integrating sustainability themes into media - Collaborating Centre ...

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Stakeholders involved
Welt der Wunder and the research project took steps to involve stakeholders from
different fields as partners. The government stakeholder that was engaged was
the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, which provided funding for the
project. From the media side, Welt der Wunder took the role of the scriptwriter and
producer for the sustainability episodes. Stakeholders from the research community
were the chair of Environmental Management of University of Hohenheim,
Jacob University Bremen, Adolf-Grimme Institute and the nwd institute. The research
partners provided different tools and activities for bringing sustainability
experts and TV stakeholders together and providing support to Welt der Wunder in
the form of sustainability information and feedback. From the private sector the
communication agency Lichtl Ethics & Brands was involved. Lichtl provided the
project with an emotionally based marketing concept referred to as “Ecotainment“.
Ecotainment aims at reaching consumers with sustainability products and services
in an emotional and lifestyle-oriented manner.
Target group
Welt der Wunder is a well known TV media program that reaches between two and
three million viewers per episode. Welt der Wunder has experienced increasing
success in communicating sustainability information following the introduction of an
internet website with an increasing pool on sustainability information and online
video programming. In addition, a print media magazine published by Welt der
Wunder is now being produced. Most Welt der Wunder audience members are of a
mid to a lower socio-economic background and tend to be interested in receiving
information in the form of entertaining storylines that are helpful in their every-daylives,
such as how to save money by reducing energy consumption. Moreover, the
Welt der Wunder target audience is generally both less informed about sustainability
issues and less interested in viewing explicit, knowledge based sustainability
media content.
Evaluation
Coverage (+++): The Welt der Wunder concept has been very successful. Trends
in audience ratings are stable and external media coverage is high and continues
to grow following the launch of the online video content and additional internetbased
information features and tools.
Emotionality (++): Welt der Wunder addresses audience members on an emotional
level. By doing so, it becomes possible to effectively communicate implicit
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