According to a recent mailer, “Environment America” is “the new home of U.S. PIRG’s environmental work.” In part two in my critique of the communications and marketing around this move, I’ll offer some thoughts on the images. Each one, after all, is worth a thousand words.

In Environment America’s mailer and on its website, pictures basically fall into two categories:

• Environment America staff striking heroic poses at press conferences and other events
• Scenics – landscapes, wind turbines, polar bears, etc…

Nothing wrong these images — it’s what’s missing that I’ll blog about today: No pictures of families swinging on a rope swing at their local swimming hole, no children on playgrounds sucking on their inhalers. If you’re an everday citizen (and potential Environment America member), there are no pictures of people like you doing things you might actually do.

Environment America is an activist group. so it should use a lot of pictures of ordinary looking people making a difference by voting, speaking out to their officials, etc… Making members and potential members feel great about the things they do leads to more members and more activity.

Think about it this way: Who do you work harder for? The boss who says he’s doing a good job, or the one who says you’re doing a good job? Environment America should give more props to members and potential members with images like this:

Subtle social cues like this are enormously important. When authors of a recent study called “Discovering the Activation Point” asked people why they don’t actually do anything about causes they said they say they care about, many responded with reasons that were primarily social, such as:

I don’t relate to the people involved… where’s everybody else?

From the looks of it, some citizens who care about clean air and water might be asking themselves the very same questions when they visit the Environment America website or read its newsletter.

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