By now you're all familiar with the well-hyped event know as 'Earth Hour'. An event that won the 2007 Cannes Titanium award for Leo Burnett, WWF and its commercial supporters. If you've been living under a rock, Earth Hour 2008 takes place Saturday March 29th, at 8pm.
But how much of a legitimate event is this? To many, it's looking like nothing more than an opportunity for companies to greenwash the public.
Then again, the public would appear to have different thoughts. Here's a poll taken on Saturday March 29th @ 9am by Sky News Australia.
If you'd seen the Cannes entry, you would probably be thinking Australian's are an environmental bunch. Not really the case, Well, perhaps unsurprisingly Earth Hour is attracting its fair share of critics and has come under intense scrutiny by the Australian media this week - except that is, if the media outlet is Fairfax. Fairfax is a chief sponsor, who's major mastheads include The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Melbourne Age.
Influential media commentator Crikey took advertising industry rag Campaign Brief and the advertising industry to task this week, highlighting just how farcical the event is.
And rightly so.
Here's an extract from Crikeyemail this week, along with another article here
Let's play spot the oxymoron.
To celebrate Earth Hour, ad magazine Campaign Brief -- with Earth Hour partners Fairfax/The Sydney Morning Herald -- is offering the chance to win a trip to Cannes. Yes, in a big old emission-puffing plane.
Thanks guys for switching off your lights, we'll now use it to offset our delightful European sojourn! Campaign Brief writes:
[We're] offering two trips to the creative team who demonstrate the most effective and/or inspirational way to leverage Earth Hour 2008 and The Sydney Morning Herald is offering a trip each to the client and agency person behind the best work...
"Just about the whole industry has put aside its cynicism and pledged to support this initiative", says CB. "How many times in your life do you get offered an open brief that encourages you to openly borrow from a Cannes-winning idea?"
Yes thank you dear ad companies for putting cynicism to one side, but forgive us if we can't. Earth Hour might have noble aspirations, but the execution is a little murkier, with greenwashing as far as the eye can see.
Well said Crikey. And long overdue criticism. Take a look at the entry video and overview board produced by Leo Burnett Sydney for the Cannes Advertising festival.
You'll see media hype - otherwise known as media impressions, is the order of the day when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of an event. So you can bet that bit of footage from Sky New above doesn't make it to the Cannes Entry reel this year.
So what's the WWF make of this commercialisation? Who knows, but if you take a look around Sydney, commercial endorsements are certainly responsible for some serious carbon emissions. Posters, Flyers, T-Shirts, Caps, Billboards. You name it.
Aside from the huge amounts of printed collateral, including a 40 page 'Light's Out' supplement in Fairfax papers, there was this stunt for AGL Electricity which had commentators pointing out the emissions from that balloon alone would probably account for 10,000 light bulbs!
Here's how the WWF is promoting Earth Hour 2008. Obviously the Cannes entry video wasn't quite the award winning cut they needed.
Sure, everyone's pitching in on this topic, but here's what emanated out of the smart, shiny noggin of Seth Godin:
"The problem is that ad agencies have defined themselves as the people who take the mediocre products and add interesting ads to them, and washed their hands and say, we can’t do anything about what the factory brings us."
IA of Japan have created a trend map (full map here) of popular sites and their proximity to each other. Read the full entry on their blog for info on how to buy it as a poster and other formats. Found via the CS blog.
Funny we were making fun of people using Web 2.0 by saying lets aim for web 2.5 and this map already does this.
I wonder how long it will be before other markets catch on and start calling themselves stuff like Bank 2.0, Automobile 2.0, TV 2.0. It sounds like marketing balony yeah? That's how we sound to everyone else by using that terminology.
Here are our not-so-serious thoughts on the thinking that was perhaps behind the new Qantas logo.
Point 1 : The Roo no longer touches the ground.
That's because its a Flying Kangaroo.
The new Roo will spend less time grounded thanks to billions in new plane orders
Point 2 : Part of the Roo's tail has fallen off
It was the underperforming union bit. The new Roo can do more than ever, but with 5% less Union labor to hold it back
Reflects the cutbacks to maintainence. That piece of the tail was present on the original plan, but because the tail painting was out-sourced to Asia, it fell off. However we believe it may be stapled back on in the near future
Macquarie Bank souvenired it after its failed privatisation attempt
Jetstar took over that bit, as it was under performing and would be run better by its low-cost cousin
Point 3 : The Roo has an elevated tail
Fare's are going up. It's assumed the position
Point 4 : The Roo looks squashed and a bit bigger around the waistline
The Roo is seated in Economy. That new Premium Economy class had to get its space from somewhere, so you plebs flying Economy now have even less room
It's seated in First Class and has enjoyed a 10-course degustation menu on it's flight from Sydney to LA
Point 5 : Italicised Qantas Typography
When taxing to and from Sydney Airport's far flung third runway the italicised font makes the plane look like its moving faster to those situated in the control tower, thus cutting a few minutes off the journey to the terminal.
It looks like it's making a quick exit, just like a few on the board
Point 6 : Bigger Ears
Next time you complain about the food, it'll hear you...
The next time you put a video on Youtube or create a branded Myspace page for a brand just remember that we can all see the stats on views. So if you video gets a few hundred views or your brand has less Myspace friends than my mum, it's probably not worth trying to promote this as successful work.
Faking these stats might seem easy but it's not just views that make up a Youtube videos stats. It's favs, rating, comments and links. Those are a lot harder to fake. Same goes for Myspace and there you need comments and an active forum.
I think of blogs these days as Digital Puppies. Everyone loves a digital puppy but after a few months of having one you realise they are a lot of work to look after. Once the sparkle has worn off many are put to sleep, others are just mistreated and eventually die a lonely death.
