Life on the other side: Rob Beamish
Rob Beamish is a creative director with unique experience in social and behavioural change communications. He set up the environmental activist NGO, Rouser, which blurs the lines between entertainment, activism and art. He reminds us that our skills can be used for social and environmental good.
Interview by Rhiannon Crane
What prompted you to jump out of advertising?
I guess for me, I was really interested in film and I’d been writing for a long time before getting into advertising, which was a good way to make a living from writing and creativity. Over the years, as that novelty wore off, I think I struggled more and more with the ethics of what I was doing, both in relation to advertising and because it seemed we weren’t dealing with the environment and climate change in particular very well as a society. The more I felt jaded with advertising the more I thought “how can I use my skills in some way to make some small difference?” over the years, I’d enjoy the jobs that had a strong ethical or social component to them, more than the ones that were selling soft drinks or whatever. I found those jobs more motivating.
You’ve worked for a lot of social-good brands, was that something you consciously worked towards or something you fell into?
It was a very conscious decision. I think it all goes back to growing up Tasmanian. I grew up in the country and had access to rivers and the bush and really importantly the Franklin Dam was a background to my childhood and had a real impact on me. So I think I’ve always liked the idea of activism and I’m an anti-establishment kind of dude — I can’t help it! Essentially, I just got sick of turning off that side of me that didn’t really want to be part of the machine of pure commerce and I could see that the skills we’ve got are actually really valuable if they are used for positive change.
Maybe that’s a Tasmanian thing, because I feel very aligned with you on that, it’s a challenging industry to navigate when you have strong morals...
Yeah, it’s got easier in a way because we no longer have to deal with things like tobacco but there are still a lot of really troubling parts of our industry. I think gambling is a really big one. Some agencies have a really positive stance on this, which I commend then on, but others don’t. I think gambling is a real blight on society, which preys on the most disadvantaged in society economically, yet there’s so much money being made in advertising from gambling. Being part of a machine that has basically created a sense of externalising psychic or spiritual needs and convinced people that they can inhabit a better place with this car or that pair of shoes, is pretty insidious, but it’s also really fun — so it’s hard.
Have you ever refused to work on a client?
I haven’t really. I set up a not for profit, Rouser, just before the pandemic hit and shut down all our production and took all of our funding. Our very kind philanthropic funder was suddenly seeing the world very differently and needed to conserve funds. So that’s meant I’ve had to go back into advertising with a different approach. People kind of know what my sensibilities are and tend to use me more for things that I lean towards. Some of them are overtly ethical and green. But generally, I just tip-toe away from the things I don’t feel so good about. In the past I don’t think I’ve ever said a hard no to anything but I’ve sort of pushed back on strategies. I can think of one example where there was a brief essentially using pester power to get kids to drive their parents to purchase confectionery. That was before I had kids, but I still got that it was really messed up and I was able to steer away from it. It’s been more in that realm than saying I absolutely won’t do it. I’ve really struggled with a few power companies in the past that I probably should have said no to but didn’t.
Aside from the very real and impending doom of the planet, what made you decide to start Rouser?
It was only the impending doom of the planet. I'd toyed with the idea of setting up a for-purpose agency but didn’t really quite have the vision for it ,and then the Wilderness Society job came across my radar and I thought that seemed like a really good way to dive into the heart of activism. That informed my view of how communications weren’t being used effectively by the green movement and influenced the strategy around Rouser and how it worked. I could see that the green movement wasn’t engaging the mainstream because they didn't understand communications, because they are campaigners first and foremost and they’ve got some really strong biases around advertising and communications which loops all the way back to consumerism. My thing was that we’re in a guerilla war, and that there are some really effective weapons lying around that we need to pick up and use. And I see engaging communications content in that arsenal. We’re in an attention economy so unless you’re actually engaging people and being seen, you don’t exist and there’s no point in saying x, y or z to people if they’re not listening.
How did you feel talking about the climate crisis in the middle of a pandemic?
It was really hard. You had people who were completely overwhelmed by COVID and the uncertainty of it and they didn’t have the space to process climate change on the back of that. Plus, getting through the media clutter of COVID was sort of impossible.
The upside is there have been recent studies to show that COVID did increase people’s overall awareness of climate change, and I think people understand that sense of something that’s operating at a scale we haven’t imagined before and of the world being something that we can’t control. I think the biggest challenge with climate change is that people can’t really imagine a future that’s vastly different to their experience. So COVID helped, even in an abstract way, to crack that open. A big part of the challenge is we can’t imagine what it’s like to not have access to clean water or for agriculture to collapse. At the end of the day most people aren’t aware of the climate impacts that are coming down the pipe. By 2040-2050 there’s probably going to be 2 billion people without access to clean water, 1 billion climate refugees, major food sources collapsing around the world, and genuine food shortages, not to mention the geo-political conflicts and economic collapse that follows. You can just see people’s eyes widen. That’s not being spoken about anywhere in places other than The Guardian, and that’s the big crime.
A lot of people don’t know how to deal with the climate crisis, so they choose to ignore it.
Yeah! There’s been really good studies on that. When you talk to someone about climate change they lean in and they’re concerned, yet the longer you talk, the more overwhelmed and apathetic they become.
What does the future of Rouser look like?
I don’t quite know. I’m still doing that part-time, I’ve still got a number of projects that are moving along slowly. I’ve still got one very big project that I’m looking for a large sum of money to get off the ground, but also a couple of small ones that hopefully will see the light of day in the next few months. I’m going to keep on jamming on it and see what happens and hope that I can get a few projects going that prove the strategy works. At the moment I don’t really want to go out hitting the fundraising trail with a strategy that’s unproven, because I don’t think there are many people out there that will take the leap of faith my previous funder took, because he instinctively got it and was pretty risk tolerant.
How does guilt play into your strategy for environmental campaigning?
I don’t know if it does play a role in the strategy. That might not be a helpful answer but I think I try to avoid guilt. I want to cut through and open people’s eyes and minds to some degree but not in any way that triggers guilt. I think in some ways it’s about empathising. It’s really hard to do anything about this and it’s really easy to be overwhelmed. I just want to inspire people to learn and feel a sense of agency to do something about the environment.
I think guilt might be counterproductive.
How does guilt play into your life?
I try not to be too driven by guilt, it’s certainly something I’m no stranger to. Now I try to process it in a way where I tune into what it’s saying , rather than just triggering shame because I don’t think that helps.
Have you ever been given any good advice on how to deal with guilt?
I can’t remember being given that much good advice on guilt. I know people say it’s a wasted emotion. I don’t think that’s true.
I think it’s a necessary response to us not behaving according to our values.
Before you worked largely on ‘good brands’, how did you reconcile feeling guilty about working on brands you didn’t believe in?
I don’t think I really did. I guess it's easy to say “I’ve got to earn a living” but I don’t think I did it very effectively as it always rested fairly heavily on me.
What advice would you give young creatives currently dealing with feeling guilty about this?
Be outspoken and don’t hide your views and your values. It’s beholden on everyone in organisations to play an active role in making them better.
Call out what you don’t like and celebrate what you do.
There’s a theme of change across your work. What change would you like to see in the industry?
I think we need a much more diverse mix in advertising. It’s very, very white and it’s very, very male and it’s very, very established. I was in a meeting the other day and everyone was talking about schools and the number of people that were from private schools was close to 100%. I think we need people from different ethnic, religious, gender, and sexuality backgrounds. So yeah! Just more of that.
I’d like to see the industry change the way business works. I love B Corps and that whole movement and I really think that’s the future of business. They shouldn’t have a right to exist unless they balance profit, planet and people. None of them can be overlooked.
I’m working in that space of using advertising as a tool to try and get more businesses to change the way they operate. There’s absolutely no reason why many more corporations can’t rapidly transition to much more genuinely purposeful organisations and still do well. It’s a cliche that change is upon us anyway so we may as well use it. We might as well be motivated by it rather than try to avoid it happening!
Does advertising do more good or bad?
Definitely more bad. Apologies to anyone who doesn’t share that opinion but WAY more bad. Directly bad but also pretending to be doing good whilst doing bad.
Beyond advertising, who are your role models, and who do you see contributing to a positive change in the world?
I love Greta Thunberg because she's young and authentic and so clear-minded, and I think she’s done so much to galvanise a generation that was obviously very committed to the realities of climate action and she's single-handedly become a lightning rod for change. That’s all multiplied tenfold for me because she’s autistic. I've got two autistic kids so I understand autism and whilst its obviously given her an amazing focus and degree of insight, it can also be really challenging and alienating. I think she’s such a great role model, not just for youth and women, and obviously climate activism, but also for neuro-diversity. She’s profoundly influential.
Other than that, anyone who is having a go really. Anyone who is genuine using their abilities in the corporate world to create change.
I’m working with a few corporate leaders at the moment who are really inspiring.
Activists, whilst they drive me crazy, I love them for their commitment and their willingness to sacrifice.
Noam Chomsky is my greatest living influence, and I’m sure Noam will never read this but I’m already preparing myself for him no longer being a living influence. But he’s one of those people who makes me feel like I’m not going insane because he can lay out and decode what’s going on in the world with such clarity that everything seems to make sense even though it’s a disaster zone.
And Kate Tempest who is a poet/hip-hop artist who just blows me away!
Is there anything else you would like to share with the Gabberish readers?
If anyone’s got a million dollars, I’ve got a really cool concept that’s waiting to go, so shout out.
