NO! Peabody & Burson-Marstellar May Have LIED About Their Pro-Coal Social Media Campaign!

[hatrack]

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On the fringes of Brisbane’s G20 summit inside the Queensland capital’s grand city hall, Peabody Energy president Glenn Kellow made a remarkable claim. Almost half a million people in countries across the globe had supported his coal company’s PR campaign to urge the world to act on “energy poverty”, claimed Kellow. Kellow was referring to the company’s “Lights On” project run under his firm’s Advanced Energy for Life (AEfL) campaign.

The AEfL campaign was created with the help of Burson-Marsteller, one of the world’s biggest PR firms and a specialist in crisis communications. In a press release, Peabody Energy again claimed about “half-million citizens from 48 nations” had “urged G20 leaders” to have a greater focus on energy poverty through its campaign.

Peabody Energy, the world's biggest privately owned coal company, has been the leading voice in the coal industry’s attempts to hijack the term “energy poverty” for its own ends.

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Now questions are being asked about the legitimacy of the company’s campaign with accusations the firm paid online agencies so that people would “like” their campaign — an accusation Peabody Energy now denies. On EcoWatch, DeSmogBlog contributor Kevin Grandia wrote that Peabody’s campaign looked suspiciously like the roll out of a “pay-per-care” strategy. He wrote:

With pay-per-care, companies can buy large volumes of “likes” and followers and quickly manufacture the appearance of a worldwide outpouring of support for the product or idea they are trying to sell. Companies pay to make it look like people care.

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http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/12/02/coal-giant-peabody-denies-social-media-poverty-campaign-bogus