Wednesday, September 05, 2007

If you want to get people to sign up to a pledge to fight global warming .......

.... offer them a half price Big Mac!

On online offer of a half price McDonald's Big Mac actually brought down a Japanese government website server as thousands tried to fill in the pledge in order to qualify for the offer. As reported by Yahoo News.

"The Japanese unit of the US burger giant Tuesday offered a Big Mac for 150 yen (1.3 dollars), about half the normal price, to anyone demonstrating a commitment to preventing climate change."

"We started seeing a rise in access yesterday and it surged this morning. We are now trying to restore the system."

"It was the ministry's first system crash following a corporate offer related to environmental efforts."

Despite being the home of the Kyoto protocol, the Japanese are well behind their own targets in terms of reducing CO2 emissions, so the government is using tie ups with many businesses offering incentives to get people to sign up to the pledge to reduce their emissions.

I suppose, in some circumstances, every little helps; but, I do wonder, just what is the relative CO2 emission output of a Big Mac?

1 comment:

Emma said...

Well, part of me applauds the incetive aspect!

But as to the incentive, the CD/ad man questions the message being sent, as I'm sure any vegetarian (a few in Japan, no?) might be able to explain. Just how many Kobe-beef scoffers can live off an acre given to Daisy-san vs. the same area to bio-d... I mean crops? I speak, hypocritically of course, as an ommnivore. Design-fault by nature, I guess.

Just, maybe a better prize could have been chosen?

I also feel a website pledge for a freebie devalues the message anyway, unless the 'commitment' was more taxing.