What is the Renewable Energy Brand?

What is the purpose of Renewable Energy? To save the planet? To become energy independent? To make a profit? To provide jobs? National security?

What is the Renewable Energy brand? Is it simple? Is it mainstream? Is it expensive? Is it patriotic? Is it friendly? Is it treehuggers? Is it Midwestern? Is it alternative? Is it cool? Is it caring? It is wise? Is it conservative? Is it green?

The “green” movement is about being environmentally-friendly. Is that what Renewable Energy is about? “Green” has meant saving or reducing, in addition to recycling. What image do these words have in your mind: save, reduce, recycle? For most, they mean inexpensive or less money.

Does that apply to Renewable Energy? Should it? Should we as Americans expect to pay less – or more – for the Renewable Energy brand? Isn’t Renewable Energy in fact a premium product? Shouldn’t we be willing to pay more for a product that will help save our planet and by the way, make us more secure as a nation?

Most people still think it's all about "green." Why? Because if you don’t manage your message, someone else will. We haven’t given the American public the right message (if any) about Renewable Energy, so they (we) interpret as best we can with little or no information. In addition, those that use “green” to talk about renewable energy are only harming the Renewable Energy brand, because they are confusing two different movements.

People hear about the green movement, renewable energy, environmental friendliness, alternative energy, energy security and conservation. Who really knows what they all mean? We must define the Renewable Energy brand. We cannot expect Americans to understand – much less, trust – Renewable Energy if it is not clearly defined and communicated.

It's Time to Get Started

Our nation is at a crossroads and we must confront the brutal facts of our current energy reality. The average American is just now waking up to this revolution. We are just beginning to understand crises like global warming and energy dependence, issues that are sure to define the next fifty years or more of our lives. We as consumers want to do our part, but we don’t know yet how.

There are many messages being conveyed in today’s media, each organization or association offering a slightly different angle on the issues and the solutions. Industries that should share the same purpose instead dilute the marketplace with conflicting messages. It is a very noisy marketplace and while awareness is increasing, consumers don’t yet know what to do - because no one has offered a comprehensive plan.

Renewable Energy (and all its various components) is not a known or trusted “brand.” In the public’s eyes, Renewable Energy is virtually unproven, if not thoroughly confusing. The Renewable Energy proposition seems too good to be true. Without a solid, clear brand, people have no reason to trust it. Without trust, we cannot expect people to embrace it. In order to garner the public’s trust, Renewable Energy, as a comprehensive brand, must stand out in logical and emotional dimensions. Appealing to the public with statistics and facts won’t inspire the average American to take action.

Many of us have the talent and the resources – and the responsibility – to help Americans make sense of it all. It's time to get started.

Thank you to Tim Kubista for contributing to this post.

Bat Boy, an obituary

Prophesize the ruin of the blessed Wall Street Journal under Rupert Murdoch, if you want. I write this obituary to mark the passing of a cult-rated standard of true brand-genius: Weekly World News, “The World's Only Reliable Newspaper,” will depart the sphere of dead-tree media with its 27 August issue. Saggy circulation (the tabloid’s, not mine) has killed my career-dream of writing truly ridiculous bullshit for its own sake.

For 28 years, this absurd little chronicle has delivered Nothing But the Truth on the world’s fattest alien babies, wicked deeds of dead celebrities, and Saddam Hussein’s secret heartbreak. But the discovery and continuing exploits of a particular animal-human amalgam gave this grocery store tabloid its most brilliant headlines and best-selling covers. And when WWN editor Dick Kulpa hit us with the chiropteran child named Bat Boy, a pop-idol of a different face entered our shared consciousness.

Bat Boy Bites Santa Claus! Bat Boy Leads Cops on Three State Chase! Bat Boy Endorses Gore! (And after graduating from a small liberal arts college in upstate New York,) Bat Boy Announces Run for California Governorship!

America’s Favorite Hybrid was everywhere. In an acclaimed off-Broadway musical. On stage in London’s West End. In a weekly cartoon detailing the life and times of the fanged grotesque after he resigned from the office of President of the United States (I’m not touching this one!). And, my fav-o, on the big screen in Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys.

“Elusive and reclusive, where he will pop up next is anybody's guess.” Don’t worry, American Media tells us, you can still read all about Bat Boy on-line! He Lives!

But those hours in the grocery store queue just won't be the same.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Check out this fascinating encapsulation of the World Wide Web. It's a fast-paced, thought-provoking, poignant video essay about the way communications and relationships have evolved as a result of the Internet. Best yet, it was produced by Michael Wesch, a hip anthropology professor at KSU who practices "anti-teaching."

Time Magazine Person of the Year: You

I recently posted to this blog a presentation on Web 2.0. The basic message for companies wading into the WWW was that they need to acknowledge audience control in order to participate in the online conversation.

I'm certain some wondered if I was overstating matters. But, while watching This Week with George Stephanopoulos I found a powerful ally for my thesis: Time. While watching the show I discovered that the Time person of the year for 2006 is you...and me and the 50 million people who have posted online content (according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project).

We earned the nod for taking advantage of the Web 2.0 tools to generate our own content online. In the cover story, Lev Grossman wrote: for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

Why does all of this really matter? Should we still care what the mainstream media thinks of social media? Here's why it matters: in the quoted sentence, Time (the pros) are acknowledging that consumers (the amateurs) are beating them at their own game.

The blogosphere is abuzz with the news and the response is (inevitably) varied. Jeff Jarvis says It's always been us. Dan Gillmor thinks it should have been "us" rather than "you." What do you think?

The Christmas issue of Time includes several articles supporting their choice for Person of the Year. If you're still questioning whether or not this social media revolution is wroth paying attention to, you would do well to read it all.

Web 2.0 and the online conversation

Last week, I gave an internal presentation to my agency on Web 2.0 and how it should influence the web sites that we create for our clients. I thought I'd post it here for two reasons: 1) I'm interested in the feedback of Fresh Glue readers, and 2) I benefited from a lot of other bloggers posting similar information and I wanted to return the favor.

After going through the presentation, please let me know if you have any comments or suggestions. Also, if you're interested in having me present this to your group, drop me an email and we'll work something out.

This Took Guts

I'd heard Al Jazeera was going to make a play for legitimacy among mainstream Western media, but this ad in Newsweek is the first effort I've seen — and boy, did it get my attention.

Considering the status the Qatar news network holds in the hearts of many English speakers, the ad is positively punk rock.

But then, if you've been ranked as the 5th most influential brand in Europe and Africa, maybe you've earned a little swagger.

That said, does Al Jazeera have some "equity" in its status as an outsider to two of the largest markets on the planet, the US and Europe? Is it something that could actually work in its favor? That would seem to be at play here. Even as it looks for Westerners to embrace its news coverage, the network doesn't run away from the its legacy among English speakers.

In fact, with its Arabic script logo taking up more that half the page and its stark white-on-black design, there's something seriously in-your-face here.

I like it.

The copy is tame, but the design says "we're not laying on the gloss" here. I find the shock value here an intriguing choice. Leaders in both Europe and the States have excoriated the network for its choices of news coverage since 9/11. Nevertheless, "80 million cable and satellite households across the globe" have received coverage in English from 60 news bureaus since Al Jazeera English launched in mid-November, according to the network's English press room. I don't find the copy terribly believable, but the novelty made me go their site. And that changed my mind.

In a prepared statement that appears on the site, Al Jazeera English Managing Director Nigel Parsons  said, “I firmly believe there is a gap in the market which we will exploit, and that the world needs Al Jazeera in English to bring a new perspective and understanding to world events."

And perspective it delivers. Maybe the coolest thing about the site is its "Your Views" section, which brings together readers from the Middle East and the West in some lively exchanges. As the site states, "Broadcasting from the Middle East, looking outwards, Al Jazeera English will set the news agenda and act as a bridge between cultures."  That alone is worth the click, which might be the real value of Al Jazeera English.

And is that the real value of the Al Jazeera brand? Are they the "outsider" that's more dialed in than the rest of us? In terms of the brand, there's something very American going to that. Something very High Planes Drifter. But will we embrace a cowboy who rides in on an Arabian horse?

Happiness

If this blog is about ideas that are sticky, I don't know how you stick better than American jazz.

Found this beautiful clip of Duke Ellington in the middle of some research this morning, decided to share. Guaranteed to improve your day.

We've been so flipping busy that little tidbits like this may have to suffice for a spell. When you watch this, think about it: Duke Ellington did this 64 years ago, but everything about this is timeless (including the babe factor at the end: chicks dig musicians).

PS: To appreciate what jazz can teach about art and commerce, go to PBS's jazz page, click the trailer and listen to Wynton Marsalis explain "negotiations."

Pizza Pilots Deliver A New Reason to Love the Free Market

Now here's an idea that sticks:

Pizza delivery to remote Alaskan villages. Via airplane.

I barely caught this story last night — thanks to my wife and TiVo — on the CBS News about a pizzeria in Nome, Alaska called Airport Pizza that for $30 a pie delivers pizza to villages scattered around the Seward Peninsula.

As an Alaskan expatriate (you never get Alaska out of your blood), I got a big charge and a little homesick from the story. To appreciate what pizza delivery by bush plane means, you need to appreciate the remoteness of the villages Airport Pizza serves. How they're making a profit, I don't know, but I hope they keep it up.

The buzz from the sky is now buzz on the airwaves. Read about it here. Watch the story here.

You've just gotta love the things people come up with in the free market. Now, someone needs to bring Airport Pizza to rural South Dakota. I'll bet the idea would fly.

Noise Is Good

Yes, most of the time, noise annoys.

But according to Dr. Bart Kosko, an electrical engineering professor at USC and author of a new book called  what else? — Noise, noise can actually improve perception. In an interview on last week's episode of NPR's Science Friday, Kosko discussed this and other astonishing findings about all kinds of noise in the natural and manufactured world — auditory, visual, informational, neurological and more.

"Noise is a signal you don’t like," Kosko explained. "And what a signal is, is something that conveys energy or information. So what noise really is, is unwanted energy — any kind of interfering sound, or it could be visual noise, as in a TV or computer screen."

And yet, as Kosko explains — and anyone who listens to headphones to block out the rest of the world or turns on a fan or radio to fall asleep at night can verify — noise can be good. Kosko discovered that visual noise, for example, can actually help sharpen an image and improve other "systems."

"It was a great surprise when a lot of us found that sometimes noise actually helped a system," he said,  "in particular neural type systems or systems that tried to learn patterns and recognize patterns after they have learned them. We thought it was anomalous at first, but it turned out to be much like the phenomenon of chaos and sometimes, related to it, that it was really the rule and not the exception, that in general, for non-linear systems, complex system, often a small amount of noise can help, too much noise hurts."

As an example in the real world, Kosko mentioned that you wouldn't want the doc to crank up the Buzzcocks in the middle of surgery. But you have to ask -- why does Tiger need complete silence to make that chip shot, but Steve Nash can hit free throws with 30,000 people screaming "BRICK"....?

This made me think about work environments. At our shop, we've got tunes spinning maybe 75% of the time. I find it actually helps me focus -- and it majorly stokes the energy in the room. It's amazing to witness the ways people interact with and without the music playing.

"Because noise is a form of energy, it does tend to energize certain kinds of systems, especially the on-off kinds that our brains are made of, the neurons, the switches," Kosko said. "The main established benefits of noise in the animal kingdom, in devices, in mathematics, have almost always concerned threshold devices. Since our brain consists of about 100 billion of those, it’s a natural conjecture that we get energized by noise."

Does productivity go up when people are jamming?

The idea that noise projects energy  — and helps create order based on principles similar to chaos theory — instantly made me think of advertising. Most people refer to the crush of media (and specifically ads) in our world as "clutter." I've always thought of it as noise.

Now Kosko's got me wondering if noise is our friend.

Doesn't crap advertising help sharpen great advertising? We complain or wring our hands about the "noise" in the marketplace. But maybe we should be encouraging more of it. Are we barking up the wrong tree when we yelp about clutter?

If all the ads, music videos, cable channels and websites you didn't produce suddenly went away, would you be more successful at getting your message across? Really? I wonder what Kosko thinks.