Where to begin?
I know, lets start with Marcel Coutu, the CEO of Canadian Oil Sands Trust.
Mr. Coutu traveled to Toronto last week to let the country know that the Energy Sands is just too big a player in the economy to be bound by Canada’s committment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, he expects the rest of the nations industries to shoulder the load. So the mining industry should reduce its emissions, as should the manufacturing industry, power generators, forestry and every other industry in the country. Just not the Energy Sands.
This is the message that the industry wants to give to consumers and more importantly the leaders of other industries who are also able to bend the ear of the government when needed? By making enemies of other captains of industry Mr. Coutu is clearly standing in a pool of dilbit with a lit match.
This is entirely beside the point that once again the industry’s message to consumers is delivered by yet another white guy in a suit with a graph laden power point presentation. Is this the best that the Harvard grads running the marketing of this industry can do? Let me show you how well its working.
Let me introduce you to WhatTheInternetThinks.net. This is an interesting little website that “searches the internet for the global opinion on your search term”. Go ahead and search for “Tar Sands”. Here’s the result:
Negative 77.5% - Conclusion: The internet is mainly negative on the subject of tar sands, according to results from all search-engines.
Is it any wonder when the industry continues to disdain marketing to the user of its products, that the users in turn disdain the producers. It is telling that the opponents of the heavy oil industry have done a much better job of galvanizing consumer opinion and using that to wield political force, resulting in increased regulation of the sands.
Now, of course it would be foolish to scrap a marketing strategy because of one websites analysis of its success. Obviously stronger evidence of its failure must first be found. To address that I would point to a cap and trade system that the industry didn’t want, the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard which effectively bans gasoline originating from the Energy Sands (similar legislation was recently adopted by Oregon), or the Clean Energy bill working it’s way through the U.S. Congress.
The Energy Sands industry, rather than being content to take it on the chin needs to re-evaluate its current marketing strategy, rein in its rogue CEO’s and beginning explaining itself to the users of its product.
Admin.