Sustainability is a hot topic, and finally, the media world is waking up to its role in contributing to global warming and instigating overdue changes. Many businesses have made smaller changes in recent years which have shifted their individual dial somewhat; recycling, reusing items, seeking out green energy, cutting back on travel and stationary- but these have a limited impact on the wider issues of the carbon footprint generated by the advertising industry as a whole. This led us at Deviceful to wonder what else we could do and to instigate further, more meaningful changes.
Our business provides a niche, but important service within the digital ad industry. Our creative production powers the messaging for brands and partners whom we work with. This was a logical starting point. We are cheerleaders for better creative- it is good for our clients, and produces superior results. If you capture attention quicker and have more meaningful conversations with consumers and potential customers, then you require fewer impressions to hit success metrics. This, quite clearly, reduces the carbon footprint of your advertising activity.
This could require the budgets for creative to increase (of course, we are biased here), but in doing so you end up increasing the quality of the end product, improving performance and reducing the impact of the ads you run on the environment.
Secondly, we need to look at the size of creative we are producing. We always look for efficiencies in ideation and production, and to tailor ads to the platform upon which the creative is going to run. Shorter-form video is often better (and racks up less server usage), so it’s worthwhile repurposing existing video to get the best result. Dynamic creative can allow you to have multiple conversations, in a more efficient way, and to optimise performance, which again decreases impression levels. Even by working harder on standard creative, or rich media, we can find ways to defease ad size, while still delivering the same messaging. All these small things also add up.
Finally, like all businesses, we can review the vendors we work with to check their carbon footprints and general approach to reducing their impact on the environment. Companies such as Scope3 are working to provide clarity on the general impact individual businesses have in exacerbating climate change. This can help all parts of the ad industry work toward a greener future and empower businesses to make better decisions when it comes to the partners they work with. The sustainability conversation is not going away; it's time for all aspects of the industry to work to exact change. We intend to be part of that.
