Okay, we admit it: We punked Chevron

By Mike G.
Monday, October 18th, 2010

Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network activists punk Chevron in DC
Activists in Washington, DC put these posters up around town to call attention to Chevron’s attempts to greenwash its image even while ignoring its toxic legacy in Ecuador.

Chevron rolled out a fancy new ad campaign yesterday, and we were ready for them. We had only a fraction of Chevron’s budget — the company won’t say how much it spent this time around, but typically spends as much as $90 million on an ad campaign like this — but we had the element of surprise, and we were determined to press our advantage.

So before Chevron’s press release announcing its “We Agree” campaign could hit reporters’ inboxes, we sent out a press release of our own on their behalf. The company’s own press release was guaranteed to be full of greenwash. We wanted ours to be a bit more truthful. It featured quotes from real employees, but in this case they were describing the “We Agree” campaign we’d like to see:

“Chevron is making a clean break from the past by taking direct responsibility for our own actions,” said Rhonda Zygocki, Chevron vice president of Policy, Government and Public Affairs.

“Oil Companies Should Clean Up Their Messes,” reads one ad; the small print refers candidly to the damage done by oil companies around the world. “For decades, oil companies like ours have worked in disadvantaged areas, influencing policy in order to do there what we can’t do at home. It’s time this changed.”

Another ad, “Oil Companies Should Fix The Problems They Create,” is just as topical. “Extracting oil from the Earth is a risky process, and mistakes do happen. It’s easy to pass the blame or ignore the mistakes we’ve made. Instead, we need to face them head on, accept our financial and environmental responsibilities, and fund new technologies to avoid these mistakes in the future.”

Of course, before we sent out our press release, we put together a spoof website and a fake press page.

Some reporters got fooled by our spoof. Others managed to figure out it was a parody before they published their piece, but even still, we’d managed to derail much of the press about Chevron’s pricey new PR effort. Several pieces highlighted our spoof campaign instead of the real Chevron campaign. Here’s a couple examples:

What do you think about Chevron’s latest attempt to clean up its image even while it refuses to clean the 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste it left in Ecuador’s rainforests? The company proudly announced its new greenwash ad campaign on its Facebook page — why don’t you drop by and let them know what you think?




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44 Comments so far

Fuck d Chevron…

Comment by Baash Dilam
10/18/10 at 8:53 pm

Great work to everyone involved! Glad to see you are one step ahead of Chevron’s attempt to fool everyone into thinking they are trying to do the right thing.

Comment by Jess Miller
10/19/10 at 12:39 am

Excellent work! Stick it to them!

Comment by markbiwwa
10/19/10 at 1:29 am

I admire your martial arts approach of turning the might of your adversary to your advantage, but I don’t like the execution. Where is the wit in fabricating quotes? You could have done much better by using a satirical mode, finding actual quotes from Chevron executives and contrasting their cluelessness/disingenuousness with the horrors you ascribe to the company.

Comment by Chris R
10/19/10 at 5:46 am

[...] Okay, we admit it: We punked Chevron [...]

Pingback by Yes Men hijack Chevron media campaign « Keithpp's Blog
10/19/10 at 8:18 am

Left a note on their facebook page. Proud of you guys!!

Comment by Alicia Edmunds
10/19/10 at 9:24 am

this was great cna you also put some ads up on chanel 9 they run that same BS from chevron all the time,, human energy and what they are doing to develop green technology

Comment by patti rich
10/19/10 at 8:58 pm

Best campaign ever! Congrats!

Comment by Maik Schaffer
10/20/10 at 1:37 am

[...] why we just had to punk Chevron’s new ad campaign. And we’ve had so much fun doing it that we just have to [...]

Pingback by Get in on the action: We need you to punk Chevron! | We Can Change Chevron
10/20/10 at 2:35 pm

[...] the company prefers to keep that fact quiet. Why? It’s one of those pesky facts that would spoil Chevron’s efforts to recast itself as a responsible, environmentally conscious oil company (despite the obvious fact that “environmentally conscious oil company” is an oxymoron that [...]

Pingback by The Understory » Solar Good, Chevron’s Business Bad
10/22/10 at 9:40 am

[...] the company prefers to keep that fact quiet. Why? It’s one of those pesky facts that would spoil Chevron’s efforts to recast itself as a responsible, environmentally conscious oil company (despite the obvious fact that “environmentally conscious oil company” is an oxymoron that [...]

Pingback by Solar Good, Chevron’s Business Bad | We Can Change Chevron
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Excellent & thoughtful post.

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Comment by lawn maintenance bloomington in
02/23/12 at 2:38 am

I vote for emphysema from diesel trucks and buses. I vote for an industry with chemists who turned 1980’s purple-brown smog to clear, transparent poison that’s out of sight and out of mind.

We agree to 1980’s-era Supertankers taking American oil to China while returning home with Arab oil, like it makes sense to move all oil half way around the world to drive up costs.

I vote for chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides exported to all the third world countries so we can import fruit and vegetables soaked with carcinogens. We agree, because we are fracked-up monopolies who price-fix, price-gouge and war-profiteer.

I vote for traffic gridlock in cars and trucks that spew out pollution even when they are not moving. We agree, yet our ads always use the word tomorrow, even though tomorrow never comes.

I vote for a gallon of gas for five-bucks that has less energy in it than a thirty-six-cent gallon of gas had in it. We agree, which is why we invent new ways to detune gas.

I vote for a gallon of gas that evaporates into thin air when a car’s parked in the sun on a hot day. We agree, which is how we drain your tank between fill ups, even when you are not driving.

I vote for carcinogens in air, sea, land and rivers… I vote for natural gas fracking in all 50 U.S. states, dirty, flammable water in your tap. I vote for nitro benzene bathwater, showers and water for soup. We agree to damage your body irrepairably. We agree, if you live near our drills, fracks, and processing or storage locations. We agree to poison in your liver and nerve damage, brain damage and our denial of fault.

I vote for the Exxon Valdez oil spill and drunken captains ramming supertankers aground in Prudhoe Bay. We agree to dead dolphins and ruined fisheries.

I vote for a broken oil well off of the coast of Brazil, more dead dolphins and ruined fisheries, more cancer in the food chain. We agree to minimize our bad and to spray cancer-causing surfactants that merely hide the oil slick from view.

I vote for 11 dead oilrig workers in the Gulf of Mexico and the largest oil spill in human history. We agree to spray more cancer surfactant, hide the slick from view and get back to yacht racing as soon as we can.

We agree to shut down several oil refineries during peak demand times to drive up global prices.

I vote for the keystone pipeline. We agree to cancer in the Canadian Tar Sand processing areas, temporary low paying jobs and sending the oil from New Orleans to China, bypassing your gas tank to drive the local prices up.

I vote for global warming, climate shift, and possible human extinction like the days of the dinosaurs ending. We agree, that is why we spend billions lobbying on our own behalf so we can keep the status quo, including price gouging, price fixing, monopolies, etc.

I vote for clean, renewable, safe fuel from growing algae, Olive Trees and Sugar Cane. We agree to thwart efforts like these, including the death of the inventor of the diesel engine, Dr. Diesel. He wanted to run farm tractors on peanut oil in 1901, but we killed him and buried his plans. We do that, go as far as killing people, to keep out competitors.

Please send this to your elected representatives and tell them you are fed up! Tell them you want fuel from sugar cane, olive trees and algae today, not tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes with these greedy robber oil barons. Ask congress and the senate to move today, to get results for renewables now. This needs to be the most regulated industry in human history. We agree. We vote renewable now!

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