Advertising sustainable consumption

Do you think better advertising will be enough to bring about sustainable consumption? What effect do adverts have on your consumption behaviour?

Better advertising alone will not be enough to enhance sustainable consumption. I think people need examples of sustainable consumption in their direct surroundings. However, targeted advertising could work, especially in places where decisions about consumption are made: in stores and at home.
In supermarkets unsustainable products can be tagged with photos and texts showing/ telling what damage the product does to the environment: e.g. photos of factory farming animals in distress or burning rainforests. Also the real price including environmental and social costs can be put on the products, without actually asking this price yet.
To promote sustainable consumption at home people could receive a package of stickers or something, to put at light switches, water taps, heaters, etc. Some time ago a campaign in the Netherlands called ‘Here’ was run, using all kind of media commercials and sending information and stickers to people’s homes. The aim was to raise awareness about climate change and give specific actions for people to act more climate friendly. The stickers were simple but had attractive design, and once put somewhere repeatedly reminds you to carry out specific behaviour. More information is available at www.hier.nu (also English version of the site available).

The effects of advertising on me...well, first of all adverts usually tell me that I’m an unfashionable elephant, can’t appreciate that really ;-) Generally I don’t identify myself with the people, products or messages in adverts so they only have little effect on me. They rarely make me buy more than I planned for. However when new sustainable products are promoted I quite often do try the product.
Also I had the pleasure of spending some time in the middle of nowhere, where no TV, radio, internet, electricity or whatever things we assume to need in develop countries these days were present. And I must say that it is extremely relaxing not to have this constant information flow through all kind of messages all the time. I wouldn’t miss advertising.