According to The New York Times, MTV unveiled its latest public service advertising campaign last week. Its aim is to promote environmentally friendly lifestyle choices among youth (without upsetting MTV’s carbon-sucking underwriters).
The advertisements, created by six agencies — 180 Los Angeles, Cake, Lowe Worldwide, Ogilvy & Mather, Wieden & Kennedy and Young & Rubicam — will be shown in 162 countries. The Web site for the campaign called Switch, shows how the green movement has gone mainstream.
“O.K., so we like to consume,” it says. “That’s fine…. Switch isn’t here to tell you to start hugging trees and become an eco-warrior — although it’s fine, if that’s what you’re into. Nah, all we’re here to do is ask you to make little changes to the way you consume. So small are these changes that you won’t even notice them.”
The idea that consumers can continue to consume, making tiny changes in their behavior, is attractive to marketers, too. Not only can they keep promoting consumption, they can turn greenness into a selling point.
Have you read anything this cynical and absurd yet today? The kind of changes we need to make are FAR from tiny.
