A ZMET-based analysis ofperceptions of climate changeamong young South Koreans

Implications for social marketingcommunication

George AnghelcevCollege of Communications and Arthur W. Page Center, Penn State

University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

Mun-Young ChungCollege of Communications, Penn State University, University Park,

Pennsylvania, USA

Sela SarCharles H. Sandage Department of Advertising and Institute of

Communication Research, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign,Illinois, USA, and

Brittany R.L. DuffCharles H. Sandage Department of Advertising, University of Illinois,

Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA

AbstractPurpose – This paper aims to report a qualitative investigation of perceptions of climate changeamong young South Koreans to illustrate the benefits of complementary qualitative approaches.Successful marketing communication campaigns require a thorough assessment of the public’s currentperceptions and attitudes toward the topic of the campaign. Such insights are most likely attained if arange of research methods are used. However, in the area of pro-environmental campaigns, there hasbeen an over-reliance on quantitative surveys.Design/methodology/approach – The study employed a variant of the Zaltman MetaphorElicitation Technique (ZMET), a hybrid protocol which combines photo elicitation with metaphoranalysis of subsequent in-depth individual interviews. Unlike survey research, ZMET uncovers theemotional, interpretive and sensory mental structures which, along with factual knowledge, make upthe public mindset about climate change.Findings – The analysis revealed a multifaceted mental model of climate change, whereby factual,interpretive and emotional knowledge is organized around themes of loss, human greed, affectivedistress and iconic representations of tragic endings. The causal dynamics of climate change areconstrued along a continuum of psychological distance, with antecedents placed in proximity andeffects assigned to distant temporal, geographical and psychological spaces.Practical implications – Four message strategies for climate change mitigation campaigns areidentified based on the findings.

This study was made possible by an Arthur W. Page Center research grant to the first author.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:www.emeraldinsight.com/2042-6763.htm

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Received 19 December 2012Revised 6 June 201316 August 2013Accepted 18 August 2013

Journal of Social MarketingVol. 5 No. 1, 2015pp. 56-82© Emerald Group Publishing Limited2042-6763DOI 10.1108/JSOCM-12-2012-0048

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Originality/value – The study makes a methodological argument for supplementing survey researchwith image-based qualitative investigations in the formative stages of pro-environmental campaigns.More specifically, the article demonstrates the applicability of ZMET to social marketingcommunication. Apart from the methodological implications, this appears to be the first in-depthqualitative investigation of public perceptions of climate change in East Asia, a populous and fastdeveloping region which has become a major contributor to the world’s carbon emissions, and animportant player in the global effort toward mitigation.

Keywords Climate change, Communication, South Korea, Qualitative, Social marketing, ZMET,Public mindset

Paper type Research paper

Social marketing communication has been recommended by many researchers as aneffective approach to promoting mitigation and adaptation solutions to the globalclimate change crisis (Maibach, 1993; Shrum et al., 1996; Maibach et al., 2008; Peattie andPeattie, 2009). To that end, social marketing interventions have also become popularamong the practitioners (Spotswood et al., 2012; Peattie et al., 2009; Barr et al., 2006;Downing and Ballantyne, 2007).

Nevertheless, social marketers and policymakers are facing unusual challenges indeveloping successful communication campaigns focused on climate change (Peattieet al., 2009).

On the one hand, this may be due to the elusive nature of the topic; climate change isperceived by the public as ambiguous and non-proximal, and climate change mitigationbehaviors lack the immediate gratification consumers would need to adopt them (Moser,2010). On the other hand, the amount and nature of knowledge about climate changeamong various publics are constantly changing, challenging social marketers to rethinkthe communication objectives of the campaigns.

For example, public awareness of climate change issues has approached saturationlevels (Moser, 2010). When questioned about the most important problem facing theworld today if nothing is done to change it, respondents to a national US surveymentioned changes in climate and the environment more frequently than any other topic(Yeager et al., 2011). In the UK, all but 1 per cent of the population had heard aboutclimate change, global warming or the greenhouse effect by 2007 (DEFRA, 2007). Thesituation is similar in some East Asian countries. For example, over 90 per cent ofrespondents to a national survey in South Korea considered climate change a veryimportant problem (South Korean Ministry of Environment, 2008). Because consumersappear to recognize the importance of climate change and the necessity to take action,campaign objectives may need to be refocused from raising awareness to inducingbehavior change (Yusoff and Gabrys, 2011).

Equally important, the public debate about climate change has increased insophistication (Yusoff and Gabrys, 2011). A number of disciplines, including economics(Bhaduri, 2012; Stern, 2006), political sociology (Mayer, 2012), communication (Kim,2011; Brossard et al., 2004), geography (Bassett and Zueli, 2000; Demeritt, 2001),theology (Schlesinger, 2011), history (Van de Noort, 2011), anthropology (Crate, 2011;Rudiak-Gould, 2011), advertising and marketing (Hansen and Machin, 2008) and others,are shaping the climate change discourse in the public arena. To be successful, creatorsof pro-environmental social marketing communication campaigns must understand

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how the political, cultural, spiritual, economic, ethical and moral meanings reflected inpublic discourse have influenced the public perceptions of the topic (Orr, 2003).

It has been noted, however, that research on public perceptions of climate change hasconsisted primarily of quantitative surveys (Henry, 2000). Over-reliance on quantitativeapproaches is problematic in social marketing because checklist surveys:

[…] do not adequately measure [the public’s understanding of the topic] but rather reflect, atbest, respondents’ recognitions of abstract terms and, at worst, their ability to guess and select[…] responses provided on the survey questionnaire (Whitmarsh, 2009, p. 415; Anable et al.,2006; Peattie et al., 2009).

Consequently, researchers have called for “less Procustean and more local, qualitativeapproaches to define and research public understanding and responses to climatechange” (Whitmarsh, 2009, p. 402; Henry, 2000).

In line with those calls, the goal of the present paper is to illustrate the benefits ofemploying qualitative approaches in climate change research, as an addition toquantitative investigations. To this end, a qualitative research method based on theprotocol of the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique aka ZMET (Zaltman, 1997;Zaltman and Coulter, 1995) was used to explore mental representations of climatechange among a sample of students in South Korea.

Several reasons prompted the selection of a Korean sample. Since climate change andclimate change mitigation are widely acknowledged as global phenomena, it issurprising that contemporary research on perceptions of climate change hassystematically neglected non-western samples. The paucity of reports about East Asiancountries is particularly concerning. Home to the most populous countries in the world,East Asia has become a major emitter of greenhouse gasses (Piao et al., 2010), and if thehigh rate of economic growth is an indicator, carbon emissions per capita will likelyincrease in East Asia at a higher-than-the-global rate in the future. Participation of EastAsian countries is vital for the success of any global policies aimed at climate changemitigation. In addition, climate change is a serious problem for East Asian countries,which have less than 10 per cent of the world’s arable land to feed more than 25 per centof the world’s population, and are, therefore, sensitive to the negative impact of climatechange on water availability and agriculture (Piao et al., 2010). South Korea epitomizesthe characteristics of the region in terms of the imbalance between the importance ofeliciting public engagement in climate change mitigation for the aforementionedreasons, and the paucity of research on how its people perceive climate change.

RationaleQuantitative surveys have been a staple of public opinion research since the inception ofthat domain of social science investigation, largely because they allow the collection oflarge-scale data which can be easily aggregated to describe the views of groups ratherthan individuals (Perrin and McFarland, 2011). Their advantages notwithstanding,checklist surveys also have a number of limitations which caution against excessivereliance on this particular method when formulating strategy for social marketingcommunication campaigns (Whitmarsh, 2009).

For example, close-ended surveys are an inherently reactive mode of inquiry. Ontaking a survey, people are allowed to express their opinions only in response tostatements generated by experts. Technical experts’ views are biased toward scientificknowledge, so the statements are predetermined on the part of the researchers and,

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therefore, may tap only a part of what may constitute the public mindset (Sundblad et al.,2008; Bostrom et al., 2006; Fischhoff et al., 1982). In contrast, exploratory techniques likeZMET allow the participants to freely express their views and can uncover a broaderspectrum of relevant knowledge and opinions (Coulter et al., 2001).

Furthermore, survey results are sometimes misinterpreted by assuming that therespondents relate to the terms included on the questionnaires the same way experts do.Whitmarsh (2009) noted that survey responses about consumption of energy have beenerroneously assumed to reflect climate change attitudes, simply because conservation ofenergy was recommended by experts as a mitigation behavior. Yet, most of the publicdoes not construe low consumption of energy as an activity primarily aimed to forestallclimate change; rather, the motivation to reduce consumption of energy is largelyeconomic.

Another limitation of surveys becomes apparent when respondents are ambivalentabout a topic or issue. For example, they may be in favor of a proposed policy measuredesigned to mitigate climate change because it reduces carbon consumption; at the sametime, respondents may be against the policy because it increases taxation of the localcommunity. In such situations, responses would yield scores close to the midpoint of thescale; a meaningful attitudinal ambivalence could be mistakenly interpreted asneutrality (Coulter et al., 2001). Survey results can also be distorted by aquiescence bias,which is the respondents’ tendency to agree with certain statements presented on thequestionnaire even if they did not know those issues were relevant prior to taking thesurvey. Whitmarsh (2009, p. 402) observed that acquiescence bias may lead tooverestimation of consumers’ understanding of climate change:

[…] when prompted by a list of possible answers in a survey, most people can identifydestruction of forests, carbon emissions, emissions from transport, and emissions from powerstations as contributors to climate change […]. Yet, when respondents are not provided with achecklist of possible causes, their understanding is shown to be lower. Only 30 per cent ofBritons and only 18 per cent of respondents in a US survey mentioned burning fossil fuels,unprompted, as a cause.

Equally important quantitative surveys are designed to measure opinion and factualknowledge; they overlook the experiential, interpretive and emotional aspects of theconsumer mindset (Coulter et al., 2001). And, yet, non-factual knowledge such asemotions, goals, feelings, interpretive meanings, behavioral scripts, symbols, imageryand sensory experiences are likely important determinants of climate change attitudesand behaviors (Christensen and Olson, 2002).

Finally, surveys rarely measure consumers’ unconscious thoughts and emotions(Zaltman, 1997). If climate change attitudes and behaviors are determined byunconscious thoughts and feelings as much as other attitudes and behaviors are (Barghand Ferguson, 2000; Ariely, 2009; Greenwald et al., 2002; Devine, 1989; Fazio et al., 1986),researchers must also strive to identify those aspect of the climate change mindset(Zaltman and MacCaba, 2007; Christensen and Olson, 2002).

Consequently, a qualitative approach was used in the present research to explore theintimate structures of participants’ mental representations of climate change. Theprotocol, a variant of The ZMET, involves the use of in-depth semi-structured personalinterviews centered on visual images brought to the interview by the researchparticipants (Coulter et al., 2001). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first studyemploying the ZMET technique in the social marketing literature. As such, above and

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beyond its specific focus on climate change, the study is intended to illustrate theadvantages of this research technique for exploring other social marketing issues.

According to its originators, ZMET is based on a set of principles supportedempirically across a number of disciplines. An overview of those principles, based onZaltman (1997, pp. 494-497) is presented further, along with supporting evidence.

The first premise is that verbocentric research (surveys, focus groups andinterviews) cannot reveal the complexity of consumers’ mental representations of a topicbecause language is limited when it comes to conveying complex thoughts or emotions.This claim is supported by theories that conceptual capabilities developed in humanswell before verbal language (Edelman, 1992). To compensate for the limits of verballanguage as a vehicle of expression, humans still rely primarily on non-verbalcommunication to exchange social meanings (Patterson, 1991). According to someestimates, as much as 93 per cent of human communication is still non-verbal(Mehrabian, 1971). Whereas language may be a useful device to express certain aspectsof one’s thoughts and beliefs about climate change, it cannot convey all the intricaciesand nuances associated with complex emotions, feelings, experiential or interpretiveknowledge. It is nonverbal communication that dominates human thought (Howe, 1991;Marks, 1978).

The second premise is based on evidence that thoughts occur as images, ratherthan words (Pinker, 1994; Damasio, 1994). Consequently, images are consideredmore apt than words to reflect consumers’ mental representations about an issue.Indeed, research has found that because images are polysemantic (Barthes, 1977),they can encompass and project complicated mental structures better than words(for evidence and reviews, please see, e.g. Harper, 2002; Khoo-Latimore et al., 2009;Christensen and Olson, 2002; Devine-Wright and Devine-Wright, 2009). In the wordsof Harper (2002, p. 13): “images evoke deeper elements of human consciousness thando words”. Indeed, image-based thought elicitation research in psychotherapy,anthropology and cultural sociology (Ingram, 1994; Kopp, 1995) provides evidencefor the claim that images can reflect unconscious beliefs and emotions (Belk et al.,1989; Holbrook, 1987). In contrast, language is the expression of conscious thought(Zaltman, 1997). Consequently, research methods which rely exclusively onconsumers’ words to infer their views on a topic could overlook importantcomponents of the consumers’ mindsets. To overcome that limitation, ZMETinterviews use images provided by the informants to elicit their mentalrepresentations about the issue under investigation. Language is used onlyafterwards, as informants explain the meaning of the images to the researcher.Interviews based on photo elicitation do not only produce more information thanpurely verbocentric approaches; they reveal different kinds of information (Harper,2002).

A third premise of ZMET is that metaphors have a central role in structuring humanknowledge. A metaphor is the representation of one thing or experience in terms ofanother (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). Evidence that metaphors structure thinking comesfrom formal empirical inquiry (Glucksberg, 1991; Gibbs, 1992) as well as from everydayuse of language (e.g. it is said that generous people have hearts of gold; a former romanticpartner is an old flame and outside is raining cats and dogs). According to Glucksberg(1991), it is the conceptual metaphors that are stored in one’s long-term memory thathelp one make sense of literal metaphors. According to Zaltman (1997), underlying both

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conceptual and literal metaphors are deep metaphors – the deep organizing principles ofour mental structures. Deep metaphors represent the fundamental units of meaningaround which emotions and factual and interpretive knowledge are organized.Understanding deep metaphors means unfolding the fundamental drivers of consumermotivation and behavior in relation to a specific issue (Harvard Business Publishing,2008).

Furthermore, because metaphors are central to thought, they are seen as appropriatetools for eliciting hidden knowledge. For example, Coulter et al. (2001) used metaphoranalysis to discover consumer perceptions of advertising. A number of metaphorsemerged during the interviews. Some conceptual metaphors indicated positive views.For example, participants perceived advertising as a hostess, teacher, counselor orenabler (due to its information value), as a performer or magician (due to itsentertainment value) or as an engine (because its drives economic growth). Otherconceptual metaphors (con-man, nosy neighbor, evil therapist, seducer and omnipresentbeing) reflected the perceived liabilities of advertising. These conceptual metaphorsreflected the underlying dimensions, or deep metaphors, of advertising as a resource, asa force and as a tool for portraying idealized images of people and products (Coulteret al., 2001).

An implicit assumption of ZMET is that mental knowledge is stored in networks ofinter-related nodes which contain encoded emotional, experiential, interpretive andfactual knowledge (Anderson, 1983). The neural pathways and nodes associated with aspecific concept are referred to as mental models. To fully understand consumers’mental representations of climate change, research must expose factual knowledge (i.e.information or facts remembered by the person), emotional knowledge (feelings andaffect associated with climate change), experiential knowledge (events or persons fromone’s past associated with climate change) and interpretive knowledge (the meaningsassigned to one’s knowledge) (Zaltman, 1997; Coulter et al., 2001). Furthermore, becausemental models are connected to the sensory system, the iconic imagery evoked by thesenses must also be revealed by researchers as they attempt to map the mental modelsassociated with a particular issue.

The following sections outline the focus of the present investigation and describe theimplementation of a six-step ZMET protocol to answer the research questions. Adiscussion follows the presentation of the results.

Research questionsThe overarching goal of the article is to illustrate the applicability of the ZMETtechnique to social marketing communication, particularly for developing richpre-campaign insights. To this end, a series of ZMET interviews were conducted withSouth Korean consumers. The insights were used to suggest message strategies forclimate change mitigation campaigns.

The study aimed to answer the following research questions:

RQ1. How is climate change perceived by young members of the Korean public?

RQ2. What conceptual themes define their understanding of climate change?

RQ3. What are the deep metaphors or organizing structures of knowledge whichunderlie their perceptions of climate change?

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MethodSampleA purposive sample of 12 South Koreans (aged 20-28 years) was selected for theinvestigation using personal solicitation. According to validation studies of ZMET,four-five in-depth interviews typically provide about 90 per cent of the core informationavailable from a larger set of interviews (Zaltman, 1997; Zaltman and Coulter, 1995).Depending on the topic, the number of participants can be increased until the interviewsno longer reveal new core themes. After that point of saturation is reached, the additionof new participants is not necessary. In the present study, saturation was evident in the10th-12th interviews, at which point no additional informants were contacted.

All informants were familiar with the topic of climate change. Knowledge of the topicis a necessary condition in ZMET investigations (Christensen and Olson, 2002).

All informants attended college at one of the main universities in Seoul, South Korea,at the time of the study. Because we were interested in a sample that would reflect adiversity of academic disciplines, gender and seniority levels, informants had differentacademic backgrounds. Six participants were males and six were females. The ageranged between 20 and 28 years. Half of the participants were undergraduate studentsand half were graduate students.

ProcedureParticipants were advised to spend a few days selecting 10-12 images which reflectedtheir thoughts and feelings about climate change. They were told to select the imagescarefully so that the selected set would really capture their true thoughts and feelings.They were informed they would be spending up to two hours discussing the images. Afew days later each informant took part in a semi-structured one-on-one interview withthe researchers centered on the self-selected images. Each interview lastedapproximately 90 minutes and followed the six-step ZMET protocol described further.

During Step 1, known as storytelling, informants were asked to explain how eachimage related to their understanding of climate change. Respondents’ narrativesallowed the researchers to understand the meaning assigned to each image by theparticipants, without making assumptions. Thus, unlike in survey research, datageneration was driven by the participants. The insights were particularly useful in thecase of symbolic/ambiguous images. For example, one respondent explained that theimage of a butterfly on a glacier illustrates his belief that irresponsible human actionscan cause damage to the environment through a “butterfly effect”. In his words:

[…] a behavior performed at home in Korea, such as using aerosol sprays […] can have aneffect in another part of the world, such as melting a glacier at the North Pole (informant # 11).

This narrative shows the informant believed that individual actions can cause climatechange regardless of how insignificant they may appear or how remote the effects maybe. The misperception that use of spray cans can cause climate change (harmful CFCcans were banned years ago) indicates confusion or inaccurate knowledge about the realcauses of climate change.

In Step 2, respondents were asked if there were any images they wished they hadbrought to the interview but couldn’t find while they were searching. Absent images canreflect significant elements of people’s mindset about an issue, and they should not beoverlooked (Zaltman, 1997). For example, informant #2 wished he had found a picture of

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children in a dry land. According to the informant’s explanation, he believed that thecurrent generation might be able to live with the environmental conditions broughtabout by climate change. However, when he thought about future generations, heimagined “[…] poor kids standing in a desert. I feel very sorry about that” (Informant#2). This was a useful insight, allowing the researcher to further probe what aspects ofclimate change were associated by the respondents with the present vs the future. Asketch of the desired image was drawn and included with the other images for the restof the interview.

Step 3 elicited further meaning by comparing and contrasting 2-3 images, randomlyselected by the researcher from the pictures brought to the interview by the informant.For example, the researcher asked the respondents how two randomly selected imageswere similar to each other, yet different from a third. Such probing questions, aimed ateliciting interrelated constructs, were used throughout the interview (Reynolds andGutman, 1988).

During Step 4, participants were asked to identify the one picture which bestillustrated their thoughts and feelings about climate change (the most representativepicture), and to explain why they selected that particular image. Then, they were askedto identify the second and the third most representative pictures. The goal of this stepwas to provide an understanding of the relative importance of various facts, emotionsand motivations in guiding people’s attitudes and behaviors about climate change.

Step 5 directed informants’ attention to the sensory experiences associated with theirmental representations of climate change. Informants were asked to pretend they wereplaying a game and to describe what climate change would [taste, sound, smell, touch orlook] like if it were a thing. This step is based on the premise that sensory experiencesshape people’s perceptions of climate change and influence their attitudes andbehaviors. By eliciting sensory information, researchers can also reveal unconsciousthoughts and emotions (Coulter et al., 2001). For example, one informant was able tocommunicate a facet of her understanding of climate change which had not come up inthe interview. Specifically, discussing the sense of touch, the informant speculated thatclimate change would feel like a very thin sheet of wrapper “which is very hard to feel”.She went on to say that “it would weigh almost nothing”, indicating that she perceivedclimate change as a phenomenon which is intangible and “hard to grasp”.

The last step, Step 6, involved the creation of a collage, or summary image, by eachparticipant. On a computer, the scanned images were grouped together on a single page.The digitized images were resized and arranged until the resulting collage wasconsidered by the participant the best reflection of her or his mindset. This step isdesigned to reveal the relative importance of the images and how they relate to oneanother on a conceptual level. For example, most participants grouped together pictureswith related meanings and isolated the pictures which reflected other aspects of theirunderstanding of climate change.

An overview of the steps employed in the interview protocol is as follows:• Step 1 – Storytelling: Informants explained how each image reflected their

understanding of climate change.• Step 2 – Missing image: If participants wanted to include images they could not

find, a sketch of the desired image was drawn and included for the rest of theinterview.

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• Step 3 – Construct elicitation: Comparisons among images were used to elicitfurther meaning.

• Step 4 – Most important image: Participants identified the three most importantimages and explained why they were considered the most important.

• Step 5 – Sensory images: Sensory feelings associated with climate change wereelicited.

• Step 6 – The summary image: Participants arranged images in a collage andexplained how images were related to one another.

ResultsMetaphor analysisThe interviews were transcribed by the second author and the accuracy of thetranscripts was verified by a research assistant. Then, a narrative analysis of theinterview transcripts was performed to identify the conceptual themes and metaphorsendorsed by the participants. In the initial stage, the second author and a researchassistant worked independently and grouped participants’ thoughts into commonthematic categories (e.g. loss of biodiversity, corporate greed, futility of individualaction and ambivalent politics). The categories reflected the most frequent core themesascertained in the interviews. Continuing this inductive approach, the thematiccategories were grouped into eight conceptual metaphors (see Table I below). Finally, itwas concluded that the eight conceptual metaphors reflect three underlying deepmetaphors, which appeared to serve as fundamental axes of meaning for theparticipants’ thoughts. The common themes, the conceptual metaphors and the deepmetaphors elicited from the interviews are listed in Table I.

This data analytic procedure is systematic and grounded in qualitative data analytictechniques (Creswell, 2008; Patton, 1990).

Table I.Deep metaphors,thematic categoriesand conceptualmetaphors forclimate change

Deep metaphor Conceptual metaphor Thematic category

Pandora’s Box Tragic endings Loss of biodiversityLoss of human habitat

Human greed Corporate greed for profitsSelfish pursuit of comfort and gratification

Hope Education as an agent of positive changeStricter governmental control

Affective distress Fear Apocalyptic futuresSadness Loss of the world as we know it

Futility of individual actionNostalgia Memories of idealized past

Two-faced Janus Discoursive ambivalence Dual standards of accountabilityAmbivalent media discourse

Functional duality Technology as cause and solutionHome as space of consumption andmitigation

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Pandora’s BoxPandora’s Box emerged as a unifying deep metaphor encompassing many of thenegative associations with climate change endorsed by the respondents. This label isappropriate because according to the Greek myth, when Pandora’s Box was opened,destruction, illness and tragedy spread over the world. Only hope was left in the box.Similarly, the informants perceived climate change as a destructive phenomenon withan array of negative consequences, but they experienced a sliver of hope aboutmitigation. The negative categories subsumed by this deep metaphor were loss ofbiodiversity and loss of human habitat (as representations of tragic endings) as well ascorporate greed, individual gluttony and selfish convenience (as symbols of human greed).The positive theme of hope, embodied by beliefs that mitigation can be achievedthrough education of future generations and governmental control, made a contrastingnote with the rest of the imagery.

Tragic endingsLoss of biodiversity. The possible negative impact of climate change on animal life wasseen as more probable and more proximal (temporally) than the negative impact onhumans. All interviewees shared the belief that climate change will cause animals to losetheir habitats. The images chosen to illustrate this belief depicted, without exception,arctic species (primarily polar bears or melting glaciers). The following quotes areillustrative:

The effects of climate change will be harmful for animals and plants, so they will be affectedmore (than humans) by climate change […] I heard a news story about a polar bear that diedwhen the glacier under it melted, and the polar bear couldn’t find another glacier to live on […](Informant #3).

The animals’ food chains will be affected and some animals, such as polar bears, will diebecause animals have no way to protect themselves from climate change, so humans shouldprotect animals (Informant #1).

Loss of human habitat. Negative consequences on humans were associated with remotepsychological spaces, symbolized by culturally and geographically distant others (e.g.Maldives Islanders, Eskimos) or by distant temporal frames (“next generation”).

I saw that the Maldives islands will erode because the sea level will increase from the meltingice glaciers […]. The islanders will be the first victims of climate change […] and the lastvictims will be our next generation (Informant #3).

Melting glaciers cause harmful effects not only to animals in the North Pole but also tohumans, such as Eskimos. If glaciers melt, the Eskimos’ life patterns will also change(Informant #8).

In the rare occasions when informants construed climate change as potentially harmfulto them directly – rather than to distant lands or future generations – the thoughts wereprompted by recent weather events in neighboring countries. This observation is in linewith previous findings from studies which used Western samples (Italian, British andNorwegian) that judgments of detrimental effects are made considering experiences ofweather rather than the climate (Lorenzoni and Hulme, 2009; Ryghaug et al., 2011).Here’s one representative quote:

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When I heard news about the tsunami in Japan, I was stunned because Japan is our neighborcountry and many Koreans live and travel in Japan. In this case, the tsunami could have alsoaffected my friends or family (Informant #7).

Human greedHuman greed emerged as a unifying deep metaphor underlying perceptions of the roleplayed by people in relation to climate change. Greed was perceived as the main cause ofhuman destruction of the environment. Two metaphors emerged from the interviews:corporate greed (described as institutional strife for profits) and individual greed(perceived as selfish pursuit of comfort). In both cases, participants alluded to possibleconflicts of values.

Corporate greed. Corporate greed was associated with business models guidedexclusively by the desire to make profit. Informants believed businesses perceiveenvironmental protection and financial profit as oppositional values:

Business people build factories to make money […]. Factories produce many harmful elementsthat affect climate change […]. So far, making money comes from development and damagingnature (Informant #3).

Business people aren’t concerned about making environmentally friendly factories becausethey don’t think that will increase profits. They just follow their greed to make money(Informant #6).

Individual greed. Individual greed is represented as selfish pursuit of personal comfortand convenience, which was seen as occurring in spite of knowledge of the detrimentaleffects that the selfish action would bring about:

People know the climate will change and the natural environment will get worse and thatusing personal cars also affects climate change, but they just want to live conveniently(Informant #8).

In previous times, people did not understand their attempts to increase convenience affectedclimate change, but now people pursue convenience continuously even though they know theiractions affect climate change (Informant #11).

The home was seen as the space where individual transgressions occur. It is where theconflict between the pursuit of individual comfort and the need to protect theenvironment is consummated. It is also the place of potential engagement in mitigation.Markers of national identity were present in some of these narratives, as participantsjustified the transgressions or (sometimes) expressed guilt:

There are days when I think “Oh, I worked hard today, so I can use the air conditioner” becausethis is a kind of compensation for my hard work. The results of protecting nature and theenvironment do not come to me directly, but if I turn on the air conditioner, I can receiveimmediate satisfaction from the action. This applies more to Korea because Koreanshave more stress from their lives; thus, for them, turning off the air conditioner is a kind of sacrifice.Koreans do not want that; they want compensation for their hard work (Informant #7).

HopeEducation as an agent of positive change. The only positive element of the deepmetaphor of Pandora’s Box, hope, was experienced in moderation. Korean informants

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believed that both formal education and the support of celebrities and political leadersare necessary to motivate the public to engage in mitigation (many participantsmentioned the name of American environmental activist and former Vice-President AlGore). As the following quotes illustrate, hope was linked to the youth and futuregenerations:

Hope may come from education […]. Youths’ minds and the adults’ minds need to be changed.It is more difficult to change adults’ minds about climate change because they are used toliving their current lifestyle […]. They are afraid to change their lifestyle because that wouldmean losing familiarity and would require additional time and effort to adjust their behaviors(Informant #11).

In terms of education about protecting the environment, not only teachers but also opinionleaders should be educators because normal people would follow opinion leaders’ and thenthink more about climate change (Informant #6).

Stricter governmental control. Some informants believed that to end theenvironmentally harmful behaviors of both individuals and corporations, strictgovernmental enforcement of climate change mitigation policies is required. In aprevious study (Darier and Schule, 1999), German and British consumers also expressedexpectations that mitigation policies should be enforced from the top becauseindividuals are too self-interested in gratification to change their behavior:

The government has a duty to protect and manage our land, but if the government letscompanies freely make factories without purification systems, it isn’t being responsible […].The government should control companies (Informant #6).

Government control is important because individuals are hardly conscious about protectingour environment […]. Individuals feel there are no direct rewards for them to maintain theenvironment, so the government should let individuals know that if they do not protect theenvironment, they will face have negative consequences (Informant #10).

Affective distressInformants’ perceptions of climate change were charged with negatively valencedemotions such as fear, sadness and guilt.

FearApocalyptic futures. Metaphors of fear and distress referenced apocalyptic visions of theEarth and humanity. Some informants endorsed imaginary “doomsday” scenariospromoted by the popular media. In some instances, fear was accompanied by anxietyand feelings of suffocation:

If we don’t uncover the reasons for climate change, we won’t be able to find a solution to fix it.This makes me feel at a loss and causes me infinite fear like I am being drawn under the deepsea. I cannot breathe […]. I pursue pleasure in my life, but this fear is opposite to my life(informant #6).

I am scared that climate change will cause disasters, such as volcano explosions […]. Thismakes me think of images of earth worms because I heard that earth worms come to land evenon sunny days to kill themselves when they feel a natural disaster, such as an earthquake, is

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coming.[…] Something like this will happen to humans; we cannot prevent destroying theEarth […]. We will die (informant #4).

NostalgiaIn psychology, nostalgia is defined as a bittersweet feeling about a past to which one cannever return (Muehling and Sprott, 2004; see also Hirsch, 1992; Holak and Havlena, 1992,1998). Among our informants, that past was construed as the magical time of childhood,before climate change became observable in Korea. The objects of loss were the cleardistinction between the four weather seasons and the mild transitions between hot andcold weather. Nostalgia was experienced along with regret, sadness and loss:

I remember when I was young, I enjoyed the weather change between winter and spring andsummer and fall, but now I do not feel spring or fall weather as much. Now, summer and winterare the only two seasons in a year. I feel like I lost something (Informant #2).

This is a sense of loss. I like to go outdoors to take pictures in the fall. However, recently Icannot feel fall; I feel like I lost the fall season, so I cannot go outside to take pictures. This issense of loss, and I miss fall more than I ever have before (Informant #11).

Some of the Korean interviewees were worried that unclear seasonal changes will havebroader societal implications, by altering Koreans’ current life patterns:

I think if we lose the clear weather changes between the four seasons, our daily life patterns,such as when we wake up will change, and our lives will change too […]. We will miss springand fall because there will only be summer and winter weather in Korea (Informant #1).

SadnessAs the previous quotes illustrate, nostalgia about one’s personal past was oftenintertwined with feelings of sadness:

Korea used to have four separate seasons; however, I do not feel the spring and fall seasonsanymore. I’m sad because I like spring and fall (Informant #9).

Sadness was also experienced in relation to people’s inability to reverse climate change.Informants perceived a sense of futility regarding individual attempts to be successfulat mitigation:

Many times, I think that I am the only one who thinks about environmental issues, such asclimate change, because most my friends do not think about this or make any effort to protectour environment. In this case, I don’t think I can change people’s thoughts by myself(Informant #7).

The perception of humans as disempowered in the fight against climate change wasamplified by metaphors of nature as an overpowering force. These perceptions maydemotivate South Koreans from adopting climate change mitigation behaviors:

For me, most images about climate change come from movies about natural disasters […]. Ifeel a kind of awe. I should be humbled by nature’s power […]. After feeling this awe, I feelregret about nature (informant #11).

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The (two-faced) JanusWe chose the two-faced Roman god Janus to represent the duality and ambivalenceassociated with climate change by the study participants.

Discoursive ambivalenceDual standards of accountability. The metaphor of human greed emerged yet again,albeit on a larger geopolitical scale. The South Korean interviewees mentioned that theglobal companies they perceived as responsible for climate change belong mostly todeveloped countries. Consequently, they believed that fixing the current climate changeissues is largely the responsibility of developed countries.

Assigning the blame to the advanced economies of the West is not uncommon.Analyses of media discourse in developing countries have found that responsibility forclimate change is allocated differentially along developmental lines (Billett, 2010).Although there is no published data on representations of climate change in Koreanmedia, the respondents endorsed this perception:

For me, it’s unfair if developed countries only lead regulations to control the industrializationof developing countries […]. Also developed countries can prepare for climate change bythemselves, but developing countries may not have the technology and solutions to prepare forclimate change […]. For me, developed countries should change first […]. To recover ourenvironment, the developed countries be responsible and repair our environment, such as theozone layer (Informant #8).

The one exception among developing countries was China. In terms of responsibility,China was placed next to the Western economies. Participants stated that each spring,Koreans suffer from a yellow dust from China that causes many respiratory diseases. Inthis context, they mentioned that China should follow the rules relating to climatechange mitigation they had assigned to developed Western nations. An illustrativeverbatim:

China is large like America, and China is radically developing, but China does not think aboutclimate change or its development’s negative effects on the climate. China is a harmful countryfor climate change now […]. Its number one priority is developing its economic condition(Informant #2).

Ambivalence about China was further reflected in participants’ perceptions of acontrasting duality between China’s political discourse and its economic andenvironmental policies:

Now, many countries meet together and try to agree on approaches to fix climate change, suchas at the Copenhagen climate summit […]. However, some countries participate like acompany because they are thinking about their own interests first. In this global commitmentwith such powerful countries […], China doesn’t really belong (Informant #7).

The dual role of technology: cause and effect. Human pursuit of advanced technologywas believed to cause climate change because in the development process,companies process raw resources. Many Korean interviewees used the image offactory chimneys to reflect the harm caused by technological development. At thesame time, they recognized that technology can help with climate change mitigation.For example, it was mentioned that electric cars and solar energy could reducedemand for petroleum:

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We need to develop alternative energy sources to replace petroleum, such as solar energy andwind energy, but I hear some companies in developed countries avoid researching new sourcesto protect their current profits from using petroleum (informant #8).

People pursue convenience with technology […]. In previous times, we could use handheldfans to cool down when the temperature was not too hot like it is now, but people havedeveloped electronic fans and air conditioners, so people don’t want to use handheld fansanymore because they found a more convenient way […]. The technology has been developed,and people know that using the current technology is more convenient (informant #10).

The ambivalence of media discourse on climate change. Media have always beeninvolved in the production of meanings for environmental events (Burgess, 1990). Theamount and diversity of remarks on the topic expressed by our informants denoted theirnuanced understanding of the role played by media in shaping public opinion.

On the one hand, the interviewees described media as a promoter of skepticism aboutclimate change. They noted that media often discourages the public from adoptingmitigation behaviors. Possible causes for promoting skepticism were identified:

• shared economic interests between media groups and high carbon industries (A);• governmental influence over media (B); and• bias toward reflecting opinions which are already endorsed by the audience (C):

A: The media plays an important role […]. If the media reports or announces thatindustrialization has limited effects on climate change, people may be less concerned about thedanger of climate change. Frankly speaking, I have a suspicion that there are some connectionsbetween the media and industries. Sometimes, I feel that the media protects industries to earnprofits (Informant #1).

B: I feel that the Korean government wants to make people feel comfortable about climatechange, so the Korean government uses media (Informant #10).

C: If people are interested in climate change, the media will report more on climate change […].If people aren’t interested in climate change, they don’t know what they are doing wrong, so theclimate change condition would become worse (Informant #2).

On the other hand, the informants were aware of the many ways in which media canpromote environmentalism and enable action toward mitigation. They recognized thatmedia can help raise awareness about climate change (E), favorably shape the publicdebate agenda (F), trigger interpersonal communication about the topic (F) anddisseminate pro-environmental values among the public (G):

(E) The main reason the media broadcasts the effects of climate change is to warn society aboutthe damage caused by climate change, and this is the reason why the media is importantbecause all people work together to solve the problem (Informant #3).

(F) Even though the media cannot affect climate change directly, it can spread messages aboutcurrent climate conditions to people, set up agendas about climate change, and make peoplethink about and discuss climate change (Informant #8).

(G) The media broadcasts news about climate change […]. Also, the media tells about commonvalues of societies and groups because climate change will be a problem that all people willneed to solve together.

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In the following section, we discuss the potential implications of the findings fordeveloping message strategies and for determining the executional style of socialmarketing campaigns focused on climate change mitigation.

DiscussionThe present study employed qualitative research to investigate mental models ofclimate change among young South Koreans. The protocol, a six-step version of theZMET (Zaltman, 1997), combined photo elicitation with metaphor analysis ofsubsequent in-depth interview transcripts. This method has not been used in socialmarketing research or in previous examinations of consumer perceptions of climatechange. The interviews provided rich insights about the participants’ cognitive,motivational, experiential, sensory, emotional and interpretive knowledge structuresassociated with climate change. Subject to the limitations discussed at the end of thepaper, the findings have theoretical and practical implications for social marketingcommunication and are conceptually relevant for social marketing research morebroadly.

By and large, the findings reveal and array of themes that can be used bypractitioners to develop social marketing messages congruent with the climate changeviews of young South Koreans. Messages which are congruent with (or match) themindset of the targeted public are more likely to induce a change in behavior thanincongruent messages because they are more likely to be accepted by the consumers.According to the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, consumers should seek to maintainconsistency (consonance) between their current views and new information. Exposureto cognitively incongruent messages would generate a state of psychologicaldissonance. Consumers will seek to eliminate the dissonance either by modifying theirinternalized beliefs or by rejecting the message. The latter is much more likely to happenbecause it is less psychologically costly (Baumeister, 1998; Lorenzoni and Hulme, 2009;Stoll-Kleemann et al., 2001). In addition, congruent messages are processed lesseffortfully, evaluated more favorably and are more persuasive than incongruentmessages (Cesario et al., 2004; Chang and Lee, 2009; Lindenmeier, 2008; Brunton, 2007;Kim, 2006).

For example, participants’ mental representations of climate change wereintertwined with feelings of sadness, fear, nostalgia and hope. This finding suggeststhat emotional appeals could resonate well with this segment of the South Koreanpublic, potentially being more persuasive than informational advertisements. AsWymer (2011) observed, a problematic assumption in social marketing is thatindividuals have control over their behavior and can be convinced to change the waythey act by rational arguments and appeals to volition (Peattie et al., 2009, p. 278;Spotswood et al., 2012). By implementing emotion-based message strategies, thecreators of social marketing communication campaigns could overcome this rationalitybias and instill behavior change via the affective route to persuasion. Research withWestern consumers has provided plenty of evidence that emotions and affect are thestrongest predictors of perceptions of climate change risks, in spite of what rationalchoice models would predict (Leiserowitz, 2006; Epstein, 1994; Loewenstein et al., 2001;Slovic and Peters, 2006). Given that emotions are universal, this might be the case withSouth Koreans as well.

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With the exception of hope, the emotions associated with climate change by thisstudy’s participants were anchored in negative affect. Given the prominence of negativeemotions in the participants’ mindset, the use of campaign messages based on negativeemotions appears a viable campaign strategy. Nevertheless, we recommend aninformed approach to developing negative emotion-based messages. Campaignmanagers should consider that certain contingencies could induce favorable responsesand others can trigger backlash effects.

Indeed, several scholars have warned against the use of negative emotional appealsin social marketing communication (Brennan and Binney, 2010; Hastings et al., 2004;Corner and Randall, 2011). It is beyond the purpose of this paper to provide a detailedaccount of the reasons invoked by those scholars (for detailed discussions and reviewsof empirical evidence, see Slocum, 2004; Maloney et al., 2011; Witte and Allen, 2000;Brennan and Binney, 2010). Nevertheless, the gist of the argument is that negativeemotions can induce maladaptive responses such as message rejection, which serve toprotect individuals against psychological discomfort; maladaptive responses are morelikely to instill inaction than a desired behavior change (Brennan and Binney, 2010). Ithas also been claimed that the ubiquitous use of fear and guilt in media coverage ofclimate change issues may have desensitized the consumers (O’Neill andNicholson-Cole, 2009).

At the same time, there is vast empirical evidence that negative emotions like fearand guilt can successfully induce desired changes in attitudes and behavior (Witte andAllen, 2000; Maloney et al., 2011; Coulter and Pinto, 1995). It appears that theeffectiveness of campaigns based on negative emotions depends on other variables,such as the perceived severity of the threat and the perceived efficacy of therecommended behavior (in the case of fear appeals, Maloney et al., 2011) or persuasionknowledge and source credibility (in the case of guilt messages, Coulter et al., 1999).Depending on these extraneous variables, the use of fear and guilt appeals may or maynot be appropriate.

The recommendation to use emotional messages in pro-environmental marketingcommunication is not a novel idea. Uzzell et al. (2006) claimed that emotion-basedmessages are among the most effective strategies to influence pro-environmentalbehavior. Moser (2007) cogently argued that social marketing communicators cannotignore consumers’ negative emotions about climate change or the campaigns are morelikely to fail. Winter (2000) also posited that experiencing negative emotions, inparticular, is a necessary step toward engaging in meaningful pro-environmentalbehavior.

Journalists and pro-environmental organizations have used images of hungry orstranded polar bears for decades precisely because they elicit powerful emotions likesadness or guilt (Slocum, 2004). Yet, global icons like polar bears may not motivatebehavior change among people whose everyday lives are not immediately connectedwith the Arctic, even though they do elicit emotional responses. ZMET is valuable as aresearch technique for social marketing communication because it goes beyondidentifying what emotions are relevant for a particular campaign; it uncovers thesymbols and themes which should be used to contextualize the emotions so thatcampaign messages are relevant to the targeted audience. The present analysis of thethemes and conceptual metaphors associated with participants’ emotions suggest thatSouth Koreans may be responsive to emotional messages which connect climate change

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with themes of loss (of seasonality and of traditional life patterns), or to advertisementswhich trigger nostalgic memories of a past unaffected by the negative consequences ofclimate change. In the language of social representations theory (Moscovici, 1984a), bycreating messages which contextualize emotional responses to climate change withinthe themes and conceptual metaphors identified by the ZMET procedure, socialmarketers would help objectify climate change as a set of concrete representations thatare highly relevant and meaningful to the everyday life of the targeted individuals. Suchshared social representations not only alter the views and attitudes of the public but alsodetermine behavior (Moscovici, 1984b).

The need to restructure consumers’ perceptions in terms of a set of locally meaningfulrepresentations has been recommended by others (Slocum, 2004) and should beextended beyond the creation of emotion-based messages to reconfigure otherperceptions of climate change. For example, the participants associated the negativeconsequences of climate change with remote psychological spaces (the arctic wildlife,the distant future or other peoples and cultures). Although all participants admittedthere is need for individual action, no sense of urgency or immediacy to engagepersonally in mitigation emerged from the interviews. Separating oneself spatially andtemporally from an issue is a psychological manifestation of denial of responsibility(Moser, 2007; Cohen, 2001; Opotow and Weiss, 2000). By anchoring campaign messagesin personally relevant themes, social marketers could aim to influence behavior byraising the perceived personal responsibility to take action.

The present findings and recommendations are in line with other recognizedtheoretical frameworks in persuasion, consumer psychology and marketingcommunication research. Construal level theory (CLT), in particular, offers apsychological explanation of why the recommended strategies of localization may workas a social marketing communication technique. According to CLT, as the distance froman event or object increases, so does the level of abstraction at which the event ismentally construed (Trope and Liberman, 2010). For example, if one is planning avacation six months from today, one will represent that event in terms of abstract anddecontextualized features and superordinate goals such as “a chance to unwind” or “funwith friends”; however, if the trip would happen tomorrow, one would be more likely torepresent it in terms of concrete details, contextualized features and subordinate goalssuch as “packing my beach towel” or “printing the tickets” (Förster, Friedman andLiberman, 2004).

Distance is a psychological construct which can be conceptualized in terms of spatial(e.g. the Arctic and the Maldives), temporal (e.g. future generations) or even socialparameters (i.e. large corporations). As can be seen in the emergent themes from theinterviews, the consequences of climate change were strongly construed in terms of highdistance. Perceived distance from a phenomenon may be helpful because it can lead tobroader categorization. Given the current public mindset, it may be relatively easy forsocial marketers to facilitate the understanding of certain behaviors as being related toclimate change. However, general knowledge of climate change has been largelyaccomplished. A more stringent campaign objective appears to be getting people to act.For that, a CLT interpretation suggests it may be time to move messaging to moredetailed and specific actions and outcomes. In the health campaigns literature, it hasbeen found that messages that are framed as more temporally proximate causeparticipants to generate more feasibility beliefs whereas those that see messages where

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the behavior is more temporally distant respond with more attitudinal and normativebeliefs (Luthcyn and Yzer, 2011). Thus, CLT affords a theoretical basis to predict thatcampaign messages using concrete language and symbols of temporal and spatialproximity would be more effective at eliciting action than campaigns based on globalicons and general themes.

Another campaign strategy suggested by the analysis would be the use of localcelebrities. Hope for a positive solution to the climate change problem was linked in themind of participants to education in both traditional and non-traditional settings. Manyparticipants thought that popular politicians and celebrities could play an active role asadvocates for climate change mitigation.

Campaign representations of others’ involvement in climate change mitigation couldbe extended beyond prominent individuals, to institutional entities. The intervieweesconsidered corporate and governmental engagement in climate change mitigationessential for addressing the climate change issue. In that sense, the public’s motivationto undertake mitigation behaviors might be increased by popularizing existing policiesor actions against climate change currently implemented by organizations, corporationsor structures of government.

By cultivating the public perception that other social actors are involved in climatechange mitigation activities, social marketers would also empower individual membersof the South Korean society to act against climate change. The participants felt a senseof futility about the ability of any one individual to make meaningful contributions tothe fight against climate change. Western consumers also feel disempowered, to thepoint that even the 75 per cent of Americans and Britons who have high levels of concernabout climate change reported taking very little action (Peattie et al., 2009). Therefore,based on the findings messages of empowerment appear to be a necessary ingredient forsuccessful social marketing communication campaigns focused on climate change.According to well-established theories of human behavior (The Theory of PlannedBehavior, Ajzen, 1991; Social Learning Theory, Bandura, 1977), messages designed toincrease perceptions of self-efficacy, such as informing the public about the immediateconsequences of mitigation behaviors, could generate a change in behavior.

The noted desire of the consumers to see private institutions and the governmentinvolved in climate change mitigation is consistent with theorizing by contemporarysocial marketing scholars that successful social marketing requires both upstream (i.e.societal and systemic) and downstream (individual) interventions (Wymer, 2011). Ourparticipants spontaneously expressed favorable attitudes toward the integration ofupstream and downstream efforts and considered it motivating. This finding validatesin a new context the conclusion of Hoek and Jones (2011) that upstream measures shouldbe seen as catalysts for the success of downstream interventions.

Findings from East Asian samples are often discussed in comparison with thosefrom Western-based samples. The purposive sample of young South Koreans used inthis study should not be construed as representative of East Asians, nor of young SouthKoreans. To infer any pattern of generalizable cross-cultural differences, quantitativeresearch with large and representative samples should be conducted to test therepresentativeness of qualitative research results. Such samples could account fordifferences in views based on religious values, age, gender and a range of other relevantdemographics which were not accounted for in the present study. That said, severalperceptions of climate change shared by the South Korean interviewees have also been

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reported by researchers which used Western samples. For example, Americans andBritons were also found to experience disempowerment and futility regarding theability of individual actions to mitigate climate change; they, too were shown to engagein psychological denial and to construe climate change as a threat to future generationsand faraway places rather than to themselves (Peattie et al., 2009; Anable et al., 2006). Inaddition, the emotions of fear, sadness, and hope, an essential part of our participants’views about climate change, are frequently used by Western media in climate changecoverage and have become part of the Western mindset (Hoijer, 2010).

The existence of these shared perceptions among Eastern and Western consumersindicates the possibility that mental representations of climate change are partiallyanchored in psychological universals which transcend culture and cultural values. Atthe same time, this may be a sign that the climate change views of both Easterners andWesterners are shaped by a globalized media discourse (Stamm et al., 2000). The latterpossibility would explain the frequent mentioning of global iconic clichés like polarbears or the name of Al Gore, an American politician, by the South Korean participantsand would constitute an implicit argument that social marketers should continue to usemass-mediated communication campaigns as a tool for promoting climate changeinterventions.

Finally, a note of caution is necessary concerning the generalizability of the findings.Like most qualitative methods, ZMET is not designed to ensure generalizability. Themethod is exploratory in nature. Although the number of participants was increaseduntil additional interviews provided no new themes (Zaltman, 1997; Zaltman andCoulter, 1995), it cannot be claimed that the findings reflect the opinions of South Koreanstudents in general. To minimize risk, before campaign messages are developed,quantitative surveys should be conducted with sociologically representative samples tounderstand the extent to which the ZMET findings reflect the mindset of the largertargeted population.

SummaryAccording to Bostrom and Lashof (2007, p. 31), “when it comes to climate changecommunication, awareness of our mental models and those of the people wecommunicate with is key”. This study sought to identify the emotional, cognitive andinterpretive mental structures which underlie perceptions of climate change among asample of young South Koreans. Our specific objective was to derive actionablesuggestions that could assist social marketing communicators in the development ofsuccessful climate change mitigation campaigns. The broader overarching goal of thearticle was to illustrate the applicability of ZMET to social marketing communication asan exploratory technique in the formative stages of campaign research. Wedemonstrated that ZMET can offer a wealth of insights into the consumer mindset,which is consistent with the consumer-centric approach of social marketing as a domainof research and practice (Peattie and Peattie, 2009). Among those insights was therelevance of specific emotions, the potential value of celebrity appeals, thepopularization of existing governmental and private sector initiatives (upstreaminterventions) and the discovery of ideas and themes which may make climate changerelevant to the everyday life of Koreans. We discussed how social marketingcommunication practitioners may apply the findings and cited several theories andempirical evidence indicating that messages which are congruent with the mindset of

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the participants should be more persuasive. To the best of our knowledge, this is the firststudy to employ the ZMET protocol in the social marketing literature. Broadlyspeaking, ZMET should be seen as a useful companion to survey research not only in theformative stages of pro-environmental campaigns but also in other areas of socialmarketing communication.

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Further readingHibbert, S., Smith, A., Davies, A. and Ireland, F. (2007), “Guilt appeals: persuasion knowledge and

charitable giving”, Psychology & Marketing, Vol. 24 No. 8, pp. 723-742.

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About the authorsGeorge Anghelcev is an Associate Professor of Advertising in the College of Communications andArthur W. Page Center, at Penn State University. His research focuses on consumer responses tocommunication campaigns. He is interested in social marketing and non-commercial advertising,with an emphasis on health and environmental communication. His work has been published inJournalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of MarketingCommunications and Journal of Social Marketing. George Anghelcev is the corresponding authorand can be contacted at: gua4@psu.edu

Mun-Young Chung is a PhD Candidate (ABD) the College of Communications at Penn StateUniversity.

Sela Sar is an Assistant Professor of Advertising in the Sandage Department of Advertising atThe University of Illinois. His research focuses on the impact of mood and emotion on memory andrisk communication effectiveness. His work has been published in Psychology and Marketing,Journal of Advertising, Journal of Marketing Communications, Journal of Current Issues andResearch in Advertising and Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly.

Brittany R.L. Duff is an Assistant Professor of Advertising in the Sandage Department ofAdvertising at The University of Illinois. Her research focuses on consumer responses toadvertising. Duff’s work has appeared most recently in the Journal of Advertising.

For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website:www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htmOr contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

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