Avocado Power…

A letter – via blog post – to Chris Whitley at Wood Group Renewable Energy Services.

Dear Chris: Can you make out the ad at all? For Mexican avocados? I honestly don’t know why I hadn’t suggested this idea to you before now but the new ad caught me by surprise.

Fresh from the back cover of this month’s issue of Cooking Light, I honestly never envisioned using slices of The Amazing AvocadoTM as rotor blades on high-efficiency wind turbines. Nope, not even when we were creating and producing the 2009 Renewable Energy Services print ads.

I also can’t determine if this new ad is part of the campaign that started in January, or the newer, second-half campaign. According to the trade press, the Avocados-from-Mexico Fall/Winter marketing program’ll run full-bore media campaigns in “the top avocado consumption markets” of Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Chicago. (I can’t quite figure out Chicago, but there it is.)

According to a news release from Integrated Marketing Works in Newport Beach, CA, though, the “new” campaign won’t start ‘til early November. So maybe this particular ad comes out of the avocado organization’s NYC shop, Lewis and Neale.

In case you can’t read this photo, the headline is, “with nearly 20 vitamins and minerals, it’s nature’s power plant.” I guess it suits the Cooking Light audience. Our headlines are quite a bit better, of course. Still, the Mexican avocado campaign’s slated to reach 99 million consumers and that’s a lot of people, no fooling. So here’s the NEXT BIG IDEA for RES.

Let’s contact the Mexican Hass Avocado Importers Association (MHAIA) and do a joint marketing campaign. RES brings its exceptional, global knowledge of, and experience with, turbine MOR and wind farm operations. The importers bring the avocados…and we will find a vendor to supply the chips.

Everything gets promoted with “hospitality events” at the Turbo Show in Houston, as well as Power-Gen 2009 in Las Vegas. Avocados are, after all, a renewable resource. I guarantee – the renewable industry will NOT have seen anything like this!

All the best for a good week…Richard.

Print advertisement ® 2009, Mexican Hass Avocado Importers Association. All rights reserved.

More RES

Adding to the various Wood Group Renewable Energy Services attractions, two new ads are currently appearing in magazines worldwide, like Renewable Energy Focus and North American Windpower.

Prism Design and I did concepts, copy and production; specific credit goes to Stacy Allen for excellent work. Each of the two ads addresses a different set of Wood Group features, advantages and benefits for the windpower industry – that “All together now” headline is particularly fun.

The strong Wood Group Gas Turbine Services brand we created two years ago is still clearly transmitted by KEEP ON TURNING.

Having way better photos to work with, as I noted below, made a lot of difference: The wind biz uses too many stock shots because fresh photography is so hard to come by. Again, thanks to client Chris Whitley and the RES team for the excellent photography, the opportunity and the support.

RES Energizing

Last year, when Texas wind farms generated 6,700 megawatts, the American Wind Energy Association’s WINDPOWER 2008 was in Houston. Hurricane Ike’s effects didn’t count.

This year Texas is topping out at 7,907 megawatts from more than 40 different projects. And WINDPOWER 2009 was held in Chicago, in McCormick Place – a big venue for a now even bigger event. Naturally, Wood Group Renewable Energy Services went to Chicago too. (BTW, no other state comes anywhere close to Texas. Y’all. And WINDPOWER 2010 comes back to Dallas.) Client Chris Whitley and his team lined up a significant package of wind power-related services and programs, major advances over 2008. These formed the foundation of new materials that we – Signalwrite Marketing and Prism Design – created for the business unit: Print advertising, cut sheets, new booth graphics. Thanks very much indeed.

I’ll show you the ads in a day to two but I wanted to get these fresh photos in front of you pretty quick. Last year (here), RES used a different exhibition property. This year, the RES team pulled out all the stops, adapting the more imposing Wood Group Gas Turbine Services booth with new copy and new photographs.

More than anything else (graphically), having fresh corporate photography to work with makes a huge difference in the presentation: Look at the wind-related images from Wood Group’s wind power projects around the world. The client supplied the new images.

Whitley says: In all honesty this was my first time leading such a project for such a large show (over 22,000 in attendance – the largest wind power show in North America) and I couldn’t have been happier with the results. We chose to use a graphic that depicted the installation of an offshore wind turbine as a backdrop to where the booth personnel would greet passers-by. You could literally see people stop in their tracks, turn to us and ask to be told more. I loved watching the effect that a single picture had on so many people – it was amazing.

The RES team also put in the extra time and effort needed to work the floor of McCormick Place last week – no wonder they needed more energy.

This year, the US can now claim the world’s largest wind energy capacity (25,170 MW), taking the lead from Germany, with 23,903 MW at the end of 2008. The nation’s fast growth has smashed all the previous records: Installed wind capacity in America grew by 50%. So have the opportunities for RES. I appreciate Chris Whitley letting us continue our involvement in wind energy…thanks to Wood Group here and abroad for the work.