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“There was once a land where the weather was very, very strange...”

The government’s latest attempt to convince the public that being wasteful today will have dire consequences tomorrow has received a somewhat stormy welcome. According to Act on CO2, the £6m 70-second television advert, which shows a father reading an apocalyptic bedtime story to his daughter is “designed to raise awareness of climate change and convey the imminence and the need for urgent action”.

Response to the ad, first broadcast on October 9, was mixed. “Brutal”, “scary”, “misleading” and “the most spectacular waste of taxpayers’ money” were some of the kinder comments among a torrent of 357 complaints. Others – and yes they did exist, despite what the papers would have you think - considered it a brave attempt to use storytelling to engage the public on the most important issue of our age.

A poor example of effective communications then?

Not at all. By making much of the population either shake their heads in indignation or nod with recognition, the ad did a great job of sparking debate and conversation and putting climate change back on the agenda.

Our experience of working with large organisations on transformation programmes tells us that to create an environment for successful behaviour change, you usually need to take people out of their comfort zones. That means taking the risk that your comms campaign might raise the temperature or cause the odd storm.

It’s also important to add that the government’s “bedtime story” ad is not a stand-alone piece of comms. It’s just the latest output from Act on CO2, a cross-government campaign that has spent the last three years using a range of communication techniques and channels to change the way we live.

Because it knows that you can’t change behaviour overnight, no matter how good your bedtime story is.