Beware the Dot Org

I deliberated whether to call this story “Astroturfing 101,” which may have been better for SEO but certainly less provocative for open rates than the title you just read.  We’ll get into why you should beware of dot orgs in a minute, but let’s head straight into the devious land of astroturfing, or what I like to call the “dark art of creating fake brands.”

We likely all know about AstroTurf, the artificial grass surface you find in sports stadiums. I think it’s appropriate to briefly revisit its history and set the stage for its transition from noun to verb: It was invented in the ‘60s by Monsanto (interesting!) and first branded as “ChemGrass” (double interesting and oh what a fantastic moniker!!).  The name was changed in 1966 to AstroTurf when it was installed in the Astrodome in Houston, Texas.

So there’s AstroTurf, the noun. The process of verbification (that's an actual thing) took about 20 years before a U.S. Senator from Texas, Lloyd Bentsen, coined the term astroturfing to describe companies seeking to achieve aims by masquerading their motives under the cloak of grassroots organizations.

I’ve been thinking about astroturfing a lot lately, principally because it seems to have invaded the turf of my favorite podcasts with an irritating amount of frequency.

I’ll be listening along, pulling weeds in the garden or working my body on the rowing machine, when a “sponsor’s message” interjects itself.  One recent example:  Innovation Naturally and its “Every Bottle Back” campaign.  This initiative by “America’s leading beverage companies” via the nonprofit American Beverage Association (ABA) exhorts Americans to recycle every plastic bottle they use and pledges to supply 650,000 recycling bins in neighborhoods.  Sounds good to the point of effervescent, right?

Innovation Naturally even appends a dot org (.org) to its website address.  Now, the ABA has been around a long time, so it wasn’t formed for this campaign – it just birthed this new dot org.  (And, I suppose, you could make an argument that this is a case of greenwashing, not astroturfing, though I’d say at a minimum it’s squarely in the darkest and most devious green of a Venn diagram overlap.  Did I just get greenwashed or astroturfed? I’m not certain, but it feels pretty slimy to me!)  Top level members of the ABA are the country’s largest beverage companies working with the inspired and memorable tagline of “Driving Solutions Together.”  Of course, when you peel back the layers to look at its “associate members,” you’ll find all sorts of plastic industry players.

This is a continuation of the industry’s misdirection around plastic recycling numbers to make us feel better by creating the deception that these companies are trying to do their part, when in fact they are placing an unfair burden on consumers as plastic recycling thus far has decidedly abysmal results. Recycling every bottle paints a picture of possibility, when in truth this really is an impossibility. Feels good though, right?  And that feeling is part of the plastics industry (and its principal constituent, petrochemicals) goal to continue operating and polluting without recognizing the true cost to the planet. 

Which is why this article is called, “Beware the Dot Orgs.”  Turns out this dangerous domain name extension and its three innocent letters, org, are a potent part of the dark arts disinformation arsenal.

When you hear a nonprofit sponsorship or see a dot org initiative you don’t recognize – often with a hokey, saccharine name (Every Bottle Back, Innovation Naturally?) you need to suspend your natural affinity for the halo of a nonprofit.  Do a little poking around and you just might find an initiative comprised of industry players who can’t truthfully stake claim to the same brand positioning on their own and want to bathe it in the goodwill of a nonprofit. Capeesh?

If I've whet your astroturfing appetite and you'd like to dig deeper into the skullduggery of corporations, here are a couple additional resources for you.

Come for the astroturfing and stay for the ride - that's my way of getting you to read a new book by Christopher Marquis, The Profiteers. It's got excellent examples of astroturfing contained within its pages, though that's just teaser to a well-written exposé that goes beyond the fake grassroots to reveal, as its subtitle states, "How business privatizes profits and socializes costs." Highly recommended!

And if you’d like a fun and trenchant romp through astroturfing that’s hilarious, instructive, and a gut punch at the same time, give this episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver a watch. Ouch!

Which brings us back to the beginning of this piece and the progenitor of AstroTurf, that "distinguished" corporate citizen, Monsanto. Back in 2018, Monsanto paid an Irish PR firm by the name of Red Flag (now there’s another name for you!) to set up a fake grassroots farming organization, “Freedom to Farm.”  The objective of Freedom to Farm was to oppose a potential ban in the EU on glyphosate, an herbicide and crop desiccant labeled by the World Health Organization as a probable carcinogenic.

Takes one to know one, eh, Monsanto?

Godspeed, friends.

Russ 

P.S. Do you have any favorite examples of astroturfing? We’d love to share them in future issues.

💬 Quote of the Week

“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” Soren Kierkegaard"

💥 Quick Hits

• Avocados and deforestation– If you read last issue's feature story, you'll be interested in this timely update from Reuters that ties companies, organized crime, and avocados to devastating deforestation in Mexico.

• The Greenwashing Games – How convenient for this issue's theme that a story dropped yesterday alleging a beverage company of greenwashing a plastics promise of Olympian proportions.

• Houston, we have lift off! – A shout-out to Ruth Netanel, a copywriter and brand strategist in Houston, Texas, with a big heart for words and social impact, for supporting Godspeed as a paid member. Write on, Ruth - and thank you!

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