Don’t rain on my festival

Subtitle: Happy Earth Day!

One of the best memories from my otherwise mostly-terrible twenties is a weekend in May of 1990 spent at the Whole Earth Festival in Davis, California.

For three days, I hung out with friends on the UC-Davis campus celebrating the anniversary of Earth Day. I wore the same tie-dyed tank top and short red skirt every day. I skipped barefoot in the sun¹ and got as brown as a free-range chicken. I did the hippie spin to live music. I ate my weight in organic food.

And pretty much by osmosis, I learned about the concept of living respectfully with this planet. Educators and vendors taught me some of it, but most I learned by observing socially-conscious people around me who walked their talk.

It was awesome.

Eighteen years later, people are saying my rose-colored memory is just…well, a memory. That Earth Day has become another “Buy More Stuff!!” Day:

“People are being deceived,” [Glen MacIntosh, of the Toronto Climate Campaign] says. “They attend the Earth Day events thinking they are doing a good thing, but really they are being entertained, sold to.”

Well, it may be true that Earth Day events are becoming commercial, joining the ranks of other “causes” selling stuff, like the breast cancer awareness folks and their pink ribbon products² and Gap’s RED campaign.

But I doubt people don’t realize “they are being entertained, sold to.” Of course they know. We live in a consumer culture where it’s virtually unheard of not to be entertained and sold to.

And judging by the numbers of people who are buying clear consciences, we may be losing a sense of value in charity. It seems we feel that when we give, we must always get something in return, even for our gestures of goodwill.

But the coffer doesn’t have to be seen as half empty.

Product campaigns raise awareness of issues in a much more far-reaching way than non-consumer campaigns can. And even though intended audiences may take home only superficial knowledge of the issues, there’s a good chance they will retain it.

Due to Bono’s involvement in the Gap campaign, a millions of kids know about the epidemic of children and women with AIDs in Africa. Because it’s associated in their minds with a pop icon, they’ll probably remember it when they’re adults. You can’t get that from a mention in a textbook or on NPR.

How many of us can remember the name of the lead singer of our favorite band during our senior year in high school? Lots. What were the primary global human rights issues that year? Right.

When I went to the Whole Earth Festival eighteen years ago, I was as green to going-green as a girl raised in the Excessive 80’s could be. I didn’t go to honor the planet or learn anything; I went to party. My education was a happy side-effect.

Lots of things were marketed at me that weekend (who knew you could do so many things with hemp?), but I also experienced a new lifestyle that influences me to this day.   I never forgot what I learned because I was having a blast at the time.

I don’t know if there are a lot more mass-produced “Earth Day products” being marketed nowadays; probably. But even so, as long they dole out the information along with it, and they don’t leave a bigger footprint than they are trying to erase, it’s really not the end of the world.

And a final word to aspiring product marketers: If you have to capitalize on holidays, pick really important ones, like National Jelly Bean Day.

Technorati Tags: Earth Day, Whole Earth Festival

1. Literally. There was a posted tongue-in-cheek rule for that weekend: “No running! Only skipping!” Hippie humor. [↩]
2. I have 2 pink ribbon pins, but I got them free for doing the Race for the Cure. Do they count? [↩]