It Grows On Trees

Coen too Far on Latest Reality Anti-Coal Ad?

So this is another fun, in-your-face spot for Reality, Al Gore's anti-coal campaign. But part of the hype that is was written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen.

And I'm like, really? Why?

Hey this is great stuff, but did they really need the A-list brothers (unless because they'd write/direct pro bono, maybe)? Just wondering.

Whatever — it got me blogging, and the media buzzing, so I guess that's a win. It's still great creative and a killer strategy.

Ecomagination Campaign Makes Superbowl Comeback

And since GE saw fit last night to run, along with this cool new spot, the ad that it earned an Emmy nomination all the way back in 2007, it may seem a little obvious at this point, but still worth stating:

Ecomagination IS the GE brand.

It is the only way GE is describing and differentiating itself. And that makes for a whole lot of examples for other companies, large or small, with any eco-forward initiative of any scale. Think about it.

It's a real measure of the times — considering that green advertising was essentially absent from last year's broadcast.

VW Polo: Sensibly Absurd

So the car's fuel economy is surreal but not quite Dada? Do you need to know art history to get this? What would T. Boone think? A great message — hijacking a great movement in art. Alas, further proof of the hegemony of capitalism.

Read about the crazy performance of the little Polo here. Sorry kids, you won't find Volkswagen's diesel-sipping compact for sale in the States. But you may find plenty of jealous drivers dreaming of their own 50 mpg + ride. So it goes with the treachery of images.

Via adrants.

Greenpeace Recycles JFK

And the result is both creepy and cliché.

Look, at this point, invoking the Apollo project and the civil rights movement of the 1960's to stir support for a green economic makeover has been thoroughly done.

We did it two years ago (pre-Astronaut*) when we rebranded the world's largest biofuel producer, Poet. The "We" campaign did it earlier this year. Thomas Friedman (2004) and Al Gore (2007) have each called for a new "Apollo program" to reverse global warming. And before any of us, the Apollo Alliance started it in 2004.

I like what Greenpeace has done in the past. And I'm a fan of AKQA, which produced this. But the CG repurposing of JFK's speech completely upstages the message. I wonder if by reanimating the departed hero, Greenpeace has really put a nail in the coffin of his inspiration.

Hat tip to adrants, which has apparently delighted in covering Greenpeace's advertising over the years.

* When we named our shop "Astronaut" in early 2007, it was to invoke the mojo of those "star travellers," not to link the green movement to the moonshot of '69. If that means anything.

Fitness Freaks

This ad for the Honda Fit is, well, a smorgasbord of fun.

Found it in the latest issue of Ultimate X-Men. Creative seems to "fit" the comic book fanatic demo. Would this fly with, say, a Lexus hybrid ad? Why?

Giving Coal a Black Eye

And a dose of reality.

Few can throw a punch like this like Al Gore, who has teamed with a posse of eco-heavyweights to call out the clean coal whitewash with a new site/organization called "Reality," with a killer URL: action.reality.org

I thought the "we" campaign was refreshingly in-your-face. But this one made me giggle with delight.

Via Al's twitter feed....

Anyone Else Find This Awkward?

A call to arms from the newly radical energy incumbents in the "compressed natural gas" industry. Looks like, along with numerous election-cycle-ready campaigns like this this this and this, we can add CNG's scintillating new bromide to the 2008 energy-independence bandwagon.

Is it me, or is this one a little hard to jump out of your chair for? If you really think about it, the slogan, backed by the campaign's headline "Demand CNG Now," reads as shorthand for  "KICK FOSSIL FUEL WITH SOME OTHER FOSSIL FUEL."

Click the dial one more notch and you've pretty much got "Drill, Baby, Drill!"

"CNG Now" is almost as uncomfortable as Sarah Palin's claim that she said "thanks but not thanks to that bridge to nowhere." But in that way, maybe a push for natural gas is perfectly compatible with the double-speak of  presidential election politics, in which the Barnacles of the Beltway are suddenly the barracudas of "change."

Are we so cynical now that we believe up is down, war is peace, black is white and natural gas is green? More important, do the minds behind this slogan really think we're going to run yelling into the streets to demand more compressed natural gas?

These are questions the CNG campaign are going to have to ask, and fast. Right now, the slogan comes in dragging an albatross of "me-tooism," the lone accessory on a naked emperor. Energy independence is a worthy goal — one that deserves creative work that shift culture.

CNG may very well be a legitimate alternative fuel source. I can't say. What I do know is that this messaging strategy feels like an embarrassing call for STATUS QUO NOW. For a concept sure to run a long endurance race for media attention in clean energy, not exactly the best start out of the blocks.

Help Us Help You

Funny how the worm turns — not only when the Oilmen turn into Windmen, but when online media turns to broadcast media, and vice-versa.

Just this morning, in the latest issue of Commarts, its interactive annual, editor Patrick Coyne's column caught my attention with this quote from interactive architect Liz Danzico:

"The page metaphor is dead...the idea of getting beyond the browser is really taking shape, too."

Put another way, the intersection of new and old media, metaphorically or practically, is getting more twisted and free all at once. Consider the oxymoronic assault a few green(ish) marketers have made on my inbox this week: I've been getting emails linking to online media with entreaties for your help and mine getting some TV spots to air.

Apparently reaching millions online isn't enough. They actually want us to use social networks to get their media on the tube.

Curiouser still is the implied message that these spots can only be effective if they're seen on TV. Here they are:

The first, from T. Boone himself, hasn't won the approval of NBC gatekeepers, but apparently it might if you squawk for airtime the billionaire can't buy.

The second from a political action group Campaign for America's Future (with a minority-green message) is aimed at Republicans gathering  in St. Paul next week; producers are hoping to raise money online to get the spot on the air in time for the GOP convention.

The third from the We Campaign is already airing on TV, but campaign organizers are are reaching out in hopes you''ll forward it to friends online.

In Which Alternative Energy and the Green Economy Live or Die by the Blue Collar

In the run-up to the 1994 World Cup soccer tournament, the first ever held in the United States, when asked what it would take to make the game catch fire as a major league sport in this country, one commentator replied, "working class people."

Think about it. That majority segment of the global population is the reason soccer is the most popular sport on the planet. It's played by the hardscrabble denizens of the toughest economies across the world, on dirt fields, concrete back lots and weed choked patches of grass. Its greatest heroes come from the humblest roots. In the US, soccer is an upper-middle-class rite of passage, played on glistening expanses of pristine suburban lawn. That's alien to the Americans who shape culture, especially those in the inner cities and far rural corners of the heartland.

And yet proof of the working-class maxim is right in front of us here in the States: all the biggest sports in America are the province of blue collar dreamers — football, basketball, baseball and hockey. These are cultural forces ruled and propagated not by a privileged elite, but by regular people in the  toughest neighborhoods in America. They're the cultural grassroots that germinate and gather strength in the proving ground of the sandlots, the school ice rinks, the frozen ponds, the playground courts.

Find a way to capture their devotion, and you will capture the country.

 

So it goes with preened and booksmart greenies: the movement will live or die by the participation of those who are not classically green. Which is why Good Old Boy T. Boone Pickens may be the Wayne Gretzky of the movement.

The Texan oilman's pedigree is maybe the most shocking and delightful boost the green movement could have hoped for. You expect Al Gore to make hay with with the college-educated middle class. But a self-made billionaire born in a dusty little Oklahoma hamlet is the guy who just might connect with regular folks in a way that Planet Green and Leo DiCaprio simply can't. Watch this video. You want to have a beer with this guy and listen to his stories. But then, he's a product of working class America. Rich as hell, yes, and so is Brett Favre, and look how many Americans are standing by him even as he squeezes the Jets for millions.

Pickens's entrée into this space holds a lot lessons for anyone trying to scratch out mainstream acceptance of their ideas. One of my favorites is the fact that he's got a Facebook page; if an 80-year-old oilman is talking environmentalism in this medium, shouldn't you?

The biggest lesson, though, is that the success of a green makeover for this country rests not in the hands of its traditional allies, but in those of the Americans Pickens represents. It will be interesting to see if others catch on. I for one hope like hell they do.

Flirting With Recycling

Because it's one of life's little pleasures...

 

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via AdRants