I witnessed PR in the making today by sheer coincidence. It was so exciting, it gave me goosebumps and at that precise moment, the needle on my nerd monitor spiked.
There I was on search.twitter.com, up to my neck in research and popular opinion on reusuable grocery bags, when in the matter of minutes it changed. Breaking news shot out over the Twitter waves from CNW, declaring reusable grocery bags a health hazard.
As this message spread out over the Twitter waves, I found myself up to my neck in dissenting opinion about reusable grocery bags. The National Post was quick to get the message out, and then, a couple of hours later came the damage control and this article in the Toronto Sun stating “the plastics industry is fighting back against the growing popularity of reusable grocery bags with a study that warns of health risks.”
As a sigh of relief filtered out over the Twittersphere, public opinion turned to common sense — of course it makes sense, the obvious solution is to wash your reusable bags and don’t use them for anything else like transporting your sweaty gym clothes. I can’t imagine the kind of skanky-assed bags they must have conducted their tests on. You think something like “the presence of fecal matter” would have a certain odor.
Nevertheless, to see this whole situation play out in real time, as I sat there recording every detail of it, is something I don’t think happens too often. It was quite the thrill. Yes, I’m a nerd, but at least I don’t poop in my grocery bags.
There always seems to be a flip side to everything. Just when you think you’re doing good by using energy efficient light bulbs, you find out people are dying in China from mercury poisoning and the reopening of mercury mines is killing the environment — again.
Market demand has dramatically increased since the European Directive made these light bulbs compulsory by 2012. If Britain complies with this new law, it will save 5 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.
In order to meet the demand, factories are opening up everywhere in China. The problem is, some of these factories are nothing more than sweat shops with little or no health and safety standards.
The only recourse seems to be an increasing number of law suits against these Chinese factory owners, but in regions like the province of Guizhou where poverty is so bad, people are willingly returning to work the mercury mines despite the health hazards.
It’s a double-edged sword. Whichever stance you decide to take, remember one thing:
If you break a compact fluorescent lightbulb, clear the room for 15 minutes to avoid inhaling mercury vapour.
Here’s another episode of SuperNews! making fun of Twitter and the many celebrities who are now part of the wave.
One of the celebrities featured is Ashton Kutcher and his PR stunt on Twitter between CNN. I wonder about short-lived PR campaigns such as these and whether abusing the system in this way will backfire somewhere down the line. Kutcher was very vocal during his race to 1 million followers, tweeting every ten minutes, but have we heard from him since? Not a peep. I don’t know about everyone else, but I feel so used.
First the bad news: Alarming numbers were revealed by the US Department of Defense and its enormous consumption of fuel in 2008:
4 billion gallons of jet fuel
220 million gallons of diesel
73 million gallons of gasoline
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the worst offenders with a total spending of $20 billion in fuel – a $7 billion jump from 2006 and 2007.
The energy drain doesn’t stop there though, to house a troop of 4 – 5,000 soldiers in rented, generator-powered, air-conditioned tents costs about $3 million a month.
Now the good news: Defense training base, Ft. Irwin in the Mojave Desert, California, is testing some new energy efficient alternatives that will save the Department of Defense money and reduce carbon emissions.
New housing could reduce the energy demand by 45 – 75% — save the US Army $100 million over five years — and cut carbon emissions by 35 million pounds per year.
These initiatives could spill over into civilian life too. Now that is good news.
Here’s a campaign that has all the right ingredients for success – music, community, and feeling good. Take a simple song everybody knows, one that has a lot of na-na-nahs, give them a mic and let the magic happen.
So what? I hear the cynics out there say – it’s a phone company. What has that got to do with music, community and feeling good? Where’s the message in that? Cell phones connect people together – much like this event – and when we come together and celebrate, we feel good and when we feel good, we sing. Now every time these people hear the word T-Mobile, or hear the song Hey Jude, they’ll think of that moment and feel good all over again – kind of like Pavlov’s dogs. If you don’t believe me, watch this video:
I started off the week talking about scrotum, so it only seemed apropos to end the week with a matching book end. Yes, I’m still talking balls.
This PSA from Ontario’s Ministry of Long-Term Health Care was my first major social media campaign. I dabbled in the sphere when I worked at Saint Elizabeth Health Care, but not like this. With this campaign, I had my fingers in there every day and was involved in all aspects.
One of the winning aspects of this campaign was the MOHLTC’s open-mindedness. Bear in mind, this is a PSA for a catch-up mumps vaccination – pretty dry stuff – and from what we know about PSAs (zzzzzzzz) – they’re boring and preachy. Here, there’s comedy, sports and naughtiness — “Evil balls…why am I looking at your balls?” The overall reaction from most viewers was amazement that this was a government PSA.
It was exciting to see the campaign grow from a Facebook group to a YouTube sensation. Hits grew to 65,000 in a few short months and won a spot on the Huffington Post’s Top Weird PSAs list. Every week, I would gather the insights from YouTube and Facebook, with merriment. I never realized before how much people love to say “balls” –
Ontario: Land of insane balls
I can smell your balls from here
Ballz of steel
This is just a sampling of what I would report to the client — oh my! How do you rate such comments? Are they positive? neutral? The fact of the matter is, things like this get noticed and that’s how the buzz starts.
This campaign is now over, but it was an introduction I will never forget.
Goats are taking over the mountainside at Google headquarters in California.
In an attempt to decrease carbon emissions and noise pollution from noisy lawn mowers, Google hires 200 goats to keep the weeds down and reduce the risk of grass fires. It only takes one week for these greedy goats to gobble up the weeds and then it’s back to the farm.
It turns out Yahoo! has been doing the same thing for a couple of years now.
Goats are the oldest of domestic animals and can be raised for milk, cheese, hair, and meat. Kind of reminds me of the time I bought a farm and almost bought a herd of milk goats, but that’s another story for another time.
The name Ting Ting is a Mandarin term that refers “to the sound of innovation or an open mind. Like the ‘ting’ you hear when you get an idea.” It also means band stand, which band member Katie White thinks is “lovely.”
The other Ting to this duo, Jules de Martino, likes the onomatopoeia quality of the word and its sonorous bell-like sound.
What these two have is a unique sound that has crossed many channels from Victoria Secret’s Fashion Show to sound tracks and clubs. Here they are rocking out on Q TV.
Toronto is in an exciting position of turning the city around and becoming the retrofit capital of North America. If we get this right, we will lead the way in bringing cities and obsolete office towers into the 21st eco-friendly century.
Using a technology called “reskinning,” office towers will be given a new, energy-saving outer layer — a thermal barrier composed of new materials like solar panels and media walls.
On May 11, Zerofootprint – a nonprofit organization working with companies to reduce their carbon footprint — will launch an international re-skinning competition to dramatically re-skin one of Toronto’s aging high-rises. For more information, please see CBC Radio’s Green Grows Up series.
2/3 of total waste is generated from workplaces
54% of all CO2 emissions come from buildings
Toronto has 250M square feet of office space
This is an exciting project during a time of financial crisis and will bring many jobs to Toronto and the GTA. To learn more, download Greening Greater Toronto from the Toronto City Summit Alliance.
