Believe me, I’m a sucker for good old fashioned stunt marketing. So it’s no wonder that Greenpeace caught my attention on Wednesday. They draped a 2,300 sq. ft. banner down the side of Lincoln’s noggin on Mount Rushmore. According to the proudly arrested Matt Leonard on his blog, they…

“…hung this banner on the opening day of the G8 meetings in Italy, and while the Senate looks to debate the Waxman-Markey bill - the first piece of comprehensive climate legislation in the US (and industry and many Democrats have rendered the bill more harmful than helpful).”

CNN captured the stunt as it happened and interviewed park-goers to get their reaction. Judging by the anger, makes you wonder if Greenpeace’s ambitious bit of environmental marketing actually generated positive sentiment to their cause and global warming?

One thing’s for sure, they could’ve used better creative direction to make the banner  resonate more with the commoner. Perhaps a thought bubble above Lincoln that said, “Is it hot out here, or is it just me?” Now that’s the kind of stuff the National park visitor can appreciate, and it would’ve gotten a few chuckles from the parking lot.

What do you think? Does this make Greenpeace look silly, radical, relevant, important, thought provoking, what…?

1. Fly-on-the-Wall: By searching appropriate keywords on Twitter, (“green advertising”, sustainability, “environmental marketing”) and then following the conversations, I can better understand the thinking and trends in the industry. I also capture quick links to relevant websites and articles, and learn what like-minded eco-conscious Tweeple are looking for. This way I know how and, more importantly, IF I can help. Plus, it helps me define the green community I want to engage.
2. Cheerleader: Blogging gives me the forum to applaud the best green marketing practices, (Like the Kohler toilet promotion) at least as I see them, and share those insights. GreenRaising.com is another good example.
3. Encourager: Social media gives me the voice to invite great companies to do better with their green initiatives, like Telluride Ski Resort’s modest participation in SkiGreen.
4. Boo-Hisser: I can also call out those greenwashers of the world: The “Clean Burning Coal” industry comes to mind, or StopNestleWater.org.
5. Advocate: Social media allows us to also become advocates for those in bureaucracies. Large government organizations often have important conversations they need to have with their constituents but can’t use social media due to policy. Water conservation is a good example, where towns and cities partnering in the Water – Use It Wisely campaign can’t always engage in social media. So the campaign’s website, that we manage, does it for them.
6. Utility Infielder: SM isn’t only about commentary. Being a resource for identifying and sharing cool websites like Coke’s LivePositively.com, linking to great causes like Brighter Planet and featuring their badge on my blog (look to the right), or offering useful downloads like the Earth Hour to Earth Day calendar for the easy things you can do in five minutes or less to save the planet.
7. Pollster: Where else can you administer a FREE poll and get solid, relevant information from around the world? (Take a second and vote on your favorite green website.)
8. Organizer: With free programs like TinyChat.com, you can easily gather your world and host a conversation on the green and sustainable topic of your choosing, inviting in experts, followers, clients and interested parties.
9. Connector: Sean Daily of GreenLivingIdeas.com uses social media to connect eco-conscious writers and help them promote their work through podcasts and social networks. Sam Davidson of CoolPeopleCare.org connects with their followers daily with simple things you can do in five minutes or less to save the world. I use it to connect folks like these with you.
10. Educator: Webinars are your digital pulpit to help educate and train participants about your work in sustainability. Once produced, your presentation can be re-purposed through a blog, as a free eBook, and with slideshare, to name a few. I have recently posted my webinar, “How to Reduce your Carbon & Hype Footprints” which was part of the iGreen Virtual Conference.
11. Enabler: Barack Obama’s campaign demonstrated that social media is one of the greatest enabling tools of all time. Take a page from his playbook and build community around your environmental mission, green cause, eco-conscious rants, or global warming march. You don’t even need a worldclass strategist and/or web designer.  You can start on Ning.
12. Individual: Is mass media dead? Probably not. But more now than ever the individual consumer is in control. As David Ogilvy once said, “Word-of-mouth marketing is THE most powerful form of advertising.” As a marketer of sustainable, green, and eco-conscious people, products and/or programs, consider yourself blessed to have such a powerful, far-reaching and empowering medium at your finger trips…for free.  There’s something or someone bigger than us all out there, and he/she may have endowed us all with social media as THE tool that saves this planet.

What’s your 13?

If you would like to follow the tweet string from the Wisconsin MBAs, search #bizpitch. Thank you Melissa for this terrific opportunity to work with your students.

Cheers!

CoolPeopleCare.org demonstrates easy ways you can save the world in five minutes or less.

BestGreenBlogs.com is the web’s largest directory of green and sustainable themed weblogs.

Ecopreneurist.com is part of Green Options Media, a network of environmentally-focused blogs covering a broad spectrum of information for making sustainable choices.

LazyEnvironmentalist.com offers easy, stylish and super convenient ways to green your lifestyle

RealClimate.org is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists.

TreeHugger.com Owned by Discovery, this site is a media outlet dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream.

Grist.org where news about green issues and sustainable living isn’t predictable, demoralizing, or dull.

GreenLivingIdeas.com provides ideas, tips, and information to help you improve the environmental sustainability of every aspect of your life: home energy, green building and remodeling, cars, food, waste recycling—and everything in between.

DoTheGreenThing.com is a not-for-profit public service that inspires people to lead a greener life, with the help of brilliant videos and inspiring stories etc. from creative people and community members around the world.

EcoGeek.org publishes up to ten stories daily about innovations that are saving the planet.

Celsias.com offers tools to help people combat climate change, and bring the green community, companies and organisations closer together.

TheNaturalStep.org is a non profit organization founded with the vision of creating a sustainable society.

TinyChoices.com is a colorful blog about all things green.

Conservation.org has a mission to conserve the Earth’s living heritage – our global biodiversity – and to demonstrate that human societies are able to live harmoniously with nature.

ExperienceBiOH.com Brought to you by the BiOH polyols business — a maker of soy-based ingredients for foam, The BiOH experience offers resources for you to learn and participate in helping communities and the environment.

TwilightEarth.com is dedicated to saving the the environment through schared news, deiscuss, advocacy and activism.

MoreEco.com offers a single entry point to some of the finest green online retailers whilst rewarding you for your ethical shopping habits and helping to reduce your carbon footprint.

EcoTrendSpotter.com provides readers and shoppers with the latest eco, organic, green products.

RecycleFund.com A site dedicated to easy and earth-friendly fundraising for your organization by recycling empty printer cartridges and cell phones.

HyperLocavore.ning.com Join hyperlocavore to find or start a yardshare in your town. CSAs and community gardens fill up fast. Food is expensive! Grow together!

Inhabit.com is a weblog devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future.

Green.com is a unique online world where people can safely gather, learn, and interact with each other.

Please feel free to share this poll with everyone you know to drive votes for your favorite green website.

Friends and co-founders, Sam Davidson and Stephen Moseley, created the site to educate on and demonstrate the myriad of little, easy things we can all do to make a big overall difference. And they’ve orchestrated an equally impressive set of green communication tactics to engage the masses.

Here are just seven that caught my eye:

1. Daily email tips on what you can do in five minutes
2. Robust website that offers events and activities specific to your city (9th Annual Strong Beer Festival in Phoenix) with an area to post your own events
3. A new book, “New Day Revolution, How to Save the World in 24 Hours” with more than 100 quick read tips
4. Links to other great green messaging causes like “A Pledge for a Song,” where you can download a free tune from Missy Higgins when you pledge to reduce your carbon usage by just two percent. See below for the 10 easy ways to do just that.
5. A library of searchable articles
6. Facebook and other social media venues
7. And of course, YouTube

Sam and Stephen have done an excellent job of making their easy environmental tips as accessible to the public as possible. I leaned about them in a Homestyles magazine (my wife’s an interior designer), so their P.R. machine isn’t bad either. I hope they’re on the front end of a trend to make green marketing and messaging, and the environmental lifestyle tips at its core, as easy, accessible and digestible as possible for the mainstream.

Hey, they got my attention with beer and music.

Ten Quick and Easy Ways to decrease your Carbon Output this year:

1. Drive smarter – keep your tires properly inflated, go the speed limit, drive less and walk more!
2. Buy local and organic – the average American meal travels 1,500 miles from the farm to the plate. Be more conscious of where your food comes from and you can pollute less at dinner time.
3. Call your electric company and switch over to green power! Most utility companies offer renewable energy options for just a few dollars more a month.
4. Replace incandescent light bulbs w/compact fluorescent bulbs. Compact fluorescents produce the same amount of light as normal bulbs, but use about a quarter of the electricity and last ten times as long!
5. Save energy at home! Caulk and weather strip doorways and windows. Keep your thermostat a few degrees higher in the Summer, and a few degrees lower in the Winter. It makes a big difference!
6. Get shower smart. Install low-flow showerheads and faucets and turn your hot water heater down to 120 degrees F to see hot water costs go down by as much as 50%!
7. Replace electronics and appliances with energy efficient models. Look for the Energy Star label when purchasing.
8. Plant a tree! Planting shade tress around your house will absorb CO2 and slash your Summer air-conditioning bills.
9. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! Recycling paper, glass and metal saves 70-90% of the energy used to produce new materials while keeping more waste out of landfills. Buy purchasing used clothes and furniture you save the environment from the effects of all of the energy that would have been used to create those same products if they were brand new!
10. Mount a local campaign against global warming and participate at the national, state and local level. Click here for details.

Do you have a tip to add to the list? If so, comment below and feel free to Tweet away!

The idea of the project was to see what we can all do as individuals to curb greenhouse gas emissions and curb global warming. Rowlatt and his wife say that it was an astonishingly small amount of carbon, about two tons, for the sacrifices made. “Ethical men and women acting alone will not be enough to stop climate change.”

The BBC has given Ethical Man an even greater challenge: To travel across America and save the entire world from global warming.

“I’m going on a 6,500 mile trip around the nation that brought the world the motor car, the aeroplane, the suburb, the drive-thru hamburger joint and the hot tub, in search of solutions to the biggest problem on earth.

Each American is responsible for 20 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, more than twice that of the average European. But America is also the most innovative and powerful nation on earth and, what’s more, has a president who says he is serious about tackling global warming.

The idea is simple. If we can solve global warming here, we can solve it anywhere.”

- The BBC’s Ethical Man

Here’s Where You Come In

Hey Ethical Man, if you’re coming to Phoenix, AZ we’d love to talk about our work in sustainability and water conservation.  Plus, we’d love to introduce you to a couple of our friends, including Russ, the hydroponic gardener and Donal, the green mobile messaging inventor.

Ethical Man is looking for people across America to talk about solutions to global warming. If you have an idea or want to refer Ethical Man to someone you know who is making a difference, contact him on Facebook and Twitter. He’s starting his adventure in Muskegon, Michigan, of all places, and will be circling the nation looking for anybody who is or has ideas on how to reduce greenhouse gasses and curb global warming.

• Doubling the number of recycle bins at All Star festivities
• Creating a PSA featuring the Suns’ Steve Nash and Dan Majerle at all All Star functions
• Using post-consumer products to build a playground as part of a community service project
• Purchasing 1500 megawatt hours of renewable-energy credits from Arizona utility, APS

Show Me the Bling

This is all great and I’m happy to see the NBA continue its effort to green its teams and brand. But I’m wondering if the NBA is simply going through the green motions. I started looking for cool NBA green bling (icons, logos, photos, etc.) that at least visually demonstrate their new greenness. I looked on their web site. Air ball. The NBA YouTube channel. Blacked out. Even the ’09 All Star and NBA Jam Sesssion sites. Benched!

The Jam Session kicked off the week of festivities. This 500,000 square feet of  family fun is a cavalcade of NBA history, games, and exhibits. But not one square foot dedicated to educating consumers on the benefits of green living and sustainable habits. What an opportunity missed!

If I ran the NBA circus, here are 10  things  I’d do (They have to pay for my other 32 ideas):

1. Green H-O-R-S-E (Winner gets a solar-powered lighted sports court)
2. Half-court shoot competition for a Tesla motor car
3. Let kids produce their own NBA green PSA’s and run those (Winner goes to Sundance Film Festival)
4. Give away re-usable KOR water bottles with commemorative green logo
5. Hand out green basketballs, green air pumps (You know, for sustainability), and green sweat bands that say, “Green Your Game”
6. Karaoke competition for who can sing, “Turn Out the Lights, the Party’s Over” the best.
7. Commemorative green Air Jordan Nike sneakers with the caption on the side: “Earth Bound”
8. Water conservation message on green Gatorade bottles
   
9. Work with the local Harlem Globe Trotters to bring the green message to Phoenix schools
10. Have the refs wear green and white stripes for the game.

What would you do to launch the NBA’s green initiative at the NBA All Star Game?  So far they’ve come out kind of flat.

350.brighterplanet.com is one more gem discovered.

You’ll notice to the right of this post (ok, you might have to scroll down a bit) my new badge for participating in Brighter Planet’s mission to offset carbon. And you can too.

Just place the badge on your blog, let Brighter Planet know, and they’ll offset 350 pounds of carbon in your name.  Why 350 pounds? According to the website, 350 is the parts per million of Co2 in the atmosphere that we must aim for if we want to keep the planet relatively safe. Brighter Planet’s 350 Challenge: Get 350 bloggers to post the badge, and each receives a 350 carbon offset in their name. It’s been hugely successful with more than 1,600 badging-up.

The program was inspired by Bill McKibben’s awareness campaign that you can learn about at 350.org. You can also hear his podcast on Brighter Planet’s blog.

Where does Brighter Planet’s money go on your behalf?

They invest in a variety of renewable energy projects that might otherwise go unfunded and/or unnoticed. You can learn about their carbon offset policy and meet the people on their project selection committee.

So what do you say? Slap the badge on your blog. Let the Brighter Planet people know.  And you’ll offset 350 pounds of gunk in the air. It’s just another small and easy thing we can all do to help brighten the planet and curb global warming. Pretty cool, eh?

New York Ad Agency Brooklyn Brothers claims to have just produced the first carbon neutral TV commercials.  But do they add up?

According to agency co-founder, Guy Barnett, the agency worked with UK resource management company ERM to calculate and offset the carbon produced for a TV campaign created for Versus TV Channel.

Here’s the math:

1. 15 TV commercials
2. Shot on location in Texas
3. 80 crew members
4. 40 vehicles
5. 10 flights
6. Extensive shoot production facilities
7. Hundreds of hours in post production editing

= 8.9 tons of carbon produced

Cost to offset? Just $20 per ton = $180

This sounds all very impressive until you get to the $180 part.  Can anyone tell me how the $180 offsets nearly 9 tons of carbon?  This seems like such a minimal cost for so much pollution. So I dug deeper.  ClimateCare.org is the organization that helped Brooklyn Brothers make their spots carbon neutral. Here’s a quick explanation of how it works.

So now all of us in the green advertising business need to consider how we can easily offset our creative carbon footprint. We probably don’t even have to do the calculation. Just budget an extra $200 into every production budget and get with organizations like ClimateCare.org to help us clean up our mess.

Have you ever consider the carbon footprint of your TV or photo shoot? If so, how’d you go about offsetting it?

ProBlogger Darren Rowse

Have you tried these different tactics, and if so, which work the best for you?

1. Write something useful

“40 Tips for a Better Life: Can You Add to the List?”

2. Write something unique

“Homeless Squirrel Chatters About Environment, then Disappears”

3. Write something newsworthy

“‘Green’ is Out! Word Canceled for ’09″

4. Write something first

“How Tom’s of Maine can Flex it’s Leadership Through Social Media”

5. Write something that makes those who read it smarter

“How to Tap Online Social Media for FREE Green Video Distribution”

6. Write something controversial

“Is God Green?”

7. Write something insightful

“Can a Soda Save the World?”

8. Write something that taps into a fear people have

“A Floating Island of Garbage Twice the Size of Texas”

9. Write something that helps people achieve

“How To Create Brilliant, Sustainable Creative with Limited Resources”

10. Write something that elicits a response

“Can You Save 365 Days Worth of Trash?”

11. Write something that gives a sense of belonging

“Youth Making Noise About Water Conservation”

12. Write something passionately

“Green Social Media Isn’t Just About Being Online”

13. Write something that interprets or translates news for people

“New Green Campaign Highlights Harsh Reality of Burning Coal”

14. Write something inspirational

“Obama has Given us the Blueprint for how to Activate Sustainable Green Causes Online and Off”

15. Write something that tells a story

“What I Learned Peddling a Bike”

16. Write something that solves a problem

“What Retailers can Learn from Goodwill about Green Retailing”

17. Write something that gets a laugh

“Going Out of Business has Never Been Funny…or Funnier”

18. Write something that saves people time or money

“50 Simple Green Ways to Save the Earth”

19. Write something opinionated

“Four Reasons why Twitter is not Elephant Crap”

20. Write something that is a resource

“100 Twitter Tools for Green Marketers”

21. Write something about something cool

“Artist Creates Recycling Message from a Dump”

What do you do that guarantees traffic to your blog?  Please share by commenting below.

1. Leveraging the Power of Inspiration
2. Bottom-up Brand Management
3. Continuous Activation Through “SMART” Objectives
4. Social Networking Infused with Healthy Competition
5. Pop-up Stores to Galvanize Online/Offline Activity

I just want to take a moment to celebrate all we – as messengers of green, environmental, sustainable, or whatever you want to call our Earth-friendly marketing pursuits – have learned from Obama’s social media outreach by featuring one of his videos. I like it because it’s beautiful storytelling that is welcoming, engaging and inclusive.  Above all, it feels honest to me.

All of our green environmental outreach efforts for recylcing, conservation, sustainability, etc., should be as open and honest. That’s how you invite the rest of the world to join your cause.