Observations in Advertising: Ecotricity's "Collapsing Cooling Towers" YouTube Video

Ecotricity (a UK renewable energy company) recently launched a "Dump the Big 6" ad campaign to get electricity consumers to switch over to Ecotricity's renewable energy services.

Part of their ad campaign is this YouTube video:

While I think the creative component of the ad is great, there's a few peculiarities that are both self-evident to "energy buffs" and the average YouTube viewer.

#1: Nuclear power as a fossil fuel?

Ecotricity's caption below the video reads:

"It's time to move on. Our country, and all of us, need to move from a fossil fuel past to a renewable energy future."

However, the cooling towers being demolished in Ecotricity's video happen to belong to nuclear power plants...

Nuclear power is not a fossil fuel.

So there's one thing.

As for a few other peculiarities, I'll leave that to actual YouTube comments:

#2: Deceptive advertising? Censorship?

As you can see from the YouTube comment with 48 "thumbs up," Ecotricity is being called out on deceptive advertising.

True, three wind turbines will not produce more power than a nuclear power plant.

As far as the censorship is concerned, I don't know what was originally posted by this particular YouTube user, if their comment was even removed, or why it was removed...but I won't bother to find out because it's not that big of a deal.

Nonetheless, while governments do pass laws against deceptive advertising, I don't think Ecotricity will need to worry about legal issues.

#3: Conflicting messages?

As you can see with the last two YouTube comments, some viewers of Ecotricity's video feel "sorry" for the cooling towers being demolished and in turn gain sympathy for the symbolic energy sources Ecotricity is campaigning against.

BACKFIRE....Ouch.

Even though cooling towers are intimate objects, I'll have to take the advice of Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird...

"If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." - Atticus Finch

With that, I'll try to think about if I was the first cooling tower in the beginning of the video:

How would I feel if I was waking up in the morning to some classical music and a "spot o tea" with my hunny bunny when suddenly...

I'm being destroyed by the forces of high powered, primary explosives.

NOT GOOD.

But, if you ask me, I think #3 might also be due to the video's music.

With that, in the words of Missy Elliot:

"REEEEEEEMIIIIIIIXXX"

Here's my "Wind Frontiers" remix:

Proper recognition to:

Drowning Pool's "Bodies" as the best candidate for a remix song

Honorable mentions go to:

Head East's "Never Been Any Reason" and their catchy yet fitting lyric:

"Save my life I'm going down for the last time..."

Colbie Caillat's "Fallin' For You" for the applicable lyrics, song title, and even near-perfect timing to fit the duration of Ecotricity's video.

Fall Out Boy's "Sugar, We're going down" for their aptly fitting lyrics:

"We're going down down......down down......down down..."

AND their band name that fits well with the nuclear power theme.

So that's that.

"Advertising....hell of a business huh?"

-Unknown

What's next...

Since I recently graduated from Texas A&M I should try to be more proactive about updates and new posts here.

However, I recently came to the conclusion that blogging is NOT the best method to disseminate ideas and information.

Very much related to my last series, I believe that Facebook "Like" pages are a better online medium to discuss and share ideas with others.

While I won't be taking this down entirely, I'd like to share a little insight into this blog's "exposure" level and compare that to the benefits of my recently created Facebook page.

Below is the traffic data for the entire duration of this blog's existence.

Sometime fairly recently I hit the 1000 views marker.

While not that great of an exposure level, an advantage of Facebook "Like" pages is that you have greater control over who views your content and how they come across it.

But first, I don't mean that in the privacy sense.

Here's what I mean...

Below are the top search keywords used to get to my blog since its inception:

As you can see, a considerable amount of my all-time blog traffic has come from individuals interested in getting a particular image.

(i.e. facebook logo, classic google logo, antisec car decals, etc)


Below you'll see the top search keywords for this past month:

Same story.


Unfortunately, you can't break it down by specific months.

Nonetheless, a good deal of my blog traffic has been from the standard image search query.

If I were to break it down month-by-month, one would see bar charts that essentially look like the above chart except with different image queries.

While I don't mind this at all, some bloggers might be disappointed that a decent amount of their traffic comes from people simply looking for related images and not related, written content.

With that, it's evident that blogging does not allow bloggers total control over who comes across their content AND how they come across it.

This is not the case for Facebook "Like" pages, however.


Recently, I created a Facebook page called "Wind Frontiers" to share information, innovations, and intelligence on wind energy.

Below is the cover image I thought of (but did not entirely create).

Did you know: The above cover image is actually made of 3 separate photos.

The top photo is a barren Dust Bowl farm found via the Library of Congress' Prints and Photographs Catalog

The bottom photo is a rural Missouri wind farm also found via the Library of Congress' Prints and Photographs Catalog

The third photo is the dust bowl farmer below, except size reduced and integrated into the dust bowl farm's landscape.

^Big thanks to Marcy for making the cover image happen^


(She has better graphic design skills than me)

In any case, with Wind Frontiers I'll be able to directly reach participants within the energy industry to share ideas, innovations, and general wind energy intelligence.

Had I created another blog or simply blogged on the subject here, it would be entirely up to the very audience I'm interested in reaching to find my page (unlikely).

Without a doubt, Facebook pages are much more "in your face" in the marketing and communication sense.

With your own Facebook page, you can directly post your content to established, related Facebook pages that already have a considerable user-base of individuals interested in the particular topic your page covers.

For example: Since wind energy is my topic of choice, I can directly post and share my content with the American Wind Energy Association

With almost 40,000 Facebook users that "like" the AWEA Facebook page, I know that by posting my content on the AWEA wall I am reaching the exact audience I want to reach.

Here's how that works:

If you can't see it too well in the above image, the larger image below shows how I can directly advertise my Facebook page on the Facebook wall of a much larger, related institution.

Even better, I can also share videos

Wind Frontiers Introduction Video:

Wind Frontiers Video Series 1/1: Sustainable natural gas







So that's that.


I'll be dedicating most of my free time to developing the Wind Frontiers page but I'll be sure not to let this old thing wither away.

Here's the link to Wind Frontiers on Facebook