Today might be the largest simultaneous social marketing event ever staged – as Live Earth concerts light up stadium stages on 7.5 stages on 7 continents. In case you’re wondering, the "0.5" stage is right here in DC. The concert taking place now is at the American Indian Museum after they offered their venue for a "Mother Earth" version of the concert. Why this venue instead of the preferred larger one on the steps of the Capitol in DC? Mainly because partisan politics from Republicans who believe global warming is a "hoax" (led by James Inhofe) threatened to keep the DC event from happening and blocked it from taking place in Gore’s originally preferred venue. Regardless, the event is here in DC and I will be heading out to see it live and share photos later tonight.
In the meantime, there are live video streams and information available at https://liveearth.msn.com/ as well as a full schedule of artists and shows. Despite this live satellite feed – I can’t help but wish for more integration of social media so I could share in people’s experiences of the shows real time throughout the day. There is a Live Earth blog, but it is authored by a single individual who is going to the concert in NY and watching the rest online and on TV like the rest of us. Even the Unofficial Live Earth blog is mostly updated by a single person. Michael Prospero from the Fast Company Blog is promising to live blog the New York event, and I am sure there are other similar individuals at the other concerts doing the same – but there doesn’t seem to be a way to collect this aggregated conversation in a single location, which seems like a big missed opportunity. For a global concert event across 8 cities – one person is never going to be able to share the entire experience of the event in a comprehensive way because they cannot be in more than one (or 2) places at once. If there was ever a moment where I might actually care to read Twitter updates from lots of people I don’t know, this would be it.
Regardless, watching these events unfold live around the world is addictive and I’ve been spending much of a day where I intended to work on my book watching the films and concert performances in HD on TV. The campaign has a very simple call to action and plenty of easy ways for each and every person to make a pledge to "answer the call." Every social marketing campaign should be so relevant and have such a clear way for anyone participate. If you haven’t seen any of the shows, be sure to visit the Live Earth site today – and stay tuned for a report from the DC event and hopefully some live photos from me later this evening.
Update Rant – Can someone explain to me why the sound and video crew covering the DC event are the only ones that don’t seem to understand how to get a good camera shot (without sun flares or blue overtones) or how to get microphones to work where you can actually hear the singers performing? There’s a big step down in quality of the TV broadcast between the DC event and all the other events I have seen so far …
Maybe “they” sabotaged the media equipment! kidding…I caught some snippets of the event today. The participation aspect is definitely great. Now we just need to find out how to prolong the exposure and message so that folks continue to remember what this event was produced for.