Commentary

Ads Pollute More Than the Mind (Apparently)

Tucked almost unnoticed among the stories of hundreds of thousands dying from the wind, water and quakes of our lonely orb spinning through space, comes news that a 4.5-million-impression display and video campaign running on AOL, Yahoo and MSN creates about 10 metric tons of carbon.

That is, of course, only a top-line run-rate number--no word on the additional environmental damage from click throughs, conversions and trips to the store to actually buy the product advertised. But if we are starting at 10 tons, one can only assume the worst and conclude that advertising is dangerously contributing to global warming or killing the whales or snail darters or something else nefarious.

Seems like an odd proposition from an ad agency that invented the utterly pointless carbon offset calculator as a way to call attention to itself. Perhaps not so odd, since the president of the firm boasts that "he studied Swahili, has completed seven 150-mile bike rides and worked in the White House." Oh, here in the fine print it says he also "developed the ABC Sports Monday Night Football Web site."

Interestingly, the site appears NOT to include a carbon offset calculator for the dietary habits of 350-lb. linemen, transportation to sold-out games of 80,000, or their collective beer and burger farts.

Unless this story slips into the ignominy that it so richly deserves, I am afraid we are in for a round of claims about how one portal or network is more eco-friendly than the next. It is hard enough to believe all that BS about everyone's ability to serve the right ad to the right person at the right time without having to figure who can do it with the smallest carbon footprint.

"Ms. Smith, I think you and the media team have come up with the right reach and frequency that our client needs to move those off-season Chia Pets. Have you completed the environmental impact study?"

If this trend goes far enough, instead of those boxes of cookies and pizzas, media buyers can look forward to media seller graft of braided ficus trees, miniature herb topiaries and Pagoda Ming Aralia. Kiss Peter Luger goodbye and say hello to wheatgrass, alfalfa sprouts, barley, quinoa, millet, and kamut berries. Say farewell to appletinis and rise and shine for the 6 a.m. fun run... uh, yoga--but forgot about the enviro-cost of all that carbon dioxide exhalation and dry-heaving.

While we're at it, can we calculate the fruitless and pointless energy expended in the "consolidation of Platform-A" that has resulted in a cellar-dwelling rank of fourth among the major Web portals in ad revenue? Or the on-again, off-again acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft? Or conferences claiming to see over the horizon to the next big thing in digital marketing?

By the way, according to a MediaPost story, that 10 metric tons of carbon used in the ad campaign apparently costs roughly $126 worth of green energy credits to offset. I have set up a "Clear Your Conscience" Fund to which you should direct monies that I promise to use to shoot (using 'green' bullets dipped in the underarm sweat of His Holiness Al Gore) the next person(s) who complains about the melting ice caps, building in the wetlands, clear cutting of tropical forests, or uses "oxygen-depleting," "endangered species," "environmental degradation," or "ozone-destroying" in a sentence. If nothing else, this will deplete the amount of hot air expended into the "atmosphere."

The story you have just read is an attempt to blend fact and fiction in a manner that provokes thought, and on a good day, merriment. It would be ill-advised to take any of it literally. Take it, rather, with the same humor with which it is intended. Cut and paste or link to it at your own peril.

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