Coal is not glamourous

Truth in advertising. It's the best way to promote your product or service. Will someone tell that to GE and BBDO?

BBDO/NY has taken on quite a difficult challenge in making GE the leader in ecologically sound solutions to our world's energy problems. It's a problem that ExxonMobil is also tackling.

Are these huge companies able to put our environment before the bottom line? Probably not. But I do admire the effort to make it seem as though there is a benefit to being forward thinking about how we can address these issues. So, I am not about to find fault in the idea of using your "ecomagination." (Although I do ponder if the creative team had been to DisneyWorld recently, perhaps observing some Imagineeering?)

In fact, I think the campaign is mostly clever and well presented. It doesn't leave a lot to disagree about... except one thing...

One of the spots talks of GE's efforts to bring coal back as an efficient energy source. You can read about it and see it with Adrants' blog.

While some may believe that coal is not used any more (because we don't shovel heaps of it into our furnaces or trains), it is actually used in many everyday products. I recall seeing a document that explored the many uses for coal and it included hundreds of products (even toothpaste, if I recall correctly). So, I take no issue with the idea that coal is still being used, and should be more used efficiently as long as it is.

What I do take offense to, and find very untruthful, is the use of glamorous models as coal miners. I have met many former coal miners and coal miner's families. I have witnessed the effects of Black Lung disease and the long term effects that coal mining has had on the communities of Appalachia. There is nothing glamorous about coal or it's mining.

The spot is unequivocally suggesting that coal mining is not only more efficient because of GE, but more beautiful and even sexy. There is no truth in that. It undermines the work of hundreds of thousands who have had to fight coal companies and the federal government to compensate families for the illnesses, injuries and deaths incurred by coal mining. These are families who typically sit on the bottom of our country's social and economic class system, and this ad belittles their situation.

Granted, this spot is shot beautifully and it fits in the campaign, but I find it is without thought for the work of coal mining and it's terrible history. It just seems classless.

Now it's always easier to tear down than it is to build up, I know. So, I give the creative team credit for creating an overall campaign for GE that is positive and pushing other companies to take ownership for ecologically beneficial techniques. You just have to be careful when you are insulting the work of a lot of people who have lived already difficult lives.

Oh... and I am not the only one who feels like this. If anything, I think I have been rather rational about it. Some are still praising the campaign, however.

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After writing this post I e-mailed Lewis Lazare, from the previous link, and the following was the discussion:

>> I wrote Lew (May 18, 2005 1:15 AM):

I am in advertising and I am surprised at your review of the new GE
spots.

I agree that the overall campaign is a positive, well shot, and an intellectual look at branding GE... but the coal miner's spot is just offensive. Do you know what the words of that song are about? Just listen to the ad? Coal mining is and never can be glamorous. The spot works against the campaign, in that it insults the very people whom coal is supposed to benefit. I wish you would take another look at it, and respond to some of the criticism it's been getting.

Ben Thoma

>> He responded (12:09 PM):

Thanks for your note.

You raise an interesting point, but one that I think ultimately is beside the point.

Of course coal mining is a difficult and quite dangerous and hugely unpleasant business. But though set in a coal mine and featuring figures going about the business of "mining," which I put in quotes in my review, the commercial isn't about addressing the horrors of that particular industry, but rather to point out how coal can be used in a more environmentally friendly way.

A hardliner, I suppose, could legitimately argue that the commercial is insensitive to the people who mine the coal, but I happen to believe the tension between what we see in the commercial and the brutal reality we all know to be the case about coal mining only heightens the impact of the message GE and BBDO are trying to make.

That's my take. But I'm glad, at least, the commercial is generating discussion, as so little that comes out of agencies these days even merits debate.

Regards,

Lewis Lazare

>> I rebutted (11:57 AM):

Thanks for your response - honestly, I did not expect one.

First, I am coming at this from two distinct perspectives. One is as an aspiring creative... aspiring to be able to do the kind of work that BBDO and David Lubars do produce. The other is as a long time volunteer and advocate for the people of Appalachia, particularly in regions where coal is (was) king.

So, perhaps, I am automatically in the camp of hard-liners that you describe, but I think I am more willing to give this ad a chance than other hard-liners. The fundamental flaw is see in this ad, and your argument, is that the ad is displaying an untruth. In doing so, they have undermined their entire message, similar to a witness losing their credibility. It's not the same as a movie, where suspending our disbelief allows us to accept the plot or theme. An ad must be grounded in reality and the truth if it's claim is to be believed.

You say that the tension between what we know to be true and what we see on the screen heightens our awareness to the product's claim, but instead it heightens our awareness of the fallacy that the image portrays - that coal mining can be glamorous. Because I see an image that is rooted in a false situation, I find it hard to believe the claim. GE has lost my trust.

(Plus, I just know that although coal may be MORE environmentally friendly than before, it will never BE environmentally friendly.)

Thanks again for the response, and stirring the pot for discussion. I think we'll see more questions about agencies' roles in the world of social responsibility in the near future.

>> He came back with (12:14 PM):

not to belabor the point, which you argue eloquently Mr. Thoma, but the "point" of the commercial is not to present a false image of coal mining, per se, but rather to point up the fact that coal as a product is being used in a more environmentally responsible way, thanks to GE's innovations. That is clear from that voiceover copy that comes at the end of the spot.

not to belabor the point, which you argue eloquently Mr. Thoma, but the "point" of the commercial is not to present a false image of coal mining, per se, but rather to point up the fact that coal as a product is being used in a more environmentally responsible way, thanks to GE's innovations. That is clear from that voiceover copy that comes at the end of the spot.

On May 19, 2005, he published a new column based on our conversation and the reaction of others.

The one point that we can both agree on, is that it is better that this conversation exists, than for there to be nothing at all.