Yes Men Strike Again! - Chevron Latest (Deserving) Target

[johnnyplankton]

Maybe it’s up to comedians to save the planet. Chevron was all geared up to take a radical stance with their new ad campaign by implying that just maybe they could do a little better. Which is kind of like the Pope admitting that just maybe, some of the priests found the altar boys just a little cute.

With slogans like: “Oil companies need to GET REAL (rich?)” and “Oil companies SHOULD put their profits to good use (free drinks for the incredibly depressed poor?)” accompanied by a large, red “WE AGREE”, the Oil giant was trying to paint themselves as the "honest" oil company. But the Yes Men – Middle Class America’s Animal House to Corporate America’s Dean Wormer – beat Chevron to the punch.


Using a fake website (http://www.chevron-weagree.com/#mainad-1 ) with the usual “aren’t the poor delightful when they’re hungry” pictures and a fake press release (http://chevron-press.com/article/Radical-Chevron-Ad-Campaign-Highlights-Industry-Problems/), the Yes Men amped up the honesty to the absurd (for Chevron anyway) to “It’s Time Oil Companies Stopped Endangering Life” and “Oil Companies Should Clean Up Their Messes.”

The stories were reportedly picked up by a number of news sources, including one that should have known better, Advertising Age. Before a befuddled Chevron knew how to react, the Ya Boys put out a second release, http://press.chevron-corp.com/ using the same fake Chevron logos, decrying the stunt with this: Chevron Deplores Pre-emptive Spoof Ads, Investigates Options that read in part “we are not obliged to abide by decisions that Ecuadorian judges make or do not make. This is because we have binding agreements with the Ecuadorian Government exempting us from any liabilities whatsoever.”




Chevron issued a meek statement, then slithered away to make more money and destroy more of the planet.

This incident was the second prank of note on oil companies this year, when a Twitter account pretending to be BP’s official PR agency BPGlobalPR, began spewing some (darkly) hilarious tweets about the spill:

Top Five BPGlobal PR Tweets:
1) Catastrophe is a strong word, let's all agree to call it a whoopsie daisy.
2) The good news: Mermaids are real. The bad news: They are now extinct. #bpcares
3) We just saw a shark fight an octopus inside the geyser. Almost made this whole thing worth it.
4) Negative People view the ocean as half empty of oil. We are dedicated to making it half full. Stay positive America!

5) Doing our best to turn oil into Oilinade! So far it tastes terrible.

[wtmusic]

1. On the new one they've now pulled the Chevron logo.

The lawyers have been busy.