I remember a time not that long ago when if you wanted something written about you in the media, a campaign had to be organized. Usually you would hire a PR firm, put together a press kit and a roadshow, arrange appointments with who you felt were the influential writers in your domain and organize a big push to meet them all. A lot of work AND money.
Today, it's a little imagination, some video editing software, and in this case Google Earth and YouTube. In a campaign against forest giant West Fraser Timber, ForestEthics has produced a video that features a fly-over of logging in B.C. and Alberta forests created from satellite images downloaded from Google. The logged-over areas are juxtaposed with images of caribou, wolves and grizzly bears. The video details what the eco-group claims is clearcut logging in endangered mountain caribou habitat.
Whether you agree or not with the politics, you have to admire the creativity of the ForestEthics group. This slick video was quickly picked up by the media and is sure to create some very high level awareness of the issues the are promoting.
Here is how they did it. PR has clearly changed!
"YouTube is frequented from everyone to teenagers after school to reporters to customers who can now all see for themselves what West Fraser's logging practices look like," ForestEthics campaigner Tzeporah Berman said Monday. "Our staff made this video sitting at their desks in Vancouver. We were able to do a fly-over of West Fraser's logging operations using Google. We have never been able to do this so quickly before."
Berman, a veteran eco-campaigner, said that the new technology can have the kind of impact within minutes that it used to take months to achieve.
"It would take us months to gather the footage. I can remember flying to meet customers in Europe with a videotape in hand that I would then put into their machines to show them. What we are doing today is fast, it's immediate, it's fool-proof and it has a huge reach."
Very cool!
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