running with scissors along the side of the pool

With all the flap about Obama’s speech Tuesday night (good) and the response by Jindal (he’s surely clinging to anyone who might say it was merely bad), the convergence of greenwashing and politics gets wrapped into a neat bundle: talking to people like they’re children about very complex issues produces self-fulfilling prophecies of extraordinarily difficult-to-solve problems.

We can link this to many things, but much of the immaturity begins with advertising, where the sort of punkish, laughing at someone getting hurt or because something sounds funny is a bankable quantity. It’s adolescent appeal is its value, or so we’re told over and over. ‘People remember it because it’s stupid’ is also a mantra, even if its not on the side of a coin. This is the fertile, buy/sell marketing ether so far from reality that it almost begins to make sense, where super rich athletes eat soup from a can, a car has the name of a vanishing, nomadic African tribe and Exxon/Mobile is building the energy future.  From here, the stupid=legit, intelligent=questionable paradigm can appear to be a sensible option.

Politicians take their cues from advertising norms – from their media training to their look to their belief in the wisdom that flows from a fictional heartland to the language the employ to describe it. But whatever its stripe, much of this amalgam goes back to an unflinching belief that Americans are children that should be treated and spoken to thusly; this suspicion-of-seriousness flows directly into policy positions and soon enough, policy itself. This is one of the reasons that Obama is such a breath of fresh air: despite the details of the bad news he’s sharing with us, at least he’s speaking to us like adults. [Including the costs of our wars in the deficit projections? Who knew you could even do that?] Our delicate sensibilities aside, suddenly everything’s on the level, even if that level is where it is.

This is opposed to the Kenneth the Page* take of our Republican brethren. It would be really funny, and much of it is, if we didn’t have to still imagine these people as legitimate negotiating partners with whom political horsetrading is a necessity. Elder stateman Newt Gingrich is all you need to know.

But even the resulting dissonance about green is a result of the caricatured responses to the climatic cataclysm. In advertising land, the only tools we have left are to keep doing the same things over and over again and hope for a different result.

Fortunately, It’s A Brand New Day for the United States of America.

* In another obscene coincidence, the brother of the guy who plays Kenneth the Page lives in our town, and is a twisted, comic librarian (and friend) in his own right.

423 miles on one gallon

Moving one ton of freight on one gallon of diesel, that it is. But that’s the claim being made in some CSX advertising in print, online and on TV. It’s seems a little curious. I found this old-ish blog item from a [Macon?] Telegraph reporter, who got the following response from a CSX spokesmodel:

On average, railroads can move one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel. This is a rail industry statistic calculated by dividing the 2006 annual revenue ton miles (1.772 trillion) by the fuel consumed (4.192 billion), which equates to the industry average of one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel. (The 2006 data was the last full year for which total industry data are available.)
Revenue ton miles are those miles for which railroads are compensated for moving freight. (We move empty cars to reposition them, and we move company materials for which we are not compensated). The industry did not include fuel consumed by passenger trains — just freight trains.

There are some follow-up questions, but basically the numbers seem sound and in line with what you might intuit about using rail to move freight. Or even people. Limited stops, less wind resistance, but also… more country songs and all those great views of people’s backyards.

423 miles on one gallon

Moving one ton of freight on one gallon of diesel, that it is. But that’s the claim being made in some CSX advertising in print, online and on TV. It’s seems a little curious. I found this old-ish blog item from a [Macon?] Telegraph reporter, who got the following response from a CSX spokesmodel:

On average, railroads can move one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel. This is a rail industry statistic calculated by dividing the 2006 annual revenue ton miles (1.772 trillion) by the fuel consumed (4.192 billion), which equates to the industry average of one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel. (The 2006 data was the last full year for which total industry data are available.)
Revenue ton miles are those miles for which railroads are compensated for moving freight. (We move empty cars to reposition them, and we move company materials for which we are not compensated). The industry did not include fuel consumed by passenger trains — just freight trains.

There are some follow-up questions, but basically the numbers seem sound and in line with what you might intuit about using rail to move freight. Or even people. Limited stops, less wind resistance, but also… more country songs and all those great views of people’s backyards.

Beeped out*

Watching the Iggles game this afternoon, featuring multiple viewings of a Taco Bell commercial. So… they do know how much they look like pricks for having their message revolve around stiffing the coffee guy on his tip, right? I mean, some guy in line behind another to get coffee tells him that he should take back the change from paying for his latte so he can buy some crappy bacon & cheddar chalupa or whatever? The food item doesn’t matter because that’s the takeaway – stiff the poor guy who ‘only pushed a button.’ Really.

But then it segues into a Best Buy testimonial from one of their self-described geek squad installers about this one time where he gets to a job which turns out to be a party of thirty people gathered in a big house with chips and an assortment of snacks and whatever to watch the game but guess what? There’s no massive screen TV. He’s there right before game time to install it, elbowing his way through the crowd with the TV. Gets it hooked and is greeted by cheers and high-fives from the crowd. Really.

What kind of audience are and, what kind of place is this? How much do we internalize this level of Stoopid with shrugs and yes, that’s just the way it is, until it does become the way it is? This much? More? How much more? It’s aggressively stoopid and these companies aggressively identify their products with it because they know stoopid resonates with the public. Yet another ad sums up the entire philosophy best: If you don’t take advantage of these cheese combos, you’re crazy.

*It’s a family blog.

energy flows & waste streams

in communications, that is. Whether it’s their own supply chain and carbon footprint liabilities or those of thier clients, it seems that what green means has begun to have an impact on the advertising and marketing industry other than as a must-have trend. Here’s a video from Advertising Age, with Don Carli from the Institute for Sustainable Communication saying some smart things about… sustainability.

Sustainability as an ‘actual marketing strategy for growth’ is still a contradiction to my ears; but even as practiced by W*lmart, the savvy it portends will eventually boil down to a small playing field whereupon we witness, via pay-per-view, the cage match featuring a closed system vs. messaging. The closed system will prevail and then the whole cycle will begin again with the closed system as the premise – which will change the meaning of the terms actual, marketing, strategy and growth. Then things might get interesting.

mg of CO2 per km

In a much simpler context, whenever consumerism is able to actively embrace and integrate its most earnest desires within the ‘go green’ phenomena, profound results will follow. Two examples:

Last year about this time, a very good friend in France hit a big birthday and I went over for a week to drink great champagne and deliver a present. This was an incredible hassle, as the present was a painting his wife bought from another friend over here; I built a plywood box around it, tacked on a handle and checked it at the airport. When I spotted it safe and sound at the luggage carousel at de Gaulle the next morning, my odyssey with this box had only begun. Customs officials, the Paris Metro, all sorts of stairs, taxis, a friend’s place, hotels… but there were all kinds of wonderful elements to a few days in the city, including my discovery of an arrondissement I’d never visited ( the XIXeme), this crazy David Lynch art show at the fondation Cartier, plus a stroll out to La Defense one evening – one evening when there happened to be small riot between some kids and the police at the Gare du Nord (this was about two weeks before Sarkozy’s election. If you want to see the underside of any country, visit it right before a national election.)

So, by mid-week I had dragged the box halfway around the city, all the way to the Gare du Lyon, where I waited with it for the TGV to take us both down to Valence. The recorded SNCF lady’s voice, reminding passengers of track changes and other crucial information, was so pleasant reverberating in that old station. It makes you look up at the somewhat ornate ceiling and forget for a minute about the non-existent place you might be able to stow an oddly shaped box somewhere in the second class compartment. There was a billboard that caught my eye, high above the din of arrivals and departures. Nothing high tech, just a static, color sign, an advertisement for some new Peugeot or something. As the SNCF lady was speaking, I noticed the copy on the billboard. They weren’t advertising its engine size, or on-board nav system, or even the fuel efficiency. The ad copy, streaming outside a glamorous profile shot of the sedan gliding across a wide landscape, merely and with a sort of halting understatement noted the vehicle’s amount of carbon emissions per kilometer. BAM. I was right back in the future.

There was a lot politics in discussions with my friend, his wife and their friends during the rest of my stay, most of it very depressing to me as an avowed admirer of most choses francaises. Their cynicism was very well-informed and convincing, and I could but go along and commiserate on most issues. But I kept holding onto that sign in the Gare du Lyon. Like most symbols, it stood for more than itself, particularly in a milieu that seemed like it was sliding back toward its own worst impulses. It was a small reminder that all was not lost; that company’s ad people had some pretty amazing confidence in the car buying public, and if they had it, then…

The other example, from the same trip. Near the end of the week, my friend and I went to grocery store so I could buy some of my wife’s favorite items to smuggle back: some wine, chocolate, jars of mustard, a little foie gras and tin of this delicious peasant food that we love. Anyway, we got all that plus a few more things and headed for the checkout. I paid with my debit card and went around to the end of the checkout counter to bag my buys. Now this was a huge grocery chain, like Le Clerc or Intermarche or something. But when I went around to the end of the counter and reached for some bags, a funny thing happened: there weren’t any.

I was honestly shocked. They were no longer providing free plastic shopping bags for customers, for every reason everyone already knows. But someone had made the decision, and some company had made it policy. No more, sorry. Perhaps it had been mandated by the government or they had started charging people some inordinate amount to use, make or dispose of them. Whatever it was, it worked. They were gone. My friend looked at me and apologized with sudden alarm that he had left his bags in the car, where they always now were. This little array of habits was splayed out embarrassingly for me, a sort of gratuitous display of acting sensibly that put most other actions in a very poor light. It made me wonder as we grabbed our stuff in our arms and darted out into the waiting drizzle, why do we still live this way, hemmed in so many sides by the little conveniences we demand?

It’s just a little thing, bringing bags to the grocery store or buying a car for its low emissions. But they are both on their way. You don’t have to feel especially empowered – or as though your liberty has been infringed upon – by doing the right thing, but you can.

related.