One of the most basic tenets of advertising is to keep the message as clear and simple as possible, to enable it to be easily absorbed from out from the mass of media bombardment..and this ad does exactly that. The message I received was that “clean coal is a lie”. If, in fact, that was the intended aim, this particular ad works. If not, then, you there may be a problem. (I’m a visual communicator from Australia)

You have one ad campaign address one concept at a time. The more you complicate a message, the less chance it has to work. I think that may be the strategy here. Let’s hope it has the intended effect. At the very least, it helps to muddy the waters for the obstructionist’s message.

Many people are under the impression that if we just abandon coal completely, and go to wind and solar instead, everything will be fine. Of course, that is not even close to being true. Like it or not, in the US and especially in India and China, coal is indispensable for baseload power. That’s what keeps the lights on, and makes electric cars possible.

There is no positive alternative offered by the ad. Wind and solar presently are very small contributors to the world’s energy needs. They are intermittent and their storage problems have not been solved. Biofuels, etc. may make a small contribution, but they cannot possibly substitute for coal any time before 2050.

Cleaning up coal, somehow, is the only realistic solution, but what the coal companies have been selling (chemical capture and “sequestration” underground) has not been proved and has no chance of success. So it is time to seek other solutions. What are they? That is the challenge.

The term “clean coal” is a great message from an advertising perspective: it’s short, catchy and conveys a simple message that everyday people will understand the gist of. Of course it glosses over reality – but that is the whole point from the coal industry’s perspective.

One point in favour of the add – there is a lot of irony in it, which reflects one of your recent posts on the use of rhetoric Joe.

Personally, I like the linkage: “clean coal and clean cigarettes don’t exist”. It links the term “clean coal” directly to something that people know is a myth and which people can associate with the history of deception by the tobacco industry.

As for the ad, meh it’s OK – but I thought the same as Joe as I watched it – the black clouds of soot are not the issue. It’s the invisible, odourless CO2.

Let the Coen Brothers do it start to finish next time.

“Coal is beautiful – some would even say miraculous. Nature spent millions of years putting it in the ground — you can see fossils in just about any lump — and for hundreds of years coal miners have risked their lives to provide it for making steel and generating electricity. And we have lived with the costs — mine accidents, pollution of all kinds, and now, global warming.

“So now this old miner says it’s time to leave some coal in the ground. Efficiency saves money and pollution, and renewable power like wind and solar are within reach. And coal miners are ready to work the clean energy industries of today.

“Coal is wonderful. It has served us well. Now let’s leave it in the ground.”

That is precisely the coal industry’s goal: Namely to create a generic enough brand so that policy makers can avoid making the tough decisions on climate and energy.

As long as the amorphous promise of clean coal is right around the corner, we don’t need to take bold action today.

I think the point of this campaign is to take away that brand – to take away that easy rhetorical pivot, if you will – and force an honest conversation on the realities of coal. In this case, they’re trying to use humor to do it.

To your point about their ultimate policy goal: Another way to think of this is not as the entirety of the climate / coal effort, but rather one discrete but important piece. Take away their ability to use the phrase and lots of other people can come in an fill the breach on policy and solutions.

I’ll leave it the ad experts to decide if the vehicle they’re using is the most effective – I think it’s funny myself and as a rule think humor his a better way to convince people than fear or finger wagging.

Maybe one measure of success would be to do a news search and see how many stories have been written about coal’s relative dirtiness since this ad campaign started as compared to before?

Considering the clean coal crowd has the President in its ads, yes. The money would be much better spent on actual deployment of alternative energy resources. Participate in the solution.