Exxon ad gets banned in UK for misleading green message

If you’re weary of giant oil companies making green-friendly claims, you’re not alone - the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has made a ruling against an ExxonMobil television ad that uses imagery that relates their carbon-emitting potential source to wind and solar potential and suggests liquefied natural gas (LNG) is super clean.

The ASA, an independent ad-industry watch dog for the UK, has said that the spot should not be shown again in its current mold. that decision comes after receiving viewer complaints saying the ad was misleading.

The folks at ExxonMobil have disputing the ruling, saying that they don’t explicitly say that LNG is environmentally friendly - just that the greenhouse gas producing energy source will still be needed to meet higher energy demand. They are appealing the ASA’s ruling.

I’ve watched the ad a few times now (you can take a look here). I have to confess, green claims from a company that’s most famous for environmentally disastrous oil spills

and giving gobs of money to groups that dispute global-warming are hard to swallow. The imagery of wind potential and the tag line “Taking on the world’s toughest energy challenges” somehow doesn’t convince me that the ‘challenges’ they’re talking about are finding renewable fuel sources.

While Exxon has plans to invest in some eco-friendly energy production projects, they were ranked sixth on the Toxic 100 list of US corporate air polluters in 2002. They plus devote significantly less of their profits to researching alternative energy than other big oil companies.

I don’t totally agree that ads like that should be yanked — the ad is not explicitly saying that Exxon are green crusaders. But I have to confess, when a huge business that relies on oil and gas for record profits wants to be part of the solution to future energy needs, is pretty misleading. Give it a watch and let us know what you think in the .

[Source] Eugene Sandhu

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