Live what? Just kidding.

Honestly, I had completely forgotten about it until I read your post, so for me personally, it didn't make much of an impact other than I thought it was a neat idea/concept and wished it the best.

I only saw one major advertisement about it, which was Al Gore pitching the concert on the Today Show the other day...and I saw a headline on Yahoo about a country canceling their concert, but didn't read the full story. Other than that, I saw nothing - no mention.

So, clearly, I was not the target audience for this campaign. Maybe they think my generation is a lost cause...why waste it on the late 30-somethings, eh?

It's a shame, I suppose. I think I still have some good, environmentally-friendly years left in me. [smirk]

Did Live Earth accomplish anything?

Well, it got you to blog about it. That's a start, right?

Sometimes we have to realize that we can't change the world but by first giving due attention to our own behavior. If it has done that for you, then I'd say it was a success for you.

On the other hand, given the tons of money it cost to produce and countless kilowatt-hours expended in the preparation and production of these events, I wonder if the benefit was commensurate with the cost.

I don't know the answer, but I'd love to see some data that would energize the conversation.

Yes, the use of energy to fly artists around and so on has been raised as an issue.

But what's the cost of the status quo?

I think the fact that millions of people signed the pledge to take steps to help is pretty impressive.

Because it's not one big change that has to take place: it's 2 billion small ones by people who are thinking about the planet's future.

I have to echo Anna Bella's sentiment of "Live what?" I'm in my early thirties (okay, I'm 30), which may be the target demographic of the event.... however, I didn't hear about the event at all other than a commercial on Bravo! TV.

Did it have an impact on me? Not at all.

"But what's the cost of the status quo?"

Well, there are a couple schools of thought on that, and I am skeptical that the event made an impact on those who were not already initiated.

Cam - well then the good news is that many millions already are initiated!

Al Gore had time as a congressman and eight years as a Vice President to initiate environmental protection programs.

The best he could do was to organize 24 hours of bad music. He actually believes that the Chinese who poison their workers with lead and pesticides in products shipped to the United States care about the environment?

I wonder how much carbon dioxide emissions polluted the air with all those concert goers and performers BREATHING.

"Cam - well then the good news is that many millions already are initiated!"

That's good news if and only if 1) They are right about the problem and 2) the benefits of their proposed solution outweigh the drawbacks (in other words, will they follow through with these "pledges," and will their actions actually have an effect on the problem?)

Even assuming that the answer to both questions is "yes," if no one was converted (yet all of those resources were consumed), don't we have to assume that the outcome of the event was a net failure?

I don't think we should be in the policy of doing things simply because it makes us feel and/or look good. We need to produce positive results, and we need to be held accountable to those results, not the noble intent that motivated us.

In fact China is in the midst of creating one of the world's biggest green energy housing community
http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/2007/07/05/0706bizchina.html
and has many other project underway. Mostly because they have to.

And yeah, you're *so* right, the performers should have held their breath.

You're right Cam. It matters whether people will now follow through on their pledges. Which is how I started this post:
"And it's not what happened yesterday that matters. It's what happens tomorrow and every day from now on."

Live Earth seems to have hit a fairly underwhelming chord with just about everyone, which is too bad. Second string acts, over-priced beer, over-done "merchandising" and over-blown rhetoric -- all delivered in the most un-ecologically friendly manner possible.

The "Global Warming" Chorus could have been much more inclusive had it been more 'ecological' and less a 'chicken little'; instead, supported by increasingly suspect data, it seems to be fading before our eyes. (This is a positioning problem!)

Gore wants to run for office. Live Earth is his latest campaign, with Global Warming as his platform. Did it "do" anything? I don't think so. It opened him (and the cause) up to more criticism for the gross hypocracy of it all. By wrapping himself in the green movement flag, he's in a position to deny his ambitions and refuse the candidacy (that only seems to be offered him by wide-eyed global warming acolytes).

I don't think anyone is being pursuaded on either side of the discussion -- we've split into two political camps and continue to hurl our conclusions at each other. I'm not sure anyone on the left or right can bridge this gap. This is a credibility problem.

Everyone is talking and no one is listening. Isn't this what "social media" and "citizen marketers" were supposed to address?

i find it fascinating that i also posted this post on my blog and over there, the comments are much more positive.

tough crowd over here. :>)

as for me, I believe Live Earth helped, and if Gore runs for office you can bet i will vote for him.

each of the democratic candidates explained their global warming policy on the MoveOn.org site, and not one has said anything that makes sense yet.

if nothing else, Gore got them all to demonstrate how dim they are about the environment.

this issue is far from over. it's just begun to get public attention. and when you look back in a few months, or years, or decades, you'll see that Gore's work did have a positive impact.

i'd say more but i have to unlplug now to save pow....

There are three marketing "koans" of a sort absorbed from the policy world that apply to this discussion:

(1) Just because you didn't see it, doesn't mean it didn't happen.
(2) I can't show you what you don't wish to see.
(3) I can't explain it, and neither can you, but whoever asked the question surely won't have to answer it-- right?

Live Earth was simply an awareness raising effort which sought to ask people to pledge to do "mo' better green" things. That's all. It was *not* a fundraising event, and compared to relief or other issue-oriented impact events in the past, this was relatively tame. Was it oversize and out of proportion to the problem? Let your evaluations graze free range from there...

Be it the kickoff event to a conscience raising campaign (and possibly another notch in Gore's presidential bid, can't comment there). But if you don't happen to like the messenger or don't happen to trust his/her credibility, that's a separate issue than whether the message is actually *true*. When folks choose to combine acceptance, credibility, and likeability into the same gauge to determine one measure of success, then you know how problems start to arise. Another topic, another time...

As far as 24-hour concerts with 150 acts simultaneously on seven continents(Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Hamburg, Rio de Janeiro, East Rutherford (NJ), DC, and Nunatak/Antarctica) along with 10,000 cities in 130 countries hosting smaller "Friends of Live Earth" concerts" all pulled off within five months after they were first announced goes, good publicity stunt and marketing gimmick if one wants to view it simply on that level, sure.

Regarding the quality of the groups, well yeah, it really sucked to have to endure geezer music like a reunited Police and Smashing Pumpkins as well as Roger Waters in addition to the Beasties and Kanye and appreciate new stuff from that's popular to today's 18-30 somethings *on other continents*, since this was a global and not *US/Euro* centric event.

On that score, if we're looking solely at US/UK marketing, absolutely true, this thing bombed compared to the broadcast and cable payoff. You didn't see much and the viewership reflects it.

According to Nielsen Media Research tallies: 19 million TV viewers watched at least six minutes of the concerts on NBC and its affiliated cable channels (NBC, CNBC, Telemundo, the Sundance Channel, Bravo, MSNBC and Universal HD). The Saturday evening three-hour highlight show snagged 2.7 million viewers.
So they fell way beyond short of the goal of 2 billion for the TV viewing audience.

Worth noting, however: Folks attended the shows, they didn't stay home to watch the "best of" show, thanks to extensive word of mouth through the right channels where the right message went out. If you didn't hear it, you weren't clued in. As for television, that sponsor mix should've done better, and it was poor planning not to take into account that minor Wimbledon thing and the 4th of July holiday weekend upcoming.

Also important to note that this was also simulcast at LiveEarth.MSN.com and on XM satellite radio, and that MSN claimed 10 million simultaneous streams across seven continents (who's watching in Antarctica?). So given the nature of the medium, things like YouTube, etc. there's sure to be distribution aplenty attracting potential message pass-along (if not actual visitors) for several weeks.

So now on to the real meat (or, "How green was my rally"...)

-- Yes artists and concertgoers burned fuel to travel to the event. In order to get the acts most likely to headline to get the turnout needed for the sites, many of the artists willing or interested would be in the middle of tours requiring dodgy logistics. Some artists came under attack for not being "environmentally friendly or responsible". This overlooks the widely touted "best practices" binders that were given to each artist, their management, and handlers to encourage more responsible event planning and touring in the future-- as well as individual pledges to offset any individual breaches by doing an environmentally responsible act (see the Razorlight dustup)

Promoters heavily encouraged use of public and alternative means of transport to and throughout the days leading up to the event and at each site One useful measure will be to see how well artists themselves, concert venues, and local governments work individually and jointly to promote better practices.

-- The worst environmental dis came from Greenpeace, which lobbed the charge that event sponsor DaimlerChrysler-- plugging its new low-emission Smart car-- was merely doing *PR* to deflect attention away from the emissions performance of its other vehicles (gasp! whoever heard of such a thing!) . This misses the point: that it's potentially responsible corporate citizenship, that the vehicle actually could be a good on emissions standards, and that other key international, regional, and local environmental groups not involved with the event-- such as New Zealand's Climaction Coalition-- did endorse the event.

-- And yes, despite all the fuss, reports of people littering, despite pleas not to, made the rounds from London.

-- And yup, unlike Live 8, this wasn't a free concert (although I can't vouch for the Antarctica show)

Totally fair to criticize the event for any carbon footprint-- but really specious to criticize the *existence* of one as argument for the event's failure, or the futility of the organizers for doing what they attempted.

That they fell short of their televised audience ignores the near capacity crowds that attended at each venue (again save for you know where)

As for why Gore didn't do all this when he was a Senator and Vice President, watch the news. If you've spent any time directly involved in the policy process at your local or state level much less the boggy marsh that is Washington DC trapped for any length of time in the US Capitol, you wouldn't even have to wonder about the noxious toxic environment that prevents more productive, creative, and cooperative solutions to pressing domestic and global issues from seeing the light of day.

Don't stop, thinking about tomor--

Ryan - you rock.

thank you for that really thorough treatise.
BL

Ryan: thanks for your note -- it's an interesting thread to pull on when brands paint themselves into corners. You can't actually do a Live Earth global mega-thing without completely conradicting your primary message. Had they run one event and steamed it globally, they could have had a leg to stand on; as run, it was the opposite.

Sort of like cigarette companies talking about health -- especially when they talk about how to stop smoking. Or music labels talking about free speech and copyright law. Or fast food restaurants talking about nutrition.

Sounds like a blog post.

"Totally fair to criticize the event for any carbon footprint-- but really specious to criticize the *existence* of one as argument for the event's failure, or the futility of the organizers for doing what they attempted."

The measure I use to judge the success of an event like this is if it actually accomplished more good than bad. Of the existence of the argument you mentioned, I will only say, as I did before, that I'd be interested in seeing empirical data (even statistical) that demonstrate the event's actual success in accomplishing what it set out to accomplish. It's also interesting to note that the existence of that argument makes their message less effective to both interested and casual observers -- from a marketing perspective, if not a logical one. Marketing is not without its logic, but it is not as dependent on it as truth is.

My point is that intentions are not enough. Once you get rid of everything else, you have to be able to demonstrate that you accomplished what you intended to and that the result must be as objectively good as possible.

Since I believe the hysteria promoted by Gore's faulty data is terribly detrimental, I come down on the side of "no" on the second issue, but that doesn't stop me from trying to measure the success of an event like this on its own terms, which in this case I just say that we don't have any conclusive data to determine it.

Cam "the hysteria promoted by Gore's faulty data is terribly detrimental" -- faulty data? are you telling us global warming isn't happening? detrimental to what, exactly? Oil interests? The Bush administration?

The point of this event was to raise awareness of the issue, and since headlines around the world and in all media discussed it before, during and after, it was a success.

You want a number? Several million people signed the pledge to take action. Let's say that only one in seven follows through. A million small actions WILL have an impact on the global issue.

And as I said in the post, what matters is what happens tomorrow.

Stephen - one event streamed globally would simply not have had gotten people together face to face around the world to demonstrate their concern. It was the fact that so many people would come out in support of a cause that is newsworthy.

Wait til 2008. The people who believe something has to be done about global warming are going to come out to the polls too.

BL - The faulty data is pretty well documented by scientists who agree in principle with Gore's claims of man-induced global warming. I see no purpose in going through that all here. It has not a thing to do with oil interests or the Bush administration (or marketing, for that matter), but thanks for the inference.

In fact, the point I was making had nothing to do with any one particular issue at all, but that, when analyzing the marketing tactic alone, we have to measure success by the terms of the purpose, not by how it makes us feel about ourselves, and that can be done EVEN IF WE DISAGREE with the premise of the marketing effort.

"Several million people" signing a pledge isn't really proof of success, unless it can be demonstrated empirically that pledge signing reverses the trend of global warming, which is so ridiculous that it shouldn't need to be mentioned.

"[W]hat matters is what happens tomorrow," is a premise I'll agree with as long as we're talking about the same thing. Yes, it matters to whether or not we can deem this MARKETING EFFORT a success BY ITS OWN TERMS, and we can agree that BY ITS OWN TERMS we're talking about a global reduction in carbon emissions, or at least a reduction in their rate of growth. It is still vitally important to determine if that was the actual effect of this effort. Otherwise, our marketing efforts are not only futile, but potentially harmful.

It's not as if carbon emissions -- or global warming -- are like sales, where the output can be tracked and affected by supply and demand, since emissions are a noneconomic value (directly, at least).

EVEN IF emissions could be tracked and demonstrated conclusively to either decrease or increase more slowly after these concerts, it's still another thing to determine the change was caused by this event, and then measure that against the carbon emissions that resulted from the planning and execution of these concerts.

With advertising, PR, and sales, it's much more simple. You have the increase in revenue compared with increase in cost (Yes, I realize there are other measures, but I'm just pointing out that really getting to the success of this effort is much more complicated).

We don't have to agree on the problem to discuss this topic, as long as we can constrain ourselves to discussing the marketing aspect of the concerts apart from the actual consequences of bringing to bear what the concert's proponents sought to fulfill in the manner they thought most proper to fulfill it.

That is, in part, a moral issue, which is not altogether an improper discussion for a marketing article, but in this case an unproductive one to have.

Hey cam, you're half way to your first book.

Just copping a few notes from your earlier post, Stephen...

No problem looking at this event strictly in "good or bad/evil-e" or "success/failure" marketing terms, in its own context on its own terms-- if that's what's happening.

I''m curious what else needs to be stated as a measure apart from everything the organizers circulated consistently five months. If there were better measures that could or should have been used, it would be really great and productive to hear those as well.

Just right now, I'm thinking of Elaine Fogel's post today, and all of the challenges social marketers have to work against. Granted, some may potentially set themselves up for failure in the way the messages are framed or the intervention strategies they choose. But much of the challenge comes from an institutional bias they're working against as well, to "prove" their stuff "works" like "regular marketing" does.

I think this particular Live Earth "tastes great/less filling" brouha falls into the same unfortunate pit: as the initial awareness-raising event for a long-range campaign involving behavior change, it requires a social marketing gauge that factors in message impression and retention to be sure, but not the more vague "impact" that's being offered.

Regardless of interests or intent, two things tend to happen whenever large-scale issue impact events occur:

(1) Some people need to know why they failed-- even if there is some evidence to the contrary that something went right whether by accident or design. So the balance becomes "good vs. failure" or "success vs. bad"

(2) The organizers must simultaneously not only demonstrate their event was responsible *then and there* for things it can't reasonably be expected to prove, but also prove their event was not responsible for activity that happens to demonstrate what was at issue in the first place.

Funky position that tests the will, patience, and resolve for anyone to act on their conscience on such a scale in the future (which is why you've seen so few of these events).

By way of example, let's say the "drug epidemic" in America reached "epic proportions" tomorrow based on existing "government statistics" and a nonprofit drug prevention group stages a 50-state simultaneous 24-hour series of concerts (without psychedelic acts, and no artists in rehab, of course) to play to a sleep-deprived crowd.

By the standard tossed out here, critics would have every right to demand, the very next day, evidence that drug use (a) had dropped, (b) because of the event, and (c) when (a) and/or (b) didn't happen the right to label the event a failure no matter how many drug tests were performed, people pledged to quit, and folks admitted they had a problem and entered rehab that day (arguably to escape the awful acts that day). No fair counting any artists in the tally either.

The point: behavior change isn't measured on demand, only over time. And the very nature of empirical evidence itself means evidence and data based on experience or performance used to compare, evaluate, and monitor progress. So since it's too soon to call what will happen after this kickoff event, it's ironic to demand more of something it's difficult to obtain at present and state with certainty that X caused Y.

One way to start: look at the Partners
http://www.liveearth.org/partners.php

and see if the sales of specific products or overall brands goes up over the next few weeks in conjunction with "Live Earth" tie-ins or mentions in specific cities where events were held?

For my part I'm going back to watch Pharrell's set on the Rio concert stream-- good stuff:

http://liveearth.msn.com/concerts/

"You Can Do It Too..."

[Disclosure: I'm not a Gore-tech, nor an "environmentalist", but I care about these issues and my thoughts stem from a background in and access to range of informed sources with a varied, diverse range of perspectives independent of their politics.]

Ha! One of these days I'm going to have to log all of the conversations I've had online and see how many volumes I'd fill. :)

Ryan - Nice, thoughtful comment.

For the record, nobody here is suggesting that the organizers of the event can or need to show that there has been a net reduction in carbon emissions "the very next day." That is a straw man.

What is being suggested is that, given the resources being consumed, the result can and should be measured with respect to the terms of the event. As BL said, what matters is what happens tomorrow. In other words, will behavior change?

Say I am the CMO of a large company with a net operating profit of $30 million on revenues of $1 billion.

Tomorrow I wake up and decide that profit isn't enough with respect to the revenue, so I decide to embark on a new campaign that will cost my company, soup and nuts, $50 million more than my current budget, in an effort to grow revenues by $80 million.

If revenues remain flat, then the campaign can be considered a failure, since the company will have immediately gone from a net operating profit of $30 million to a net loss of $20 million.

If I didn't lose my job immediately, the toleration within the organization for future failure will be greatly reduced. You have that kind of accountability in business because of the stake companies have in the outcome. Failure actually means failure, regardless of the fact that my INTENT was to GROW revenues by $80 million.

Let's be honest: the shareholders don't give a damn what my intent was. They care that they are now losing money, whereas once they were making it.

Here, "success" seems to mean "We did something with the right intent," not, "We made a difference in how people behave so that carbon emissions were reduced," even though that was the overall goal -- and the purpose of the pledges.

Nonprofit campaigns need to have accountability similar to business, and in something that is determined to affect noneconomic values (such as carbon emissions), its success cannot be measured by how many ballcaps they sold, how many people viewed the show, how many pledges were signed, or even how much money they raised.

They may be helpful indicators, but they may not (the production of those items consume resources, too, and has its own emissions). It's impossible to tell without more information than we have.

Getting that information is going to take time, effort, and money. That's just the way the world works. If the organizers are really interested in making a difference in the way they describe, I would hope they would want to see that their marketing efforts (and resource consumption and emission production) resulted in the net reduction of that which they claimed they wanted to reduce.

Cam- you know, Seth Godin did a book from his blog posts. maybe you should do one of your blog comments.

just a thought....

I don't know what demographic was mainly targeted - or indeed if any specific demographic was targeted. The target should have been "all people interested in leaving the earth a better place for their children, grandchildren, and their children's children's children."

Count me in. I'm in my mid-50's and while I don't have cable (the concert wasn't on FTA here in Australia) I did catch a lot of it live on the internet - great, clear streaming video, btw.

Has anything changed? Not much, except for the way sa few people think about the future maybe. You have to meet people on their turf and terms to get a message across.

The sad part is rock stars probably have a far bigger carbon footprint than most of the rest of us. Carbon footprints are inextricably linked to GDP per head, or economic wealth. and rock stars are, in the main, wealthy. So, they ten to consume more.

Now what we need to do is to train people to move from being consumers, to conservers. So getting rock stars who are a bad example to try to persuade the rest of us may be a tad hypocritical - but it's a way to communicate the message. and some of the ideas were helpful, even if they are generally too little, too late.

To the sceptics and naysayers I say this: If there isn't a problem, and we reduce our energy consumption and reduce emissions, that's not problem. If there is a problem, and we don nothing, then that's a bigger, potentially terminal on a global scale, problem.

If someone told you the aircraft you were about to board had a 50% chance of crashing, would you board?

I'll try to cut my emissions, and I'll work with others to do the same. Because even if it isn't really a problem, I'll save energy, money, and the world will conserve resources.

Problem or not, that has to be a good thing.

And oh yeah, Crowded House rocked. On ya, Neil Finn & Co.

(Hey, so did Metallica).

"The target should have been 'all people interested in leaving the earth a better place for their children, grandchildren, and their children's children's children.'"

Perhaps. But just because someone believes all of that doesn't mean they buy into the problem and solution being offered. The target might have been considerably narrower, for I doubt the skeptics were swayed by this event.

Most of those I know (including myself) understand the considerable costs of regulation this same group promotes... but personal responsibility and conservation make perfect economic sense... and we practice it religiously. But it sounds a bit hypocritical (and even condescending) coming from this group, whose excessive personal consumption habits are widely known.

It's a pickle for them. I don't know what the overall effect will ultimately be.

Cam - "It's a pickle for them." it's a pickle for the planet too, whether you like it or not.

B.L. - I'm trying very hard to be a gracious guest and keep the discussion to marketing and without trampling on anyone's point of view about global warming. When I say, "It's a pickle for them," I'm speaking specifically about the real outcome of their marketing efforts.

Jeez Cam - this is not an us and them issue. This is about the planet.

And this has become a circular conversation so I'm moving on.

Rock on.

Can I offer a simple viewpoint? From a marketing standpoint, Live Earth was more of a brand awareness campaign. Not a sales drive, not a new product launch. The objective: Making the topic of the environment "cool". (warning: I'm going to use that word a lot!)

So there's no measurable ROI. Ok. But you want to talk results? Do you know how many people I've talked to about this in the last week or so? Most of them never having had a discussion about the environment before, other than to think about whether or not to get another garbage bin to start recycling. That's another target audience.

And involving celebrities? Hypocritical? Maybe. But it also gives people that are passionate about the subject permission to bring it up. Events like Live Earth makes the topic current. It's, again, cool.

Now, I'm no environmentalist, but I've had several conversations at work about where to get those "cool" lightbulbs at the best price or which ones to use for what part of the house. And with guys, the conversations were mostly about which hybrid cars would give you the most bang for your buck and which looked better.

And when my 17-year-old brother is talking to his girlfriend about how cool the new Prius is, and that Cameron Diaz drives one, too, I know that change is in the air. They're using the "cool" factor to get a whole new generation to think more about the environment.

Hey, I don't care who's peddling it, I just know that the message is getting out. How many people are acting on it today? Don't know. How many will act on it tomorrow? Next year? I bet you it will be a much larger number than before, because they either watched, heard of, or discussed Live Earth and similar efforts. They may have agreed or disagreed with the actual execution of it, but more people are definitely talking about this topic today, GLOBALLY! That's what I call a successful awareness campaign.

Now this is the time for product launches and targeted sales campaigns. Environmental groups should take advantage of the aftermath of the concerts and go after new members. Those are the kind of measurable numbers we could look at!! Anyone selling something that could help or at least not hurt the environment, should be advertising that stuff hard right now! There's simply more people paying attention = Their potential market is growing. That can't be a negative thing...