be true green updates

 EVERYWHERE you look there seems to be someone inventively half-killing themselves in a bid to raise awareness of some issue or other.
Whether it’s running a marathon in the Arctic, riding a bicycle across the desert or crossing an ocean in something unseaworthy.

Without an effective publicity campaign, however, all too many intrepid exploits pass almost unnoticed. Nothing pains environmental communications expert Kim McKay more than hearing about an extraordinary feat in the name of an important cause only well after it has ended.

“There’s no point just putting out a press release the day you set out and another one the day you get back,” McKay says. “A lot of people using adventure activities to try and highlight (an) issue forget that they are essentially communications campaigns.

“It’s a very competitive environment out there to cut through the clutter and gain attention for your endeavour.”

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In 1989, McKay helped launch one of the world’s first environmental campaigns when she and Ian Kiernan held Clean Up Sydney Harbour Day. The next year it became Clean Up Australia Day, now an annual event.

“When we started Clean Up Australia we recognised from the beginning this was primarily a communications campaign to get people out and involved,” McKay says. “We had a small budget, but I made sure we put the bulk of that into communications.”

After more than 20 years’ involvement in green issues, including seven years in the US working for Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channels International, in 2004 McKay set up Sydney marketing consultancy Momentum2, which specialises in environmental campaigns.

Most recently, Momentum2 handled the media for the arrival of the Plastiki, a plastic-bottle boat that sailed from San Francisco to Sydney to draw attention to ocean pollution.

The arrival generated massive worldwide coverage, with 80 local and international media organisations accredited to attend the landing. Reports by Reuters were carried in more than 180 papers. Momentum2 estimates local newspaper, radio, TV and online coverage gained 117 million views.

McKay says the key to the campaign’s success was the use of technology to maintain awareness throughout the Plastiki’s 129 days at sea. Crew members wrote 116 blog posts, sent 879 Twitter messages and did more than 50 interviews using satellite phone and Skype video link, generating more than 300 print articles, more than 200 TV and radio stories and about 12,000 online mentions.

About 14,000 people registered with the Plastiki’s website, which received more than a million page views, with more than 7000 downloading a widget enabling them to track its trip. Almost 8000 people became Facebook fans.

The biggest media coup: on Earth Day, expedition leader David de Rothschild did a live cross on The Oprah Winfrey Show, one of the most watched programs in the US.

“That’s pretty much the gold standard in terms of PR hits in America,” says McKay. “The Plastiki set a new precedent for communicating in that way. That sort of connectivity is vital now.”