Apr. 2nd Rainbows for Autism! Don't let the rainbow die...don't be blue!!!

[Guest guest]

Don't be blue...keep the rainbows:

Please forward.

I recently saw a Facebook post regarding Autism Speaks wanting people to wear

only blue {instead of the Autism spectrum colors (usually red, blue, green and

yellow, but sometimes including purple and orange)}, change their Facebook

profile picture to the Light It Up Blue logo, type emails in blue, wear the

Autism Speaks blue puzzle piece, and Bake puzzle piece shaped cookies and frost

them with blue icing, then bring them to your school, work or place of worship

during April (Autism Awareness Month), especially April 2 (World Autism

Awareness Day*).

*NOTE: The logo for World Autism Awareness Day is multi-colored not just blue.

Imagine someone goes to a store to buy a puzzle, and their options are a puzzle

with a spectrum of many colors or a solid blue puzzle...which would most people

buy? To me, putting together a solid blue puzzle would seem rather pointless.

Hypothetically, this would be like the The Breast Cancer Society deciding they

want October to be The Breast Cancer Society month and telling people to wear

green ribbons instead of pink. It doesn't make sense. A lot of people spent a

lot of time, energy and money over the years getting autism awareness known as

rainbow colors. When I'm driving and see a rainbow ribbon on the back of a car,

I know what it is long before I'm close enough to read the words " Autism

Awareness " . This blue stuff undermines all that effort at branding....and

further divides the autism community.

There are lots of blue causes. However, only a few use causes prominently use

rainbow colors:

autism (typically a puzzle piece, but has various other forms {example a

butterfly}) and gay pride (usually a triangle or a flag but has various other

forms also) and 's " Rainbow Coalition " . That said, I suspect autism

has achieved the broadest recognition in the overall population. Do we, the

autism community, really to undermine all the causes using blue by adding yet

another cause to blue, just to become a needle in hay stack...indistinguishable

from the others?

To be clear, this is not to disparage those who support Autism Speaks, since I

can not imagine that they want the autism community to have another issue to be

divided over nor have our branding diluted. This is about the blue idea being

poorly thought out. I haven't seen a marketing idea this bad since 1985 when

Cola Cola introduced " New Coke " ....and Pepsi was very happy.

I realize that some may find it distasteful to refer to autism awareness in

marketing terms, but the fact is any awareness campaign involves a great deal of

marketing strategy....and jumping into the sea of blue causes is seriously

flawed marketing. For longer than most (if not all) of us have been alive, the

color blue has been associated with sadness, hence someone saying they have " the

blues " ...while a rainbow is associated with unity, prosperity and hope...like

the song " Somewhere Over the Rainbow " .

Check out the lists that I've compile of blue causes.

Blue cause color for at least 22 causes (likely more):

Anti-Tobacco

Arthritis

Child Abuse Prevention

" Bring Home Our Troops " campaign

Colon Cancer

Crime Victim Rights

Domestic Violence

Drunk Driving,

Education

Electronic Frontier Foundation's Online Free Speech

Epstein-Barr Virus

Freedom of Speech

Hurricane Support

Hydranencephaly

International No Diet Day

Police Officers Lost in the Line of Duty

Prostate cancer

Reye's Syndrome

Sex trafficking and slavery awareness

Tuberous Sclerosis

Water Safety

Also, somebody recently asked me, " How were they supposed to light up the Empire

State Building with multi-colored puzzle pieces? " They didn't have to do the

puzzle pieces, rather they could have done just multicolored lights. That said,

there are outdoor projectors that people use to project images of holly, Santa

Claus, etc. on their houses during the holidays. Similar projectors could have

been used to project giant puzzle pieces or even a puzzle ribbon onto the Empire

State building. That would have been so cool!!! ...because people would

recognize it as autism...kind of like Mc's and the golden arches...making

use of the branding work that's already been done. The blue building requires

that people be told what it means or are interested enough to ask. People are

busy, and a lot of people won't invest that time...so the message is lost. The

blue building is like a billboard. Billboards work if the message is straight

forward enough to be understood at the time of sight. That is not going to be

the case for many who see the blue building. Marketing does no good. if people

don't understand it. Autism is a spectrum, and people understand that.

Again I ask, do we, the autism community, really to undermine all the causes

using blue by adding yet another cause to blue, just to become a needle in hay

stack...indistinguishable from the others?

I implore you, please keep the rainbow alive!!! Don't drown us in the sea of

blue!!!

Please post/send rainbows, wear rainbows, make rainbow cookies, cakes, salads,

whatever...do it all with the rainbow in mind!!!

Please forward this to everyone that you know! Thank you for your time!

Peace be with you!---