With banner stunt, Greenpeace scores publicity coup

But any damage to Rushmore could scuttle message, says marketing specialist.

By Jeremy Fugleberg, Journal staff | Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Previous Page

Share

• del.icio.us
• Digg
• NewsVine
• Fark

Print

Email

Greenpeace’s banner drop alongside the stone faces of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial was only part of the organization’s plan to get out its “stop global warming” message.

Publicity stunts are only as successful as their media coverage, and Greenpeace harnessed the Internet for its well-planned marketing assault.

Greenpeace’s attack on all fronts, through a live video feed and its use of social media, quickly set the tone for the public’s view of the event and helped the organization effective circulate its message.

“I’m guessing activist groups around the world are going to be looking at this saying, ‘hmm, this might be a case study for us,’” said Patrick Galvin of Galvin  Communications in Portland, Ore. Galvin specializes in helping businesses build buzz without expensive advertising.

Greenpeace snapped a photo of the banner with an aerial camera, and a video camera operator near Highway 244 at the memorial broadcast live footage of the incident online.

Greenpeace released a well-timed statement about the demonstration and placed it prominently on its Web site, which included live updates posted on Twitter, an online microblogging site. 

Media organizations throughout the country quickly picked up the video and still images supplied by Greenpeace. The video, images and Twitter messages fleshed out news articles which initially took much of their information from a Greenpeace statement issued moments before the climbers unrolled the banner.

Galvin said he also was impressed by the activists’ adept use of Twitter. Before the event, friends and supporters of the organization and the climbers on Mount Rushmore eagerly spoke of the event on the online site Twitter in the hours and minutes leading up the banner drop.

Several of the climbers broadcast their location to the world via Twitter as they rappelled onto Abraham Lincoln’s stone face.

“Twitter has become this platform that, more than anything else, people are attracted to it for its immediacy,” Galvin said. “Having one of the rappellers tweeting about it was brilliant.”

The choice of Mount Rushmore to make such a statement wasn’t made lightly, said Carroll Muffett, Greenpeace USA deputy campaigns director.

“We communicate the way we do to have our message heard the way it needs to be heard,” she said.

The banner is much more effective than a bland press release opposing global warming, Galvin said. But it could come at a cost.

If the climbers damaged the memorial, and the government focuses attention on that damage, Greenpeace’s anti-global warming message could get lost in the outrage.

“If any damage was done to Mount Rushmore, any good they achieved will be washed away, because this is an iconic American image,” he said. “It’s a risky proposition, especially when you’re climbing on a piece of land that belongs to all Americans.”

Contact Jeremy Fugleberg at jeremy.fugleberg@rapidcityjournal.com or 394-8421