Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Lamest Marketing Idea Ever

This would be the coal industry’s new coloring book for kids which features “Power Rock” (pictured at left) and his sidekick “Spurt.” Is it my imagination or is Power Rock giving me the evil eye?

It all comes from Families Organized to Represent the Coal Economy (FORCE, which pretty much describes what the coal industry is trying to do to Americans). Ironically, FORCE is a coal industry group which does not actually allow families to join. Instead, as Grist discovered:
"membership is through coal and coal related company sponsorship. When a company joins it agrees to distribute FORCE materials and information to its member employees. This distribution network helps FORCE maintain a low overhead while supplying high quality service to its members.”

Apparently membership is just for

“Any Pennsylvania company doing business with the coal industry...”

Oh, I see. So in other words, if you work for a Pennsylvania coal company, you will likely get coal industry propaganda to take home to your kids.

Sorta like a drug pusher making sure the next generation of addicts is secured.

One problem though: media releases issued under the name “Families Organized” does sorta indicate that it’s an organization of families, not businesses. But in this era where truthiness is more important than fact, I’m sure our clueless, Google-challenged news media won’t even notice.