. We want to avoid telling people what to do. Basically we want to go a different route than communication in this space has so far.

In the second step – after we have caught attention – we want to create identification between the viewer, namely the installer and the hero. We show another action performed in the daily life of the viewer: The consultation of the home owner. 

In terms of story, we take a step back in time, we are chronically before the installation now. This means, the viewer already knows that the consultation will lead to the home owner choosing the heat pump. 

Superman visually seems professional, knows what he is doing. This is complemented by the words that claim he knows the best solution. We want to connect to the installer, we want to get to his pride now.

It is also important to show this action, since this is the point, where the installer will take action himself. The consultation might just be the point, where the home owner is choosing a heat pump or a gas heater.

The image tells us that the whole installation was a success. The heat pump is installed. Superman proudly looks at what he has achieved. Latest at this point the storyline becomes clear to the viewer. Pride and self association should be accompanied by a feeling of success.

However, this slide also functions as an informative one. The words say subsidies, prices, feasibility – the three topics, where the knowleddge gap of home owners was strikingly large. As said before, we still do not want to overload the viewer. We leave the room for interpretation. The feeling of success in combination with these mentioned aspects should leave a positive feeling regarding the same.

The last slide is crucial: We break out of the story and include the viewer into our communication. Superman is gone, instead an installer is standing there, arms crossed, heat pump installed, wearing a superman shirt to help building the mental bridge. The image screams power, but also pride, the emotions we are aiming for (see strategy part).

But the image is also creating a responsibility. The viewer is not anymore only the viewer, he/she is part of the game now. The installer on the image locks eyes with the person in front of the smartphone. The question is directly addressed to the latter: 

When will you become a hero?

Fiction becomes reality.

We have only looked at the images so far, however most social media platforms offer to place surrounding information. We have the ability to place call to actions to get the viewers to our website, we can place information, such as the subsidies in actual numbers. We can even add an explanatory text to double down on the effect caused by the gallery.

As many campaigns do today, we differentiate it. We have a more diverse set of protagonists that can address a broader spectrum of viewers. Even though the majority of installers will be men, we can address women too. Some might prefer Batman over Superman. But everybody will feel something, as they see another gallery and get reminded of the one that they had seen before.

The images of course differ, however target, strategy, technique, content stay the same across the series.

Reflection

... of the project: At the start it was quite hard to find my way into a creative project based on such a bland technology and such a controversial discussion around it. However, using the techniques and frameworks learned in this course I managed to drill deeper. The great side-effect of building a chain of logical steps and decisions to lead towards your end result is that you are convinced your solution can work / is based on a solid research. I am very happy with how my research turned out – having the feeling of a solid argumentation. The second part, the idea of the super hero campaign, I am divided. I am confident that the way I worked out the idea follows clear thoughts and is heavily based on the research. However, in hindsight I would have chosen (1) a more complex or creative channel than a social media campaign and (2) one that is more close to my profession in interaction design.

... of the course: Stephanie is a great teacher, really committed, open and interested and super proficient at what she is passing on. Also her course is directly linked to what she is doing in practice, which give your work relevance and potentially impact. The course was labelled as „close to master level / master level“ totally makes sense, as not only the step into the thematics climate change, politics and society was a large one, but also our theoretical approach to communication was very complex at times. However, this I personally really enjoyed, having learned so much on so many different levels and areas. Thanks