We open on a wife spraying a scented air freshener in her home, as her dutiful husband stands nearby. Then out of the blue a typical product pitchman enters the living room and asks, “Is regular clean clean enough for your family? Not when you can have Clean Coal Clean!”
He puts a black canister in her hand. Dirty, toxic spray spews forth from the canister, blackening the room as husband and wife start choking on the fumes.
The pitchman, unfazed, continues, “Clean Coal Clean harnesses the awesome power of the word ‘clean’ to make it sound like the cleanest there is.”
As the family–including two children–fans themselves and coughs repeatedly, the pitchman, now seen on the house’s front lawn, assures the viewer, “Clean coal is supported by the coal industry. The most trusted name in coal!”
This slice of polluted life is then broken by a message on screen that reads, “In reality, there’s no such thing as clean coal.”
An end tag directs us to thisisreality.org, the website for the Reality Coalition, a joint project of the Alliance for Climate Protection, League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council, National Wildlife Federation and Sierra Club.
“Clean Coal Clean–Air Freshener” is the first in a series of ads directed by Oscar-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, a.k.a. the Coen brothers, via Los Angeles-based production house Company for Crispin Porter+Bogusky, Boulder, Colo.
The Reality Coalition campaign is designed to debunk what it regards as the myth of “clean coal.”
“The coal industry has spent tens of millions of dollars selling the illusion of so-called ‘clean coal’,” said Brian Hardwick of the Alliance for Climate Protection. “Why? Because marketing and lobbying are much cheaper than actually making coal plants clean.”
Hardwick continued: “Coal companies would rather protect the status quo than actually do what is necessary for coal to be truly clean and be part of an energy future that doesn’t destroy the planet. We’re challenging them to stop the bogus marketing campaign, stop their delay tactics and support real progress toward climate solutions.”
The Crispin team on the Reality Coalition campaign included co-executive creative directors Andrew Keller and Rob Reilly, creative director Ryan Kutscher, associate creative director Paul Caiozzo, art director Santiago Escobar, integrated art director Javier Torok, copywriter Donnell Johnson, integrated head of video Matt Bonin, executive integrated producer Chris Kyriakos and executive integrated music producer Bill Meadows.
Robin Benson and Richard Goldstein exec produced for Company with Robert Nackman serving as head of production and Ron Neter as producer. The DP was Dan Hainey.
Editors were Paul Martinez and Christjan Jordan of Los Angeles-based Arcade Edit. Assistant editor was Greg Scruton. Damian Stevens and Alison Maldonado were exec producer and producer, respectively, for Arcade.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More