No logo, no slogan, no clue

The Globe and Mail reports on the results of the Cons' attempts to find a winning environmental message last summer. And if PMS does believe the environment to be more an issue of perception than reality, that may be because the Cons weren't even close to getting the perception side right:

A federal ad campaign promoting "Canada's New Green Plan" was abandoned last year after focus groups panned nine logos and several slogans, documents show.

The various images of trees and water were derided as "bush league" and "childlike" by some of the Canadians invited to review them, though some praised one particular logo as "tattoo worthy."...

The focus groups were conducted for Environment Canada by the Strategic Counsel, a Toronto-based public opinion research firm that also provides polling services to The Globe and Mail.

Six logos and slogans were tested by 12 focus groups in July...

The logos were narrowed and revised down to three new ones that were tested in August, but the reaction appears to have been only slightly more positive.

Among the many critiques, participants criticized some logos for depicting a yellow sky, giving "the appearance of smog or a polluted skyline." One was rejected because it was "overwhelmingly" seen as a political party logo.

Sadly, it doesn't look like the Cons have learned much in the meantime, as their current "let's see how little we can get away with" position doesn't figure to be a winner either.

Instead, it seems all too likely that PMS and company simply don't believe the environment to be an important enough issue to be able to develop either policies or messages which sound even remotely plausible to Canadians who actually are concerned about it. And if that's true, then it's long past time for the opposition parties to team up both to show the Cons what real environmental action looks like, and to make sure that the Cons' childlike conception of the environment is left in the rear-view mirror.