Happy Earth Day from Brawny

I found a special gift on my doorstep this morning: a free sample of a paper towel tucked in with my Sunday newspaper.

To deliver a single 10.5 x 11-inch sheet of Brawny paper towel to my door, the nice folks at Georgia Pacific folded it in quarters, backed it with a piece of white card stock, and tucked it inside a preprinted cellophane wrapper.

Then they stuck that package inside a larger four-color brochure detailing the delights of the NEW softer and thicker Brawny towel. Finally, they sealed the whole thing inside a pocket in the plastic bag my newspaper was delivered in this morning.

As you can see, there's way more wrapper than paper towel.













The kicker? It arrived just in time for Earth Day.

Somewhere a Georgia Pacific marketer is about to be fired.

Can we solve it?

You know, maybe we can.

If polar opposites like Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich can actually sit knee to knee on small sofa and agree that we must take action to address climate change...well, maybe there's a glimmer of hope. Maybe we will come to our senses and take action before we destroy the planet.

To view the ad, just click on the pic.

The ad is part of the We Can Solve It campaign, a project of The Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort founded by former Vice President Al Gore. The goal is to educate people that the climate crisis is "both urgent and solvable."

I'm hoping they're right.

Already the naysayers are piling on, bitching and moaning and calling them hypocrites in blog posts, comments and the like.

But I prefer to take a "the glass is half full" approach to life. I'd rather applaud them for doing what's right and trying to make a difference...in spite of their political differences. That's what we all need to do if we want to pass on a livable planet to the next generation.

Sisyphean PR and other follies

And you think you've got a PR problem! Consider the uphill battle faced by Price Floyd, a U.S. State Department official charged with improving our nation's image in the world.

As reported in Slate, Floyd pointed to our rejection of the Kyoto treaty, dissing of the International Criminal Court, revocation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and the scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and said, "What we don't have here is a failure to communicate."

"These actions," Floyd wrote in a recent op-ed piece in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "have sent an unequivocal message: The U.S. does not want to be a collaborative partner. This is the policy we have been 'selling' through our actions." As a result, our words are ignored or dismissed as "meaningless U.S. propaganda."

As marketer Chris Houchens noted in a recent post in his Shotgun Marketing blog, this is what happens when you try to "REBRAND" through words and not actions. It's a Sisyphean exercise.

By the way, wondering how Floyd got away with making such pointed comments in an administration known for lock-step message control? Well, Floyd recently quit his State Department job. 'Nuf said.