My new audience is Sonia, an interim communications boss from Australia. She likes what she hears but says she’s suggested as much herself. “Getting it through a place like this,” she says, motioning toward the cluster of desks, “that’s the hard part.”
We head to the infamous smoking room, which turns out to be the building’s rooftop. A group of older men, some with tattoos, a few with earrings, sits furtively at a table. They stop talking as we walk by. The Aussie informs me that they are front-line activists?—?the people who do direct action and work on Greenpeace boats. “They don’t like talking about rebranding,” she says. “You’ll have a tough time with them.” Exhaling smoke from her third cigarette, she announces, “I’m going back to Australia.”
Downstairs, we part, and a woman from human resources informs me of yet another meeting. This one is in Faro, on the southern coast of Portugal.
I jet into the country first-class, perhaps because the ticket is last-minute, feeling out of place as the well-heeled chat with an attendant who seems to know everyone by their first names. For many, Faro is a summer retreat; when we arrive, Land Rovers await these people, while I catch a cab to the Ria Park Garden Hotel. It is here that I meet Francesca, an Italian woman who is Greenpeace’s new head of communications.
Francesca’s hair is dark, her skin well-tanned, and she is dressed Euro-smart for the beach. We sit on an open terrace with a stunning view out to the sea. Unfortunately, my missteps begin immediately. As we discuss the future of Greenpeace and how hard it will be to introduce change, I mention that I’d heard from someone that Gerd Leipold, the organization’s executive director, is difficult to work with. Francesca snaps back, “Gerd is a lovely man of incredible talent. I don’t know what this person is talking about. We get along very well.”
I recover momentarily, running through the ideas that went over so well in Amsterdam. But, recalling the Old World-New World divide I’d seen there, I stumble into a rant about being bored with the European attitude toward America. “Europeans misunderstand Americans,” I say. “If Greenpeace is ever going to make up all of the cancelled memberships in the US, they will have to come to terms with that.”
Wrong. “The problem,” Francesca says, “is that America doesn’t understand Europe.” I try to return the conversation to rebranding, but it’s hopeless: America means Bush, and therefore Iraq. Europe is better off without them.
This will be an issue for Greenpeace. Everyone speaks at great length of rebuilding in America but, from where I sit, if European environmentalists aren’t willing to meet the world’s biggest polluter halfway, the initiative is doomed. I decide to throw the gig.
As Francesca continues talking, I tune out. Glancing toward the swaying palm trees near the veranda, I think fondly of a recent trip to Nashville?—?the bad food, the friendly white trash, and the down-home music. I suddenly long for the backwoods of North America. Rebranding Greenpeace, I realize, is better left to someone else.
