Climate change is one of the world’s most pressing issues. But it’s also a complex topic, rooted in science and with its own terminology. While the signs of climate change, such as flooding and wildfires, are visible and affecting many people across the U.S. and around the world, greenhouse gas emissions—the driving force behind rising temperatures—are invisible, and efforts to reduce emissions can be hard to communicate to a general consumer audience.
In 2021, Bank of America set a goal to reach net zero emissions in its financing activities, operations and supply chain before 2050. That means the bank will reduce emissions across its value chain as close to zero as possible and then invest in actions that remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere to balance out any remaining emissions.
Communicating this goal, including the reasons why Bank of America set it and the strategy for achieving it, to consumers isn’t easy. For Earth Day in 2022, a focal point for environmental conservation, the bank decided to create a vertical video AMP story to help explain its climate strategy to its customers and other general consumers.
Given how much time people spend on their smartphones and the intimacy of consuming content up close and personal via social media, Bank of America opted to use the AMP story format to explain its net zero goal for Earth Day 2022. The bank chose this format because it combines the narrative structure of storytelling with images, videos and graphics that make information engaging and easily consumable.
Across 17 frames, the AMP story lays out Bank of America’s path to net zero in an immersive way. It starts with the challenge of greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change, which leads to heat waves, droughts, storms and other natural disasters. The story then outlines the stakes of inaction before presenting the solution of net zero emissions and how Bank of America plans to take action in building a sustainable future. Thus, the narrative builds in a logical way that is easy for audiences to follow.
The visuals in the frames were carefully selected to support the story. For instance, the frames that discuss the challenge of climate change feature industrial imagery and footage of natural disasters to make tangible what is at stake. Meanwhile, to instill hope and show what’s possible, frames about Bank of America’s commitment to net zero and the future feature the kinds of stunning landscape shots that come to mind for many of us when we think of nature. Throughout the AMP story, the video footage moves slowly to draw the viewer in without distracting from the short snippets of on-screen text.
The final story was posted in its own URL, as well as on Bank of America’s Instagram account. This distribution channel was chosen because of its strong identity as a platform for visually impressive and inspiring images and stories. We also issued a Tweet from BofA_News.
The Amp Story received more than 1,200 clicks to the URL. On Instagram, the piece generated 2.6K views.
