The terrific writers at GreenBiz have once again provided several articles about how Earth Day is overloaded with green puff. Matt Wheeland’s Earth Day Fail: The worst pitches of 2012 talks about the bizarre ways PR folks are trying to get their products and services noticed on Earth Day, and Amy Westerfalt’s Has Earth Day marketing jumped the shark?questions why they’re even trying at all.
We’ve been advising our clients for several years to avoid Earth Day for events or announcements, unless it’s incredibly visual or important. News outlets generally are going to have room for a few Earth Day stories during the week – why chance it that they’ll cover your event when there are so many others going on?
We took Amy’s point to heart last year when we helped Johnson Controls develop the Give Five for Greener Living Calendar. It’s a downloadable PDF meant for posting at homes, schools and businesses to give people some simple ideas for living sustainably all year long.
In addition to offering suggestions on traditional environmental commemorations such as World Water Day or Earth Hour, we had some fun with it:
- On January 8, National Show and Tell at Work Day, we encouraged an employee competition making art from used computer parts.
- On July 20, National Ugly Truck Day, we suggest going to the My Demo Drive site to check out hybrid vehicles.
- On September 20, National Comic Book Day, we hope kids will create a green superhero using one of these creative sites.
The point is that anyone can promote green any day. Several websites have listings of the crazy holidays, weeks and months throughout the year. Creative PR and corporate communications professionals should check those out, determine how their truly sustainable products, services and events might link to those days, and leave poor Earth Day alone.
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