Marketing Rules the Day | Green Energy News

November 14, 2004 – Vol.9 No.34

MARKETING RULES THE DAY.

In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Amory Lovins, the energy guru, said that the government needs to step in and push harder for more research into fuel efficient technologies, advanced materials for light-weight but strong and safe vehicles as well as alternative fuels for them.

He thinks that fees should be imposed on gas-guzzlers, and rebates given for the purchase of fuel-efficient ones. Further, low-income Americans should get financial assistance to buy or lease fuel efficient cars and light trucks.

Counterpoint to Lovins' comments, a representative of the Alliance of Automobile Manufactures said that it is consumers, not think tanks, who determine whether energy-efficient technologies will succeed commercially.

(The jab at think tanks was in reference to the Rocky Mountain Institute which Lovins founded.)

Actually it isn’t exactly consumers that determine the success of a technology. It’s the power of marketing that gets people interested in a technology and often keeps that technology selling in the market place.

(A few years ago a representative from one of the two leading companies selling hybrid cars told this editor that the company was controlling sales of their hybrid sedan by controlling advertising. Lots of advertising sold lots of cars: Reduce advertising and sales slowed. They knew consumers weren’t exactly in the driver’s seat when it comes to sales. They didn’t want to oversell the car, either. It’s a bad idea to sell cars you can’t deliver.)

So if it is marketing that helps make-or-break a technology, why not a marketing campaign to promote a certain technology, one that benefits all?

The Center for a New American Dream wants to start a nationwide media campaign to help bring more hybrid cars to the roads of the U.S.

To launch this campaign the organization is looking for a catchy slogan to help sell the vehicles. But the Center needs help in finding that perfect slogan, thus it has started a contest: The best go-out-and-buy-a-hydrid slogan to be submitted to them will win a new Toyota Prius.

So put your creative thinking cap on and send your slogan idea to the group. You have until January 14, 2005 to submit. Visit the Center for a New American Dream at http://www.NewDream.org/Prius , the Rocky Mountain Institute at http://www.rmi.org/ .