Al Gore certainly was the impetus behind the viral, global awareness of “global warming” and the public’s concomittant engagement. Al Gore brought An Inconvenient Truth to life on full Hollywood scale.
“The number of hurricanes of category 4 and 5 level has doubled in the last 30 years”.
“The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade.”
“Snow is almost gone from the tip of Mount Kilimanjaro”.
”Much of Manhattan will be under water”.
These are soundbites that are now in our permanent memory and daily discourse. The bait worked.
What An Inconvenient Truth has accomplished is greater though. It has galvanized the consuming public on all social matters. An Inconvenient Truth, a catalyst in getting the public to question all our institutions and organizations, has paved the way for an audience that is now listening and engaged. Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko lend no less to consumer activism–consumers who are protesting with their wallets and their voices.
“Good Marketing” is the new wave (no pun). Consumers are engaged on all matters from our environment to health care, health threats, terrorism, white crime, child abuse, genocide–the dial has been turned up by IT. A myriad of celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney, Angelina Jolie and Robert Redford are lending their names, money and time to causes. And there is no end in site.
Mark my words we are in a new marketing paradigm. Clean out your closets because everyone is peering in them. Good Marketing means being good–not putting lipstick on a pig.
The consuming masses are what keep the engines going; not the rainmakers on The Street nor the policy makers. Trust is at an all time low; consumer action at an all time high.
An Inconvenient Truth has engaged earthlings in the process of saving the planet by reducing individual carbon emissions. If that’s not a great, great brand, than Coke is just brown syrup.
