Yahoo Launches Search for Greenest City
Yahoo Inc. is out with a marketing campaign designed to promote a healthy environment, and it’s using its massive reach to find the greenest city in an online contest.
Yahoo has created a new portal dedicated to all things green, which encourages consumers to take action against climate change and teach them about global warming.
The Yahoo Green site includes a list of the “greenest” cards,
tips on how to fight global warming and links to pro-green groups. The site also features environmental headlines from Yahoo News.
To spread the message, Yahoo has kicked off an online contest to find the greenest city in the U.S. Consumers can help their city win the coveted title by helping to reduce toxic emissions in the environment.
Visitors register at Better.Yahoo.com/Planet and earn points for every green action they complete from an online list to fuel their hometown ranking. And each participant will receive a coupon for free energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulb.
For example, people can use Yahoo Answers and complete a question or take the Green Pledge and select from a list of green actions to incorporate in their lives.
An interactive map on the site tracks participants’ points and each city’s standing. The winning city will get a fleet of hybrid taxis.
“Americans everywhere are taking notice of the increasingly dire predictions around global climate change,” said Yahoo’s co-founder David Filo in a statement. “We want to make it easy for consumers to do something, as well as help them build enduring habits that can truly make a difference. We believe many small individual actions can add up to significant change.”
The Be a Better Planet promotion is part of Yahoo’s integrated branding campaign, “Be a Better…”, which launched April 30. Yahoo kicked off the promotion Monday, donating a fleet of hybrid taxis to New York City. Actor Matt Dillon spoke about the cause at an event in Times Square.
The contest runs through June 8. Billboards in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco and online materials support the promotion. Yahoo handles the campaign in-house.
