Using Mass Media to Influence Energy Consumption Behavior: California’s 2001 Flex Your Power Campaign as a Case Study

Sylvia L. Bender, California Energy Commission
Mithra Moezzi, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Marcia Hill Gossard and Loren Lutzenhiser, Washington State University

Keywords

Abstract

Public information campaigns are one tool often used by government to deliberately shape public attitudes, values or behavior toward some chosen social outcome. During the energy crisis of 2001, California policymakers adopted this tool as part of a statewide multilayered social marketing effort called Flex Your Power. One of the most visible components of the effort was a multi-million dollar radio, television and print mass media campaign aimed at getting consumers and businesses to take energy-saving actions.

Writing in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Janet Weiss and Mary Tschirhart (1994) suggest that four factors are key for making media campaigns effective policy instruments. They define these factors as: 1) targeting the right audience, 2) delivering a credible, understandable message, 3) delivering a message that influences audience beliefs, and 4) creating a social context that leads to the desired outcome. This paper uses the Flex Your Power media campaign as a case study in the use of mass media to influence energy-related behavior during a time of crisis.

Using the four key factors as a framework, the paper examines the campaign’s message formulation and implementation strategy in early 2001 and the strategic evolution of its themes through the summer and into the winter months. The analysis draws from existing behavioral research, interviews with key campaign participants, media tracking data, and results from the analysis of telephone surveys and matched billing data for 1,860 California residential consumers in late summer 2001. The paper concludes with a discussion of the role of mass media campaigns as both short-term and long-term energy policy tools.