A Thought

One thing has repeatedly crossed my mind throughout the duration of this course. It is a concept that was mentioned by Kevin Tuerff when he asked us how we, as advertisers, convince consumers to consume less?

This is quite the predicament, as ours is a profession based almost entirely on the promotion of consumption; a profession where failure and success are gauged by the level of consumption inspired by our work.

When working with a product like Belkin's surge protector, which Tuerff spoke about, the task is fairly easy, as the product's main selling point is that it consumes less energy than a standard surge protector.

When it comes to any other number of products with more finite applications, the solution is much more muddled. How do you get across the message of consuming less when advertising a product like Pepsi? Pepsi's business model is pretty reliant on people consuming as much Pepsi as humanly possible, so they wouldn't take to kindly to an ad campaign that went something like this:

"Pepsi. Just have one!"

Since promoting a reduction in consumption has been overwhelmingly shunned, brands have attempted to make people feel good about buying their products for reasons not intrinsic to the benefits of the product itself.

Pepsi Refresh Project is a perfect example, who wouldn't want to buy soda from a company that puts, like, 1/100,00,000,000,000,000,000,000th of its profits into socially responsible gestures?

The problem is that none of the proposed ideas in Pepsi's initiative do anything about the 13 empty Pepsi bottles, cans and cups that litter any given block in any given city.

Not to be left off the rapidly accelerating bandwagon, Coke chimed in with its Live Positively campaign. With ads that make claims like, "If you've had a coke in the last 80 or so years, you've been a part of the biggest beverage conveyance recycling effort ever." Good for you! Better have a few more Cokes to reward yourself.


The problem with campaigns like these is that the are intrinsically hypocritical, promoting goods responsible for an obscene amount of waste while claiming to be some shining beacon of light for social responsibility.

This ends up being the problem with the entirety of Green Brand Advertising. How can a consumer good possibly be beneficial for the environment when it was produced in an industry with an ecological footprint as deep as... as... well... as something really deep?

Sure, Clorox may be using all natural ingredients, but it's still a damn bleach company, people! Bleach was specifically created to end the lives of natural things!

Both Tuerff and Adam Webach attested to the fact that they are realists, and that they understand the world isn't going to change overnight, which is certainly some valuable perspective to have for anyone going into this business.

You have to understand that you're not going to run some magical green campaign that reaches every corner of the earth, prompts governmental and societal revolution, saves the planet, and cures every known disease. It doesn't work like that.

As fun as it may be to say in a James Earl Jones-esque voice, the fate of the world is not in the hands of advertising. We're not going to be the ones making the change, the change has to come from the top, from governments and corporations.

We're going to be the ones telling people about it.

The Green Brands Trilogy

During the later meetings of Green Brand Strategies, there was much talk of a potential series of courses involving the subject matter. A Green Brands Trilogy of sorts.While I think there is plenty of merit in this idea, I would venture to say that a significant retooling of the course outline might be necessary.

Not ragging on the course here, I'm just saying that it occasionally lacked direction, which would hamper attempts at a year-long course series. Here's my suggestion, as well as any evidence needed to prove why I should never be a teacher.

Term 1: Brand Sustainability Concepts. An in-depth analysis of what makes a brand sustainable. Maintaining a less overt focus on "Green Advertising," this class would serve as a introduction to sustainability practices, from the individual level to the corporate level. What is actually good, what is bad.

A class like this would have greatly helped my comprehension in GBS, as I was not particularly knowledgeable about sustainability practices. This class would be open to other majors as well, including business and design majors, as sustainability practices are will be necessary in these fields as well.

Biggest downside of this class? It can be abbreviated BS Concepts, and is therefor prone to mockery.

Term 2: Sustainable Brand Strategies. Essentially the same course as the current GBS, but with a more stringent adherence to advertising strategies, as all the introductory stuff would have been taken care of in the previous term.

The existence of BS Concepts would allow for this class to delve entirely into the analyzing of "Green" advertisements, and the application of the subject matter from the previous course.

Term 3: Sustainability Production. In the third term, ad majors would team with product design majors to innovate in the fields of sustainable technology and advertising.

The product design majors could work on some sort of new product, or packaging design, and the ad majors could run a campaign for the product.


So yeah. That's what I've got, and I think it could be pretty cool. especially the third term. That sounds like it would be fun to me.

Rollin' on Pippens.

So I was walking through campus the other day (as I usually do), when I was approached by a woman with a clipboard. She was quite attractive, (as women paid to approach people usually are)and proceeded to ask me how I felt about blowing up mountains for coal.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't be until seconds after our brief conversation ended that I thought to say, "Blowing up mountains? It's about damn time. Haven't you seen Dante's Peak? I say get them before they get us."

Damn that would have been sly. But I was late on the draw, (as I usually am) and our conversation ended with a lie about me having to get to class. So is the way of the world.

But of course, the issue the I was approached about is a serious one, as you can tell by the super-dramatic music in this ad:



Despite being confusingly named, The Coal River Mountain Wind Project (wait... So is it a coal project on a river, that has something to do with mountain wind?) is a battle being fought to save the Coal River Mountain from being turned into a coal mine via large explosions.

The idea is to establish windmills on the mountain to make up for the energy that would be made by turning the mountain into something more sinister:


The Annihilatrix

Hopper | MySpace Video

But I guess the annihilatrix did end up solving global warming, so never mind.


Luckily, Coal River Valley residents are getting the chance to share their views with congressional officials this week.

The proposed wind turbines would create enough power to... um... power 70,000 homes. (Yay for verbal nouns!)