Culture

The Mining Industry Made A Weird New Ad Calling Coal “Amazing”; For Some Reason, People Aren’t Convinced

Don't you hate it when death and environmental disaster get in the way of good PR?

by Meg Watson  7 September 2015

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First things first: selling coal to the public in 2015 is no easy gig.

Coal is widely regarded as one of the main contributors to climate change with emissions from the fossil fuel producing widespread carbon dioxide pollution. The industry is historically synonymous with death and hardship as miners have been dealt black lung disease and mine collapses, and residents living near mines seem to have a statistically much greater chance of developing cancer or lung disease. The mines themselves are hideous and occasionally threaten to take over some of our most pristine environments. Also, we’ve literally been told since we were children that coal is the worst. Santa definitely wasn’t putting the stuff in kid’s stocking because it was “good for humanity”.

These are just some of the many reasons it would have been tough for the poor schmucks enlisted by the Mineral Council of Australia to make an ad about the dirty disease rock. But, valiantly, they pushed on. Released over the weekend, the mining industry body released this new campaign that chooses to ignore much of the above in favour of calling coal “amazing” with a sultry voiceover, and guiding us around a piece of the junk like it’s Planet Krypton.

Giving more information about the jobs and energy the industry is responsible for, the campaign is explained via the website littleblackrock.com.au and has been doggedly promoted through the organisation’s social media.

But this was soon met with the criticism of a number of environmental organisations, who happily pointed out all the other things they forgot to mention.

 

Naturally, the ridicule grew from there. After a couple of prompts from these organisations and The Greens last night, #coalisamazing was trending on Twitter across Australia for all the wrong reasons.

Better luck next time, folks. One of these days it’ll be coal’s time to shine.