Archive for May, 2009

That was the topic of my presentation at the 2009 River Rally yesterday. Here are PDF versions of the presentations. Thanks to all of you for coming, and good luck!

• Introduction and overview
• The Water Words That Work method for successfully asking for money
• Critical tools for online fundraising

Environmental survey? Not really

I dream of the day that us nature protection and pollution control people will have the resources to conduct market research on such earth shattering questions as this. But, it feels good to be right once in a while.

Environmental advertising at a mall in Annapolis

I ought to love this ad, which I snapped at a mall in Annapolis last week while grabbing a bite after a client meeting. If follows the Water Words That Work method down to the last detail, and yet, it somehow doesn’t quite work. First the checklist:

• Step One: Begin with Behavior. Check. Keep trash out of the oceans.
• Step Two: Find Foolproof Photos. Check. Big faces everywhere.
• Step Three: Swap Shoptalk. Check. No shoptalk.
• Step Four: Insert Words That Work. Check. Clean.

I can’t quite put my finger on how to say this, but I’m not sure the people wandering through the food court had any idea how they could keep the oceans clean. I think they had no idea that any cigarette butts or other crap they dropped in the parking lot would reach the sea eventually. I think anybody in the food court who stopped to the ponder the ad might say “yeah, I’ll try to remember that next time I’m at the beach.”

Environmental advertising from the environmental group Oceana

Oceana is one of my favorite of the big DC environmental groups, because they take risks and keep trying to make their point. But what’s the takeaway from this environmental advertising?

If you saw this on the subway platform on your way home, could you explain to your spouse what it was about?

How would you fix it?