Tweens Prove Energy Messages Can Shift Household Behaviors.
DOE’s Child-Focused Campaign Shows Recognition Drives Real Actions on Energy Saving.
Why Tweens Became Energy Messengers
In 2008, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Ad Council launched “What’s Your Excuse?”, a campaign that placed the burden of energy efficiency not on policymakers, utilities, or parents, but on children. The target was deliberate: tweens aged 8–12, a cohort old enough to absorb factual knowledge and socially persuasive enough to influence household decisions. At the time, U.S. households were under pressure to conserve energy during rising fuel costs, while climate urgency was beginning to climb into mainstream debate.
The campaign aimed to correct a cultural blind spot. Research showed that while parents understood efficiency in principle, actual household behaviors lagged. Children, meanwhile, represented untapped leverage: they are impressionable, they adopt habits quickly, and they exercise influence at the family level. By directing messages at tweens, often using humor and peer comparison, the DOE hoped to seed behaviors that would ripple upward.
Over the next two years, the campaign delivered PSAs across television, radio, outdoor, and digital channels, including Disney tie-ins. Spots pushed tweens to interactive websites such as LoseYourExcuse.gov, where downloadable “Energy Action Plans” gamified conservation. By late 2009, donated media value had exceeded $41 million, positioning What’s Your Excuse? as one of the highest-reach sustainability PSAs of its era.
But reach alone was not enough. The DOE commissioned a rigorous evaluation, three surveys totaling more than 3,400 respondents, regression analysis, and propensity score matching, to test what mattered: recall, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. The results show both the promise and the limits of youth-centered energy messaging.
Campaign Design and Strategic Objectives
The DOE’s strategic framing was explicit: messages had to be fact-based, age-appropriate, and action-oriented. The creative strategy played off children’s tendency to give excuses when asked to do chores. Ads confronted those excuses, why not unplug a charger, turn off a light, or change to a compact fluorescent bulb?
Objectives fell into four measurable categories:
Increase knowledge of specific energy facts.
Strengthen pro-conservation attitudes.
Motivate conversations between tweens and parents.
Drive self-reported household behaviors.
The DOE accepted constraints inherent to public service advertising: all media was donated, limiting control over placement and scheduling. Yet that very model amplified cost-effectiveness; by leveraging corporate partnerships, the campaign secured national television spots, bus shelters, billboards, and even Disney Channel integrations at no direct cost.
Methodology: Evaluation With Rigor
Impact assessment unfolded across three major surveys:
Baseline (August 2008, n=500): measured energy awareness before launch.
Follow-up (August 2009, n=498): tested recall, knowledge, and behaviors one year in.
Custom survey (August 2009, n=2,496): large-sample deep dive focused on ad-specific recognition.
Crucially, evaluators used propensity score matching and regression models to create statistical control groups. This reduced bias from factors like demographics or pre-existing household behaviors. The approach allowed analysts to estimate causal effect size: whether seeing an ad increased the likelihood of knowledge or action.
Limitations were acknowledged: online surveys skewed toward higher-income households, and media intensity data undercounted cable/national placements, making exposure harder to track. Still, methodological transparency was high, rare for a PSA campaign of that period.
Reach and Recognition
By 2009, 46% of tweens recognized at least one campaign ad, a level in line with national PSA benchmarks. Some spots dramatically outperformed:
“April” (TV) → 30% recognition, double Ad Council’s average benchmark of 14%.
“Tinkerbell” (Disney integration) → 20% recognition, though inflated by confusion with Disney content.
“Malcolm” and “Matthew” (TV) → 15% recognition each.
Recognition rates skewed higher among girls (especially ages 11–12), non-Caucasian tweens, and urban respondents. These demographic nuances underscored how cultural cues and media placement shaped cut-through.
Most important: recognition was significantly correlated with every intended outcome, knowledge, proactive attitudes, parent engagement, and behaviors.
Knowledge Gains Anchored to Specific Spots
Knowledge outcomes proved the campaign’s factual backbone worked. By 2009, more than 70% of tweens answered DOE energy fact questions correctly. Recognition boosted accuracy further:
Phantom energy: kids who recalled “April” scored 88% correct vs 81% otherwise.
CFL bulb lifespan: kids who saw “Malcolm”/“Matthew” scored 82% correct vs 70%.
Even modest lifts mattered. In aggregate, ad-aware tweens consistently outperformed their peers in energy knowledge. The evaluation proved PSAs can embed technical facts, an area where most youth campaigns struggle.
Attitude Shifts and Family Dialogue
Attitudinal measures showed broad pro-efficiency sentiment: over 80% of all tweens agreed saving energy is important. But ad recognition created sharper edges:
Ad-aware tweens: 88% agreement.
Non-ad-aware: 83% agreement.
Perhaps more consequential was the diffusion effect. 70% of ad-aware tweens said they would discuss energy saving with their parents, compared to 65% of non-ad-aware peers. Campaign design had explicitly banked on this: nudging kids to “nag” parents into action. While not dramatic, the lift confirmed a strategy that turns children into household sustainability advocates.
Gender splits added nuance: girls were more inclined toward parental engagement, while boys were more likely to recall technical facts like chargers and bulb lifespan.
Behavior Change: From Recall to Action
Behavioral metrics were the ultimate test. Results were encouraging:
90%+ of tweens reported at least one energy-saving action in six months.
On average, they reported five out of ten tested actions.
Propensity score models showed ad recognition increased reported actions by 0.48 behaviors, small but statistically significant.
Ad-specific effects:
Kids recalling “April” were more likely to unplug chargers (69% vs 53%).
Kids recalling “Malcolm”/“Matthew” were more likely to switch to CFL bulbs (68% vs 56%).
While self-reported behaviors always carry inflation risk, the consistency of directional impact suggests real-world influence. When scaled to millions of households, even half a behavior shift becomes meaningful.
Lessons on Media and Measurement
The evaluation surfaced a critical insight: media intensity (airings per market) did not predict outcomes. The flaw was methodological, media logs excluded cable and national placements, understating exposure.
Instead, ad recognition proved the reliable proxy. This lesson reshaped later Ad Council campaigns: rather than relying solely on donated media counts, evaluators prioritized recall surveys as the truer exposure measure.
The implication is broader: in PSA campaigns where media cannot be bought and tracked like commercial advertising, recognition metrics should be the primary currency of accountability.
Strategic Recommendations
From the evaluation, several directives emerge for future sustainability messaging:
Recognition is the KPI. All downstream outcomes, knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, depend on it.
Cue specific actions. Ads linked to tangible household objects (chargers, bulbs) produced measurable results.
Design child-to-parent pathways. Kids influence family behaviors; campaigns must deliberately script that diffusion.
Broaden equity in evaluation. Online-only sampling underrepresented low-income households, despite their disproportionate energy burdens.
Elevate motivational framing. While the campaign successfully corrected excuses, it lacked aspirational hooks tying energy saving to identity and global stakes.
Bottom Line Ad Recall Turned into Household Action
The DOE/Ad Council “What’s Your Excuse?” campaign shows that even small behavior shifts among tweens matter at national scale. Recognition translated into knowledge, attitudes, and measurable action. While not transformational, the campaign proved that children can be effective cultural conduits for sustainability when messaging is specific, recall-driven, and rigorously evaluated.
The consequence is blunt: public service media is not decoration. It is a policy instrument. In the climate era, the difference between symbolic campaigns and functional ones will be recognition—and recognition begins with creative that connects a fact to a concrete action a child can take and teach at home.
