Clemenger, cookies and climate sceptics – inside the NewsJacker campaign

Clemenger BBDO’s ‘NewsJacker’ for The Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) is an attempt to expose more people to the science behind climate change.  

NewsJacker highlights the rising scepticism towards climate change as a result of online misinformation and algorithmic echo chambers. 

It’s a provocative website that arms the younger generation with a tool to break climate sceptics out of their misinformation echo chambers and change their minds.

Scepticism has a foundation, says Leigh Arbon, planning director at Clemenger BBDO.

“A plausible fact minus context. A piece of logic that just feels right. Or often, straight-up misinformation. Sceptics are sceptics for a reason, and it comes down to the information they hold important,” he said. 

Arbon and the team at Clemenger believe exposing more people to the science behind the issue can only help, he said.  

“By delivering the information in a non-confrontational way, we’re taking the temperature out of conversation and letting the information speak for itself,” said Arbon. 

At first glance, the campaign appears to be a mere homemade cookie recipe; however, when someone is sent the recipe - specifically designed technology has been built into the site to update their cookies. 

This then prompts the internet to consider how they care about the climate. From here, users will begin to receive factual news stories about climate change.  

Arbon said the agency’s starting point was to try and address the information gap between scientists and sceptics. It then narrowed the problem down to misinformation, media and algorithms. 

“Cookies are a key part of the way the internet currently operates. They capture and transmit our behaviours which then powers engagement algorithms and echo chambers,” he said. 

“Once we got to cookies being the problem, cookies became a fitting creative solution.” 

There were many roadblocks in the process, said Arbon, with the NewsJacker website itself being a challenging concept to execute and convey.  

The idea of sharing links is a tricky one, he said, as it can be perceived as either cheeky or dishonest. 

“We discussed both sides along the way. In the end we decided the ends justifies the means and we were fortunate that in the AYCC, we had a partner who understood the intent, importance and tone of the campaign,’ he said. 

Despite some criticism around the campaign and its workings, Arbon noted that the site doesn’t actually change anyone’s existing cookies.  

“We add to them; and only after asking, explicitly stating the site’s purpose and receiving consent (take a look at our cookie consent disclaimer),” he said. 

“The technology we use on our site is used on nearly every website. The only reason our site works is by virtue of the fact that publishers are doing everything they can to listen and track our behaviours so they can put us into buckets for targeted advertising.” 

The NewsJacker website is a drop within an ever expanding ocean of data publishers hold, said Arbon.  

“If you truly have a problem with the way the campaign works, you probably hold a far bigger issue with the internet and media,” he said. 

“You’re just not yet aware yet. One of our campaign goals is to help more people understand how the influence of the media and internet are too often underestimated.” 

Clemenger’s website has been viewed in more than 60 countries, with the agency receiving fan letters from Australia and abroad, said Arbon. 

“We’ve been asked to weigh in other causes, to translate our site into other languages, to share our approach and even to create a vegan cookie recipe.”