In the world of commercial marketing, “branding” a product or product line is one of the most important considerations. In many cases it is the brand that lures prospective buyers to a product, heightening the chances that the potential buyer becomes an actual one. Today, there are enough books on the concept of “branding” to fill several bookcases. In fact there are many examples where poor branding did ‘torpedo’ the potential success of a product or product line: the Edsel (a Ford Motor Company car brand on the mid 1950s) and the General Motors naming of a car, Nova, which in Mexico in Spanish it was read as “no va” or does not go!” [ooops!]. Then there was the Coca Cola idea to introduce a “New Coke” line. after hundreds of millions of dollars spent on a marketing campaign and only 79 days on the store shelves, the New Coke died a sudden costly death because Coca Cola created a brand that competed with the well established old Coke. Duh!!
Shift now to the so-called “climategate” incident. I think that the climate science community failed to understand the significance of “branding” an issue. The first emails I received from colleagues in science about the theft of emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) referred to the incident as “emailgate” not climategate. it is my view that had the science community continued rto refer to the hacking into the email files continiued to be referred to as emailgate then the focus on attention and concern wuld have been on email security and on the thoughtless (aka, dumb) things people put into an email. Instead the term climategate was coined and the skeptics on global warming (the non-believers in the science of global warming) were able to deflect the attention and concern to the ccontent of the emails and away from concern about their theft. The skeptics, inadvertently most likely, won the day by latching on the the branding of the stolen emails as an attempt to hide the scientific data that did not support the warming hypothesis.
Scientists continue to say that the important issue is the stealing of private emails and making them public. But, to the public the term climategate takes their attention directly to the climate change issues as defined by skeptics.
In the old US wild west cowboys branded their cattle so that ownership could easily be identified. Similarly, those who have questioned the science of global warming were able to put their brand on the issue of stolen (hacked) climate-science-related emails that then overshadowed the brand that believers in global warming science would have put on the issue.
This is my take on this issue. I’d like to know whether you think I am on the right track. Is branding as important as I think it is? I myself have been chastised often by influential climate scientists for referring to reality, that is, global warming of the Earth’s atmosphere, instead of calling it what scientists now prefer to say, climate change. They branded the issues as the latter, while I chose the former. I think the former has more meaning to the general public than the later, but the climate scientists have won.
Comments
24 responses to ““Climategate vs. emailgate: what a difference ‘branding’ makes.” Mickey Glantz. January 3, 2010.”
The branding makes the difference as far as the attention it brings, but it may not change the view for those (few) who are informed in the matter. I would like to think that instead of setting the pace to incline people towards scientists’ views or towards the skeptics’ view, the branding, and the shift in the branding should give rise to true consciousness; if words mean something, who is doing the branding? And why they chose these words?
The words ‘climate change’ do not convey the same meaning as ‘global warming of the Earth’s atmosphere’.
i was really criticized by George Woodwell, among others, for wanting to use ‘global warming’ as opposed to climate change (which refers to warm or cold); (remember, in the 1970s global cooling was an issue even by some who now talk about climate change as global warming). in my view most people have decided to believe global warming or to not believe it. i do not think either side will consider any science based argument the other side might make. anyway, global warming is what we are concerned about and it has policy implications, whereas climate change is interesting science but not for policy (my view) as it says that warming is just a trend for a while.
mickey
What a strange posting. Branding…?
Although NCAR seems to have fallen into scientific and mental rubble of recent, it is hard to imagine your mentality there, say, 34 years ago and counting forward…
Stolen/hacked CRU emails….? Not whistleblower…? Not a truth-seeker exposing a long-infected, corrupt, pseudo-scientific establishment which had years ago abandoned any pretense at honest, trial-and-error, believe-in-the-truth study? You didn’t see that?
(Do you have any thoughts on the revelations inherent in the quality of the work exemplified in the programmer’s Harry_Read_Me files? )
You write of “the non-believers in the science of global warming…?” What is that? Who are they? Those starting with the answer (belief in global warming) and backing their research into this pre-ordained “belief?”
You really once worked at NCAR? In the olden days….when it did real science?
Walter Orr Roberts gave me a tour of NCAR once (well he gave my husband a tour and I happened to be there). I couldn’t fathom the Crays, what they could do, why his eyes and those of my husband sparkled so. Both men believed in truth, in research and study, but certainly not in “the science of global warming.”
(Matter of fact, Roberts studied “the greenhouse effect” for a bit. I found the intrigue of the international research behind “the Iron Curtain” heart-thumping and was disappointed when it went nowhere in Roberts’ estimation. Of course, Roberts was doing science, testing ideas and theories, which, apparently, is different than what you did during your time there, what passes for research and thinking there today.)
I wonder what Walter Orr Roberts would think about the NCAR community having now swallowed a belief in “the science of global warming?”
hi from mickey glantz. i started at ncar in summer ’74 and worked for walter orr roberts. i was young and he introduced me to the soviet science community and i continue to work in its central asian republics ever since 1976. i believe i am the last onwe to have worked for him still at ncar. in august 08 i was fired. it was in the NY Times. perhaps it would be useful to see my http://www.fragilecologies.com “a perfect job in an imperfect place” . i just put it up a few weeks ago. then you can see what i think about the climate community. walt was my mentor then. mickey
Mickey – I can’t make you out. Was directed across here from tAV. This is the oddest post, for a scientist. Yes, presentation, branding etc all important, but Climategate is till pretty hush hush in the mainstream media, all things considered.
My impression is that no-one in or around the climate community, from von Storch to McIntyre to Curry to Michaels to Pielke to Sonja B-C to Christy to hundreds of others of an independent or questioning mind, who had had anything to do with the Team and their crushing process, or who had observed their reaction to MM2003 or indeed any criticism, or had had much to do with the IPCC process, like you, is really, maybe with some hindsight, terribly surprised at the content.
I think the point is more that it happened at some kind of tipping point, the frustration at being asked, no, told, to believe whatever they said, accept IPCC with its overblown alarmism led by the ridiculous Pachauri, and on occasion outright lies and exaggerations, the persistent refusal to accept any auditing, the desire/need to get rid of the MWP, it goes on.
And the tipping point, as we saw from polls, was not confined to those ‘in the know’, but was widespread in the general public too.
I don’t think it mattered what it was called. There was a pervasive feeling that these people had in the end made climate science ridiculous, and Climategate revealed exactly how, and ghave some pretty good insights into why as well.
An example, covered in the last couple of days on some blogs, has been the absurd record of the UK Met Office – whatever is actually going on they predict warming, year in, year out, and I think over the last ten years, in the UK at least, it has sunk in to anyone sentient that they are slaves to a belief set. they couldn’t forecast cold weather if it bit them in the leg – they’re not allowed to.
I’m not a scientist, I’m a trader, I have little comment on the science, but i do understand facts, correlations, some stats, the perils of UHI, and I could feel I was being lied to, somewhere. And now I don’t even trust the Met Office/HADCRUT to tell me the temperature, because of their inherent bias, revealed horribly in the emails.
i wonder if the Nobel Committee is sleeping well, given climategate. here i wanted to introduce the notion of branding which you probably know but scientists might not. there is still a debate ver whether the community of scientists should refer to climate change or global warming (i use the latter but the community wants the former). branding can determine what societies eventually focuses on ( or so i think).
you know the skeptics, as do i. i have not been invited to an ipcc event but once since 1990 and was asked why i did not want to be a part of it by its secretariat.
the long lasting impact of climategate will be on (hopefully) the way that the scientific community treats dissenters. i believe i am one, not accepting output of the GCMs.
you are right that the ipcc guys go unchallenged by the mainstream. there has been a lot of circling on the science wagons, including the NSF. no comment from the nsf! no comment from the director of NCAR.
mhg
Michael, like HotRod you puzzle me. You seem to be a decent enough bloke, and you are a scientist, yet although you dance around it, you don’t seem able to come right out and state unequivocally what any good scientist should hold: that publicly-funded science, upon which immense public disruption is proposed, should be publicly and contemporaneously shared, so that it can be replicated and tested. No ifs, buts or “proprietary” datasets. If CERN can do it, so can the high priesthood of AGW.
Musing about how to “brand” the “theft” of what you know perfectly well should never have been witheld is a bit like speculating on whether the victim of a rape was any good in bed – It kinda misses the point.
Why not let the Norwich police worry about how the leak should be branded, and devote your energies to considering the implications for the “science” of AGW – if indeed there really is any?
If you are good at web searching you will find that climategate is what stuck. It was chosen. Thus a bit dissimilar to a brand. I saw the info on tAV, and thought its validity would need to be vetted before I would even start reading. In a matter of hours it became international. Several names were coined to describe the file, but climategate stuck. It is similar to your point about climate change and global warming. In both cases, I think the appropriate name sticks with the public. After spending so much ink on the “hockeystick” in the TAR, why would the public think anything but AGW. The same with climategate, after so much ink about consensus, and the science is settled, the emails show quite a different story. So different, many would see the differences as lies, and control of lies. What avenue other than Watergate, has the viciousness, lies, and paranoid control seen or assumed to be seen in these emails? The public has given their conclusion with the name attachment.
Michael,
IMO, your attempt to classify “climategate” as a branding matter misses the significance of the issue. It makes me wonder how close you have been to the science debate between the AGWers and skeptics. I agree with John Pitman’s observation that “climategate” stuck because it resonated with skeptics in the blogoshpere, not MSM, and the wildfire started there.
BTW, have you communicated with anyone on The Team?
i have been around climate science (but work on the impacts of climate on society and society on climate) since 1972. so, yes i track climate issues but am focused for the most part on climate variabilities and extremes. today it is difficult to get funding for year to year or decade to decade variability and extremes UNLESS it is linked to climate change. it is just the way it is now. i know most of the players.
I thank you for your honesty in stating that your research is supported by linking it to “climate change”. You have a vested interest in supporting the AGW “crisis” story line, to keep the research dollars flowing.
You and your colleges do have a difficult job making a living and being scientifically objective.
thanks but i think yoou have to do more homework: i was fired in august 08 by ncar director as ncar’s only senior social scientist because of my objectivity about climate change issue. see fragilecologies.com “a perfect job in n imperfect place”. also many people in developing coutries must link to climate change to get the funds they need to study climate variability and extremes of today. please do not throw the baby out with the bathwater as some people are using climate change funds to help society today.
One thing, Mickey – you’re attracting the usual set of usual suspects, who circle around the contrarian blogosphere, putting the same posts, or close facsimiles thereof, everywhere. Sorta like having the same bombers fly over Red Square many times to give the impression of a massive air force.
Fascinating post from Gary Strand – as one of the usual suspects I have to ask “how would he know”, if he did not “circle around” the same regions of the blogosphere? But in any case I will freely admit to keeping a “Fabrigate” log, and to reusing, in posts, text I have prepared and used earlier. The same things often need resaying, and there seems little point in trying to rephrase them for Gary’s benefit.
gary strand works at NCAR, though he does not say it. he also attacked my new book he has not read or seen as it is not in the stores yet. he claims in the newspaper here that the book is wrong. interestingly it is all about global warming as he might like to see it. remember there is a saying “where one sits determines where one stands”, though that is not always true
Whoa, Mickey – I didn’t attack your book in any way, shape, or form. I *defended* your book! I have the utmost respect for your work.
Actually I’m indebted to Gary for the “bombers over Red Square” metaphor, and will use it ruthlessly henceforth. It perfectly describes the Hockey Team’s efforts to deceive us into believing we were seeing a lot of independent scientists coming to a similar doom-laden conclusion, when as Gary must know, the truth was that all such predictions (without exception, so far as I can see, but hey, Gary, feel free to correct me) came either from a member of the Hockey Team or from some hapless soul who trusted their data.
IMNSHO, whenever someone uses “Hockey Team”, they’ve irretrievably damaged their credibility. That makes them an acolyte of McIntyre. ‘Nuff said.
Hockey Team! Hockey Team! Hockey Team!
I’m an acolyte of McIntyre and damn proud.
I have also spent my life calibrating CO2 meters, dissolved O2 meters, thermometers,etc , paddling around waterways and climbing around factories to record their outputs. I would happily ask how conclusions were drawn to support such a monumental taxation system as Steve and Ross and their acolytes have done!
Nuff said? Is that really the best you can come up with? Not a word about the perversion of science, the hounding and ostracising of their scientific betters, the corruption of the peer-review process that these guys practised for a decade and a half, while sucking on the teat of a credulous public purse?
If you don’t like “Hockey Team”, how about
“Cabal of latter-day druids?”
“Ship of Fools”,
“warmistas”??
Anyone got any more?
And no, I’m not an acolyte of Steve McIntyre – until Climategate I didn’t know of his existence. He now has my unstinting admiration, and I give considerable weight to his views, but that’s not quite the same thing.
“thermomaniacs” (thanks Mark Steyn)
hi, not sure who this was written to. actually i sought to close down the comments as there were several threatening ones! from both the yeasayers and the naysayers on global warming (these were the original terms and they were also neutral and not meant to be antagonistic as is not the case (deniers is wrong term but so is ‘ship of fools”). the discussion about warming is so polarized and politicized it reminds me of why i left the study of politics. name calling does not change facts and observations. people use statistics to prove and disprove just about anything (“how to lie with statistics”). in my view both sides are weak in their arguments and it is no wonder the general public glazes over these days on global warming debate; no one is changing his or her mind about warming but are changing their minds about and questioning the apparent ‘neatness’ and objectivity of and holier than the ‘stupid’ public about science.
the threats turned me off of the issue of emailgate. too many people feel it is ok to kill the messenger without understanding the message.
The statement: “Scientists continue to say that the important issue is the stealing of private emails and making them public” employs the use of ‘weasel words’. This is a vague, ambiguous claim, something that a charlatan would posture. Do you mean all scientists, most scientists, many scientists, a few scientists or a few clowns masquerading as scientists?
scientists i have spoken to (including ipcc scientists, feel that the issue is the stealing of the emails and taking snipets out of context. read trenberth’s comments. check pachauri’s comments, check van ypresele’s comments,; of course not all scientists. what was said in the emails were according to an AP review of ALL the emails from CRU, was that there was no fakery, but stupid comments and some, can’t recall the word, misuse of techniques…but the wrming continues it noted.
I was not aware that Pachauri is a scientist. What AP review shows that there was no fakery?