Have you watched this video yet?
Three million others have (and counting). American Experiment released the video last month to promote our recent report titled Shattered Green Dreams: The Environmental Costs of Wind and Solar. The goal of the video was to reach people who might be predisposed to believing the hype of green energy, specifically wind and solar. They were taught in school that green energy is far superior to coal, natural gas and nuclear and their widespread adoption is necessary to save the planet from the catastrophe of global warming.
With that audience in mind, we wrote the hook: if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. From the script:
If something seems too good to be true, it usually is. We’ve heard over and over that wind and solar are the clean and green solution to our energy needs. Power without the downsides of fossil fuels. It sounds great on the surface, but is it true?
The video then takes the next two and a half minutes to challenge what people have been told about wind and solar energy. It explains that wind and solar are both low-power energy sources that require exponentially more wind and solar farms to produce the same amount of power as nuclear or natural gas. When you consider the land use, material needs (massive amounts of minerals), manufacturing and transportation costs, lifespan and damage to ecosystems and wildlife, wind and solar energy production literally does more environmental harm than good.
Which is why the video ends where it began: If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Instead of producing the video in-house, we contracted with Scope and Sequence, a vendor we met at a national conference. They specialize in animated videos that “explain important ideas through video to help your audience understand, care, and act.”
Unlike most of our content, this video (and paper) has a global message for a global audience. It’s hitting the market at a crucial moment as people around the world are finally waking up to the realization there are much better uses of our time and money than trying to reduce the world’s temperature by 1 degree over the next 50 years. When Bill Gates begins to sound like Bjorn Lomborg, you know a paradigm shift is imminent. Forcing Americans (especially those left of center) to challenge their perceptions of wind and solar will speed up this shift.
Once the video was finished, we wrote a marketing plan that included all the usual pieces:
- Press release
- Post on YouTube
- Shared on social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok)
- Posted on our website
- Shared in our weekly email to 200,000 subscribers
The video performed above average — around 7,000 views. We were pleased.
Then we began the paid marketing campaign with a modest budget exclusively on YouTube. We divided the advertising spend equally between Minnesota residents and the rest of the country. Because the video was produced to convince those predisposed to value wind and solar energy, we specifically targeted people on the left side of the political spectrum.
The video immediately took off.
It reached 200,000 views in just a few days. And the engagement was better than any video we’ve ever produced. The average viewing time was over 2 minutes (total video length is 2:40) and the average percentage viewed was 74.8%. Obviously, the hook was working, and most viewers were sticking with the video until the end.
Views have risen in linear fashion — the more we spend, the more views we get. As of this writing, the video has been seen 3.4 million times with the average view time holding at just under 2 minutes. We are getting one view for every penny spent on the campaign — money well spent!
Our mission at American Experiment is education. Our goal is to get information in front of Minnesotans that will challenge the way they think about issues such as energy. This video was designed for and targeted to people on the left side of the political spectrum, and millions of them are watching it until the end.
We have no plans to stop dedicating pennies to this campaign so millions more can view this video and change the way they think about wind and solar energy. It’s very rewarding to be part of a campaign that is actually changing hearts and minds on such an important topic.
If you want to help spread this message about the environmental costs of wind and solar, click on the button below and donate a few thousand pennies to put this video in front of a few thousand more people. There has never been a better ROI for your contribution!
