Climate Progress Coverage of Coen Brothers Clean Coal Ad
Last week, I jumped on a conference call (transcript here) put together around the launch of a satirical clean coal television directed by the Coen Brothers. Over at Treehugger, I’ve got our Top 10 Countdown of the media coverage resulting from the spot’s premiere. Coming in at number four was call attendee Joseph Romm of Climate Progress. What follows is my extended commentary.
#4. The “Reality Campaign” has terrific new Mad Men, the Coen brothers, but they still don’t have a coherent message
Joe Romm (on the conference call transcribed here) being a contrarian and keeping the carbon-free fire under all of our butts by calling into question the approach of the Reality Campaign’s approach.
First, c’mon guys and gals — a third mocking ad? There must be some reason why mocking ads are relatively rare on TV. And the few you do see — I’m a Mac, I’m a PC, come to mind — are usually comparison ads with brands, like Microsoft/PC, that are well, well established in people’s mind. “Clean coal” doesn’t have a brand precisely because it doesn’t exist. I don’t see how mocking is a good approach let alone the primary one.
The misstep here is thinking that “Clean Coal” isn’t a well-established brand. The public relations campaign from The American Coalition for Clean Coal Technology (ACCCE) has been far and reaching playing a central and almost dominant role (second only to off-shore drilling) in the energy debate during the 2008 presidential election. Millions of Americans, having had nary a thought of coal nor having had any reason to make mention of coal, have been touched to link the word “coal” with the word “clean.” Beyond perhaps the cliché concerning a lump of fossil fuel in your Christmas stocking, or teaching kiddies the iconic image of the coal-fired choo-choo steaming down the tracks, coal has been out of site and out of mind for some time now. As light now begins to shine into that darkness, coal emerges reborn along with a trade-association assist re-branded as “clean coal.” For all intents and purposes, the dominant perception even before recent coal industry PR efforts I would argue is one of coal as clean simply because the wealthier among no longer need live anywhere near a coal-fired power plant.
Second, relatedly, again the ad just keeps repeating the phrase “clean coal” over and over again — which is well known as a questionable messaging strategy (again see “Memo to Gore: Don’t call coal ‘clean’ seven times in your ad“). If you surveyed viewers of this ad a month from now, again, I would imagine most would have either a neutral or positive view of “clean coal” — assuming they have any clue what it is.
Great stuff from Climate Progress on the basics of messaging that generally hold true, however, the twin tactics of satire and re-appropriation aim to blow such critique out of the water. When satire is effective, it goes guns drawn at all that is decadent and corrupt as to make the object of its disaffections so riduncluous as to no longer be able to be taken seriously — check to the gut for you, Nightly News, after years of coasting along comes Stewart-and-Colbert-wielding-technology (as well as sites like Think Progress) to put you in your place and to keep you on your toes. Re-appropriation of those sticks-and-stones lets niggers become nigga’s, dykes become proud women who love other women, or damn hippy treehuggers to become consumers of TreeHugger. So to use and repeat the term “clean coal” is an attempt to wrest it from the hands of others; to take the wind out of its sails or to claim it. Now, I find Romm’s repeated bandying of the term “mocking” to describe The Reality Campaign’s ads a wee curmudgeonly as well as revealing his misunderstanding of the playing field. The boob-tube ain’t the ancient Athenian Agora nor is this particular marketing exercise one suited to a critique of rhetoric which seeks to persuade by means of logic and reasoning. Hah! Here we’re on the turf of emotions, and by this I do not mean in the realm of understanding potential psychological responses. We’re not “repeating claims” here, we’re mud-wrestling.
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