Earth Hour Has Gone Global. Be Part of '09 - March 28
March 18, 2009
By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk
Last week I got the honor to visit Chicago again and was guest blogger at PMA'09, their annual conference on Integrated Marketing that was held this year at the Fairmont Hotel. We were all exposed to a full two-day agenda packed with speakers from both brands as well as agencies. Yes, the attendance was down a bit from previous years, but it actually made for a more intimate and personal gathering.
We were treated to both lunch and dinner in the Fairmont's Imperial Ballroom and got to hear some great keynote speakers such as Tony Palmer, CMO of Kimberly Clark, Google's Penry Price, VP of Advertising Sales, and a special luncheon keynote on day two that was a perspective on global marketing. Since I was a guest of the conference as a blogger I have written a few posts on my blog already on some of these speakers, however I haven't gotten a chance to write about this one yet.
As part of the luncheon theme :The Brand New World of Integrated Marketing - a Global Perspective, David Brot, SVP of Leo Burnett shared with us the story behind Earth Hour. It all started in Sydney, Australia during 2007 and then went global last year. This year 2009 Earth Hour is on March 28th at 8:30 pm EST. To best understand what it's all about is to view the video, which David did for us and I encourage you to do the same.
So the big idea was to shut the lights off for an hour and it was something that people could really relate to. So in Sydney alone 2.2 million people turned off their lights. Then last year as you can see by the video it expanded across the world with over 58% of Australian adults participating and an estimated 50 million globally. Google got involved last year and turned their home page dark. The event was also a big hit with bloggers who created almost 25,000 Earth Hour blogs.
So mark your calendars, whatever timezone you may be in, and next Saturday night shut off your lights (and that's means your computer as well). Everyone is also invited to support Earth Hour by making their own video and adding it to the Earth Hour Global group on YouTube here.You can also embed the Vote Earth banner on your blog or website in one of the many sizes offered, one that's shown below. It's a beginning. We all need to start somehow.
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