NASA performed a mapping study based on 20 years of satellite data to determine the sunniest locations in the world.

The sunniest locations on earth are represented in red below.  While the United States cannot compare to Australia or Sudan for sun, it is certainly the leader in the western world for harnessing the sun’s power.  It’s  up to us to turn that potential into a reality.

If you live in the southwest United States, you should be excited about the possibilities.  Here is list of the 10 sunniest cities in the United States.

Ranked by Annual Percent of Possible Sunshine:

1    Yuma, Arizona    90%
2    Las Vegas, Nevada    85%
3    Phoenix, Arizona    85%
4    Tucson, Arizona    85%
5    El Paso, Texas    83%
6    Flagstaff, Arizona    79%
7    Fresno, California    79%
8    Reno, Nevada    79%
9    Sacramento, California    78%
10  Albuquerque, New Mexico    76%

And the big loser?

Sorry Astoria, Oregon.  With your 240 cloudy days a year, you are still a great candidate for wind power!

Being the Administrative Assistant here at BG, I go through the mail everyday. I am amazed at the amount of junk mail this office receives. Catalog after catalog, mailer after mailer. It is quite overwhelming and makes me a little sick because all I do with all that stuff is throw it into the recycle bin.  As mentioned before in Jon’s blog, we conducted a one week experiment to see how much junk mail our office received. After just ONE week of everyone saving their direct mail, we had over 14 lbs of JUNK. Here is a little reminder picture of what all that junk looked like.

As part of our effort to become a more eco-friendly company, I did some research to find out how to stop this overload of direct mail. I found some pretty great tips on the Privacy Rights Clearing House website. I wanted to share a few with you. These tips were taken directly from their website:

Pre-Approved Offers of Credit:

1. To have your name removed from this particular mailing list, you must contact the credit reporting agencies directly by mail or phone.  You can find the addresses and numbers for these agencies here.

US Postal Service Change of Address:

1. To notify senders of a change of address, it is better to contact your credit card companies, family, friends, utilities,  and magazines directly to avoid the junk mail following you to your new address.
2. If you fill out a change of address form at the post office they in turn will send out a change of address card to mailers who have your old address. This will include any current junk mail you are receiving.

To remove yourself from as many national mailings as possible:

1. Contact the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) sign up for their Mail Preference Service (MPS). Once you register your name will be put into a “do not mail” file that is updated monthly. You MUST re-register after three years. There is a $1 charge to register by mail. Their address is: Mail Preference Service , Attention Dept: 27478505, Direct Marketing Association, PO Box 282 Carmel, NY 10512.
2. Or Register with the DMA online here: DMA Choice Website

These are just a few tips from their website. It was pretty helpful to me and I hope it will be as helpful to you. (I did find a few errors on their page regarding the DMA and I have made the changes here on this blog.)  Let’s all send a message to companies who use direct mail marketing by taking our names off the list. If enough of us do it who knows we might start  something. Maybe they will try using Social Media instead.

When people visit our agency offices, they always comment on the visual experience we present — they love seeing the vibe we create because it represents an escape from the traditional office environment.  Sure, we showcase our creative talents in advertising, design, PR, etc. by posting our latest and greatest on the walls.  While we are very proud of the work we create for our clients, and our clients love seeing it displayed, we need creative inspiration as well.

That’s why, when we’re not showing our own creative art,  we decorate our walls with original works by local artists.   We’ve collected some pretty cool pieces over the years from some pretty well known local painters and mixed-media artists — and many were obtained from the same place.  The San Diego Art Institute:  The Museum of the Living Artist is in San Diego’s Balboa Park, and their space displays works from local artists in variety of media and genres.

And here’s what’s cool.  Twice a year they have a fundraiser called C-Note, where they sell works donated by their artist members for $100 or $200 each — and many are even framed!  What is a c-note you ask?  Well, in urban slang it means a hundie, a benjamin, a 100 spot, a Texas dollar and a bunch of other nicknames for a one hundred dollar bill.

In this case, the C-Note is a free-for-all “art grab”, where they open the floodgates and everybody runs into the museum and starts grabbing art off the walls.  For those that don’t want to spill their wine in the process, the activity calms down considerably after the first 20 minutes and you can then leisurely stroll through and choose pieces you’d like to purchase. The only rule is that once you take it off the wall, it’s yours and you must buy it.  Throughout the evening, the walls are replenished a bunch of times as people take things down and museum staff puts new things up.  Most of the pieces are valued at much higher prices than the one or two c-notes they sell for, so you end up with art that immediately appreciates in value.  Seriously, it is a major deal and so much fun.

So if you have time, go check it out and support our local artists.  It’s a great way to add to your collection and help out a deserving non-profit in the process.  (And it’s a tax-deductible donation!)

It’s November 22 from 5-8 pm, but get there early….

Amazon recently teamed up with Fisher-Price to change the packaging on 19 of their best-selling products.  Instead of the typical packaging designed to provide shelf-appeal, they are offering the same products in an easy-to-open, recyclable container that uses no excess packing materials.

Here’s a comparison of the Imaginext Adventures Pirate Ship packaging:

As an aspiring do-gooder, I’m struck by how much sense this makes.  So let me get this straight.  It’s the same exact product.  I don’t have to break out grandpa’s pocketknife to get it open.  And I’m doing less harm to the environment.

Is there anyone out there who would pick package #2?

In the marketing industry it’s hard to sacrifice aesthetics when we’re trying to do good work.  Sometimes, though, we may want to think about doing good instead - especially if doing good is what our target market values.  They will understand the environmental benefits of purchasing the brown box over the mountain of plastic.  And they will understand we had them in mind when they experience the ease of use.

Ever felt so stressed-out or angry that you could just break something?

Now there’s a place you can do just that.

The Smash Shack—located at 1353 6th Ave. in downtown San Diego—is a unique business that allows you to throw, break and destroy your favorite fragile items in one of their two rooms devoted to “constructive destruction.”

Each participant chooses their smashable items from a menu, is outfitted with safety gear and given a private room where the demolition takes place. Wanna synchronize your smashing to your favorite tunes? No problem. Each “break room” has an mp3 player hook-up so you can bring your favorite songs along with you.

Want to throw your objects at something? The Shack will frame your favorite poster or picture as your “target.” They also have markers available for you to write on your breakable items pre-throw. And they even offer group discounts—I’m thinking Bailey Gardiner PR & Advertising retreat 2009.

And yes, in anticipation of Election Day angst, the Smash Shack will be open late on November 3rd. Until all the votes are counted (or later if need be).

My advertising colleague Scott Curry and I attended the largest solar conference and expo in the U.S. to learn more about companies in the solar power industry. We share a passion for sustainability and want to use our talents to grow businesses that care as much about the environment as we do. We saw a few large companies that have dominated the international market for many years. Their booths were larger, their advertising was corporate and their teams were experienced. Neither of us are particularly drawn to them, as we love challenger brands.

As we walked the floor it became painfully obvious that the rest of the solar power industry is filled with many entrepreneurs and small businesses fighting to get their share. While the products and services offered may be different, the marketing was awash with technical lingo, poor messaging and generic forms. Rarely did a company express itself in a manner that helped differentiate it from its competitors.

As I was biking home last night, I found myself thinking of what Scott and I discussed could help these companies. Here are three that surfaced often. Feel free to add your own.

1) Treat marketing as an investment, not an expense.

Bring in a communication expert to do your marketing. The same precision for developing your brilliant and often highly technical product needs to be applied to marketing. It takes a lot of knowledge, creativity and service to develop a strategic marketing plan that will build your company. And it also takes smart people to execute the plan tactically. When done right, marketing will pay itself back, and then some.

2) Figure out who your target customer is.

And design your marketing messages for that group. You sell solar paneling differently to a builder than you do directly to a consumer and all your marketing materials should reflect that. If you market to both, that’s even better. But make sure your collateral, messaging and imagery reflect what motivates each of those groups.

3) Talk to the media.

The economy, the environment, the energy crisis. They are all big topics of conversation with media. When you see that your local paper or TV station has covered something that relates to your business, call, write or email them a response to their story. Not only that, but tell them another angle that happens to involves your business. Is it a story about the upcoming increase in electric bills due to winter months? Write them and tell them how one of your clients will see decreases in his/her electric bill because of solar power. Just maybe you’ll get your own story published.

ABC refused to air the Alliance for Climate Protection ad below following the recent presidential “debate”.  Ridiculous.

First, let’s put facts and arguments aside.  There are other blogs you can read.

This is about censorship.  Should naked babies be murdered in an ad during prime time?  No. Why?  Because 99.9999% of people in our country deem that to be bad for our society.

Controversial statements are the foundation of our country.

What’s next?

Kleenex can’t say they are soft?  Toyota can’t say they are reliable?  Miller Lite can’t say they taste great?  Because I really disagree with that last one.

Is our current energy dirty?

It our current energy expensive?

Does big oil spend money to stop clean energy?  Who would blame them?!?

These are not the most objectionable questions I’ve ever heard in my life.

The reason ABC didn’t run the ad is simple.  They want BP, Chevron and Exxon to give more money to parent-company Disney through media buying for the next few decades.  That’s a lot of money, and usually, the one with the biggest stick wins.

Write Mickey Mouse a letter.

BTW:  After the debate ABC did allow one of those cute branding ads by Chevron–funded by you every time you go to the pump.

We’re taking a stand.

After years of watching the law of diminishing returns apply itself strongly to the area of direct mail, we no longer feel good about recommending this marketing tool to clients. But even more compelling is the argument about what it is doing to our planet and our resources — as an environmentally conscious agency comprised of people who are committed to making a contribution, we are saying adios to direct mail as part of our lexicon of talents. Yep, it’s sayonara, auf wiedersehen, au revoir, ciao, aloha, guten tog, bye bye.

And we’re not alone.  This is  topic of great interest and concern for a variety of people — so much so that Newsweek featured a recent article about it.  It’s interesting that the Direct Marketing Association and the US Postal Service are in cahoots to support direct mail as a viable marketing tool.  Hmmmm.  Could that be because the Postal Service stands to lose 54% of its mail volume (and revenue) if marketers stopped using direct mail?  Even though, according to this same Newsweek article, a whopping 89% of US consumers polled said they would prefer not the get any direct mail?

Double hmmmmm.

Now don’t get me wrong — we strongly believe in direct marketing, and would gladly counsel our existing and future clients about the myriad ways to target potential customers through very specific, direct marketing approaches.  There are so many creative and unique ways to reach consumers today online, through email and social media, and even in non-traditional methods such as out-of-home and guerrilla marketing.  We employ all these techniques for clients with great success, and none of them require us to mail countless pieces of paper out through the world — with a 1-2% CHANCE OF MAKING ANY KIND OF IMPACT.  IF WE’RE LUCKY!

That doesn’t sound like a great rate of return to me, leaving all the green positioning aside.

Here’s a couple of examples to illustrate my point.

This is a photo of the direct (or should I say  “junk”?) mail I accumulated at my home over one average week, weighing in at more than 9 lbs 5 oz:

At the office, we all saved our junk mail for a week and accumulated another 14 lbs 10 oz of crap.  All so we could just throw it into the recycling container to start this vicious cycle all over again.

Here is a photo of what our office of 21 people accumulated during that same week:

Now, you tell me.  Can we as marketers really continue to advocate a dinosaur marketing tool when there are plenty of other successful methods to reach the consumer without all this waste of resources?  Having said all that, we will still use the mail to reach our clients’ customers if that is clearly the best method — and there are a lot of variables that make that scenario work best.  Start with a clean mailing list of people who have signaled their desire to receive information from your source.  Then, the piece must be compelling, well-designed and meaningful to the target audience.  And let’s not forget our responsibility to the environment –if you are going to mail something to the masses, and least make sure it is printed on recycled or FSC certified paper.

I’m sure I will hear from the Direct Marketing Police on this one….

I came across this informative blog today from The New York Times called Green, Inc and would like to share. The blog’s tagline is “Energy, the Environment and the Bottom Line.” It’s great to see this type of reporting, how corporations, politics and the average consumer are dealing with climate change.

The About us section on the blog states:

“How will the pressures of climate change, limited fossil fuel resources and the mainstreaming of “green” consciousness reshape society? Follow the money. From renewable energy policy to carbon markets to dubious eco-advertising, our energy and environment reporters will track the high-stakes pursuit of a greener globe.”

Email: greeninc@nytimes.com


Twitter: twitter.com/greeninc

This particular blog post by James Kanter caught my attention since we have been discussing Jon and Jamie’s experience at Interbike last week.

Speaking of creativity, this Häagen Daz web site caught my attention for its clever cross pollination of advertising ice cream and generating public awareness on the alarming disappearance of the Honey Bee. You can also create your own animated Honey Bee to email. Here’s my creation. You can make one too. Oh, and I’m really craving a bowl of Vanilla Swiss Almond ice cream right now. Darn it.