Check out this new video about cap & trade from Annie Leonard, the woman who brought is “Story of Stuff.”
There are about as many takes on cap and trade as there are environmental groups, which isn’t surprising given the system’s complexity and multiple permutations. The big take home message in this one is that the simplicity and promise of cap and trade evaporate when we try to enact it in the real world.
Wherever you stand on cap and trade, it’s hard not to be delighted by Free Range Studio’s spunk and style. And I’m always charmed when cartoons commingle with real life. Annie Leonard is happy to hop into cartoon land to talk about cap and trade, but it’s clear that she wants it to stay on that side of the divide.
The rest of the world will find out in April when HOW Magazine publishes its 11th Annual Interactive Design Award edition, but YOU, dear Underground Blog Reader, get the low down skivvy on the inside tip:
WE WON! WE WON! WE WON!
(Not that we care about that kind of thing.)
But we are rather proud that StopSoot.Org - the video, website and ad campaign we created for EarthJustice - was selected out of over 700 entries to receive one of handful of merit awards.
Congrats to everyone who worked on the project and EarthJustice for a super successful campaign.
Regularity in effect. Underground promises, Underground delivers. Each and every day a little bit of somethin’ somethin’ to contemplate, peruse, perchance, perhaps - a tiny bite of je ne sais quoi to add to your daily thinking on things like the role of advertising to help non-profits achieve their goals, the resurgence of the handwritten letter as a form of effective communication amongst friends, the responsibility of co-passengers on public transportation to warn one another of unknown substances on plastic seats, or the underestimated role that something as seemingly silly as soot plays in global warming.
Matt Haughey, the founder of Metafilter.com and a certified expert on creating and sustaining online communities, had a great post last week on the idea of social media. He’s actually talking about the online presence of a swingset manufacturer, of all things, but I think his point is applicable to nonprofit communications, as well, and worth a read. Here’s the nut of his argument:
So maybe instead of getting your company on twitter, paying marketers to mention you are on twitter, and paying people to blog about your company, forget all that and just make awesome stuff that gets people excited about your products, hire people that represent the company well, and when your stuff is so awesome that friends share it with other friends, you may not even need “social media marketing” after all.
One of the biggest questions many of our clients have these days is “What does the online piece look like?” They have a vague notion that there are different rules for communicating online– that you can’t just email your press release to a bunch of bloggers and expect to get a good result, that you need to think about starting a real conversation where your audience talks back to you instead of just beaming your message out and hoping for the best– but the actual mechanics of it all are still fuzzy.
[True story: a colleague recently asked, in all seriousness, "So, how much have we got budgeted for paying bloggers to blog about this?" Short answer: this is not a line item.]
Here’s the thing. Real success in the online world is built on having something that people want to talk about, share with their friends, and generally obsess over and/ or snicker at. In the corporate world, that’s a shinier widget, or a bit of foolishness that’s just perfect for forwarding. In the nonprofit world, it’s a new idea, communicated clearly, or a cause that reminds our audiences of the values they hold dear, all wrapped up in a viral video, or a community-fostering web site. Sure, you need to understand who your audience is, and where they are online, and you need to make it easy for them to share your story and spread the news. A good set of web banners or a viral video is key to driving traffic. But you can’t buy social media, and you can’t fake it.
Say you’re a presidential candidate who wants to reach a nontraditional audience– maybe young men who aren’t engaged in the political process. How do you do it? Well, if you’re Barack Obama, you advertise in the XBox racing game Burnout Paradise.
And if you’re John McCain? You probably just yell at them to get off your lawn. (via Talking Points Memo)
