Feb
20
2009
What you can learn from Environmental Defence
Author: Robin BrowneToday U.S. President Barack Obama visited Ottawa so you’d think that it wouldn’t have been a good day for anyone else to get news coverage but that’s exactly what Toronto-based Environmental Defence (ED) did on at least three occasions that I caught. The first was last night, when the Ottawa office of Canada’s national public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), covered the Obama party ED threw at a local bar to raise awareness of key environmental issues. The second was watching the CBC news network, Newsworld, online and seeing ED’s campaign director, Aaron Freeman, being interviewed live in the studio about the environmental announcement Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had made earlier. The last time was hearing Freeman as part of piece of on-the-street quick interviews asking people what they would say to Obama if they had five minutes of face time with him. Freeman hit ED’s main messages perfectly.
Three things to learn from ED’s success are:
1) Party hardy: organize an fun event tied to your issue that coincides with a major news event.
2) That’s your story and you’re stickin’ to it: be an expert in what you do and stick to commenting on that only. As ED’s website says, they protect the environment and human health and nothing else.
3) Keep your comments short and clear.
The one thing that gives me pause is that I don’t see them doing much on the social media front beyond RSS feeds. Given how passionate people are about the environment they could use those channels to great effect.
