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Stephen Colbert gets into bed with Big Oil and celebrates the lifting of the ban on offshore drilling with a new ad campaign.
Now that the Congressional ban on offshore drilling has been lifted, Stephen Colbert and the Prescott Oil Company wants to drill, baby, drill.
Colbert hailed the lifting of the ban as a tremendous success, that will “reduce our dependence on foreign oil by 1%…10 to 20 years from now.”
“It’s about time these oil companies caught a break,” he continued. “This has not been easy for them. Every time their profits go up, so do gas prices. They can’t win. And as for the environmental impacts of drilling, folks, no one cares more about the environment than oil companies.”
Prescott Oil has a new campaign that demonstrates its commitment to the environment, family values, and alternative fuels. In order to fulfill these commitments, the company needs for you to do your part and buy more of its oil.
But Prescott isn’t the first to make this logical connection between saving the environment and consuming more oil. Below are advertisements from Exxon, BP, Valero, Shell, and Chevron that all have the same inspiring message: the more oil you buy, the better off we’ll be. Can you guess which one was banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority for what amounts to greenwashing?
You may also want to have a box of tissues handy. There are some real tear-jerkers.
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10 responses so far ↓
1 Melinda // Oct 1, 2008 at 9:25 am
I think I’m going to throw up now. A few years ago, one of the 25 minute Shell commercials came with our newspaper. Amazing. They are extremely good at making propaganda – the best that big money can buy. Wow. Interesting to see them all in one place.
2 » Stephen Colbert and Prescott Oil: Buy More Oil to Save the Environment » Exxon Mobil // Oct 1, 2008 at 10:52 am
[...] Exxon Mobil news by Max Gladwell [...]
3 Ricky // Oct 2, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Not sure if you realized it, but Colbert was being satirical. Prescott Oil was invented by his writers to ridicule the actual oil companies.
4 Max Gladwell // Oct 2, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Ricky: Indeed, we were playing along.
5 Ricky // Oct 2, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Well now I feel like a jerk. T_T
6 Max Gladwell // Oct 2, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Ricky: Please don’t. We usually point out that Colbert is taking someone to task in his satire. This is the first time we sortof turned it around as if he was being serious, so we can see how you might have thought we were serious.
Nothing like fake outrage over fake outrage. Where does it end?
7 Ricky // Oct 2, 2008 at 3:07 pm
In defense of the gas companies, I do believe that they have doe their small part to make the world better.
I spend most of my day inside working on a computer screen, and as such, my eye are not accustomed to the sunlight when I go outside. For decades, gas companies have had a ruthless dedication to creating a “protective tinting” in the atmosphere to protect my eyes from the bright sun. Thanks guys!
There we go. Now I finally fit in.
8 GreenJoyment // Oct 3, 2008 at 12:01 am
(Because this is who we are… just like you… we’re your friends… not at all interested in just profiting from what’s most profitable in a given era.)
Chevron: “Watch as we tap the power of human energy…” Your energy spent earning money, pouring that right into our pockets. Just watch as we do it.
Seriously, I’m glad these big companies are working on this stuff, but it’s presented in such a topical way in these commercials… who wouldn’t this sound good to?
It makes me think they are spending a lot more on their commercials to let us know they’re working on it, than they’re actually spending working on it.
Awesome post. Thanks for putting all of this together into one place.
9 Wayne Smallman // Oct 5, 2008 at 6:52 am
Satire is often at its best when served with a political slant.
Of course, we’re laughing at the Prescott Oil mock advert, but that’s really just a distillation (pardon the pun) of the kind of crass, patronizing messages and empty rhetoric we get from these guys…
10 The Green Scene Oct 6th « The Written One // Oct 6, 2008 at 2:37 am
[...] finally, who would have thought that using more oil would help solve the problem? Stephen Colbert’s cutting edge coverage of climate change, global warming and oil addiction continues with this controversial report on the [...]
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