Enlisting Millennial Moms
to protect Mother Earth
Context
In 2019 I participated in the altMBA, an intensive four week master class focused on empower leaders to level-up by engaging in a series of 13 assigned projects which are published on the altMBA site and critiqued by coaches and fellow participants. Throughout the workshop individuals are assembled into learning groups of four to five people to discuss individual briefs as well as complete a collective capstone assignment by the end of the week.
In the third week of the program assignments were focused on developing empathy and leveraging the familiar in order to catalyze change. The design brief advised teams to “steal like an artist” by creating a public awareness campaign around climate change that would resonate with users by virtue of its ability to remind them of something they were already familiar with, making it easy to understand and inspiring users to take action.
Role
As an active member of the Week 3 learning group, I assumed the role of user experience researcher, conducting interviews with friends and colleagues from different backgrounds to gain a better understanding of the range of attitudes towards climate change and the obstacles which prevent individuals from taking corresponding action, particularly when they’ve expressed a deep interest in the sustainability of their local communities.
As part of the design brief I developed and prototyped several potential campaign options, including a social media strategy, podcast, and an e-commerce platform.
Process
From the outset, our group decided to develop and consider several different personas, considering relevant demographics, such as age, gender, education and income levels, as well as psychographics, which relate to a user’s hopes, fears, attitudes and motivations, among other factors. Each group member assembled a distinct persona and then presented it to the group for discussion. After challenging the assumptions underpinning various use groups, we began to coalesce around a persona named Jenn: a new mother belonging to the Millennial generation (roughly mid-20s to mid-30s) who is a working professional in the tech sector and is seeking ideas and resources to live in a more environmentally-conscious way.
With two of our group members belonging to our target user group, we began to explore common pain points, including a strong desire to remain informed without being inundated by irrelevant information. FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is especially strong among this group of young women who want to stay in the loop but don’t have the time to search for relevant information themselves.
Rather than use a How Might We statement to frame our response, we decided to ask a question of our target user: If Earth was your baby how would you take care of her? By seeing Earth through the lens of a loving mother, we were able to frame environmental issues through a familiar lens. This was an important consideration, since climate change can be a difficult area to bring attention to as many individuals feel a lack of urgency or have a strong sense of its direct effect on their daily lives. By associating Earth with our user’s children, she can see the effects of environmental degradation on the world they will inherit, allowing us to use that bond to gain enrollment and spur action.
In developing a more holistic picture of our target user, we understood the need for curated content which could be accessed at her convenience. As a result, we began to consider the merits of various campaigns and platforms, testing their defining characteristics against the preferences of our user. In subsequent discussions we discovered that email newsletters, such as The Skimm and Finimize, were extremely popular among this group, as they served as a trusted source of information which could accessed at the user’s leisure.
In Action
Once our team selected the persona of Jenn, the Millennial Mom, as our target user we developed an empathy map (above) to understand her motivations in seeking to address climate change as well as challenges she faces. Tools such as this one were used to determine the distribution channel, messaging and core elements of our public awareness campaign.
Team members deep in thought as we discussed the effectiveness of various public awareness campaigns following user interviews. Two team members are Millennial Moms, offering further insights into our target user base.
Through user research our team discovered that Millennial Moms trust email newsletters, such as Finimize and The Skimm, to keep informed, rather than social media, which they treat as a fun escape.
Outcomes
In response to our user research, we developed Mother Earth: an email newsletter, website and supporting social media accounts which serve as a platform for connecting like-minded individuals in a way that’s timely and accessible. A key feature of Mother Earth is its tone, which is warm and welcoming, a key attribute which interviewees identified as being key to sustained engagement. Mother Earth provides a wide range of information, including personal stories, product recommendations, educational resources and event listings. It represents a comprehensive source of curated information in a fun, informative format.
In subsequent discussions with our fellow altMBA students, we determined that organic growth for the platform could come from following the caregiver route, by expanding it to include Fathers, Grandparents and other individuals within a child’s network who wish to preserve our planet for the next generation.
The first two issues of Mother Earth are included below.
