Pablo Escobar was the “king ” of a drug business that worked like clockwork for years! Although the cartel he owned was based in Colombia, he shared the American market with other cartels. His power, which defied the state, even allowed him to enter parliament at one point. He had a character that did not hesitate to kill statesmen and public officials through his hitmen. He was even a ruthless killer who didn’t even hesitate to blow up with other innocent passengers on the plane with a suicide bomber after receiving intelligence that a public official was on the passenger plane who was harassing him!
If the honest lawyers who did not leave their backs had not disrupted their games, they would have continued to add wealth to their wealth through the people they made addicted to poison. One of the important features that made him so “untouchable” was that he was doing generous charitable work for the poor poor people of the Medellin region, of which he had a say in the administration. The fact that water was brought to the neighborhood, jerseys and balls were given to football teams, repaired churches, built roads, and the local municipality was spending its money generously on works that it could not afford due to lack of budget made it difficult for law enforcement. Because no one gave any information against him, they also helped him hide. But in the end, he was a person with a bad heart.
Now, when things were to happen, if Escobar had knocked on the door of one of the multinational advertising and PR companies whose name we know very well, and he would have said; “I want to reflect to the public that I am educating these poor children, that I am giving jobs to their families (vigilantism, drug production and transportation), and that I am providing social assistance to low-income earners. They always know me badly, and I have a good side. I want this to be known. In fact, let’s give them whatever the money is for, and a star like George Clooney that everyone admires will tell it.” If that advertising and PR company had prepared a campaign of a high level of creativity and appeal in a short time, it would have left us with two questions that needed to be answered:
Would a star like George Clooney accept such an offer?
Will CNN, BBC advertorial film, New York Times, Time magazine, Financial Times put the phrase “this is an advertisement” on their pages and screens?
I seem to hear your answer. Would a drug cartel do charity? It poisons people, it kills people, it makes this world worse.
But real life doesn’t think and say that.
“Buying Emotions”
The business that some advertising and PR agencies that we are witnessing examples of today and that open their backdoors to some of their clients are dressing up for the sake of making money is nothing but “green whitewashing”. The paint they bought for the work they are trying to do says “green” on the box, but a black paint comes out of it! Will the advertorial publishers, who think they are running away from the rain under the umbrella of “this is an advertisement” and are actually caught in the hail soaked wet due to ethical and moral inadequacy, be aware of what kind of crime they are complicit in when they meet the realities of life? In my article titled “Advertorial” in detail, I included the names of the agencies that are tools of this work.
The issue of green whitewashing has only one purpose: to “buy emotions”! The work being done is the black pages of corporate history under a green blanket that will be draped over the facts that the public does not want to know. Many companies and brands are quite successful in this business. Serving newsworthy elements as the main dish in order to make them forget the works that are newsworthy in the traditional media but cannot be reported “for some reason”; those who publish them with the hype of “this is an advertisement” because they earn money, and the stars who play a role in these campaigns due to their professional jobs have a share in misleading the public opinion at least as much as the “facts” that are wanted to be forgotten.
Once upon a time, a non-governmental organization called Public Eye voted “the world’s most irresponsible companies” with more than 70,000 votes from its supporters in 60 countries . They were disclosing companies that are insensitive to human rights (women-children, racial discrimination), bribery, abuse and the sustainability of the planet to the world public opinion on a date appropriate to the timing of the meeting held in Davos. From this point of view, “real” non-governmental organizations take up business and one day start to scrutinize institutions and brands under the name of “green whitewashing awards”? Which has pioneers in the early 2000s!! Those who are curious can look at which companies are on the list here.
“Shell Always Ahead of…”
All these thoughts came to my agenda due to the “Shell Always Ahead” campaign of Shell, one of the world’s largest energy companies. For some reason, the world of communication and PR remained silent in the face of the campaign, which captures emotions from the “bottom” and is the product of a very successful production. The prominent name of the campaign, star actor Engin Akyürek, fulfills what is expected of him. But in an environment where the natural disasters caused by the climate crisis are all around us, I don’t know if he will question “how someone is actually abusing his professionalism”! The stories in the scripts go back to Gazi Mustafa Kemal. The fact that a brand uses Mustafa Kemal to advertise itself is a great creativity, so to speak! In addition, women are brought before us on television screens, on the pages of newspapers, with a “wonderful” presentation of what you call local development. And he has scripted notes from real stories in a corner of each one!
We don’t have a habit of looking at the background of such “social responsibility” flavored campaigns of brands and companies. But we don’t question whether there are other true stories behind images like this that can capture everyone from their emotions . They don’t exist in these scenarios! Millions of dollars are being paid to international lobbying firms to keep them out of our sight as they are not brought before us! That’s why the concept of Greenwashing entered our lives.
Could it be that companies and brands are making a strategic mistake in spending this kind of money on communication? In other words, do they cause the public to remember their once troubled work?
For example, what do I see in the public sharing of Shell’s “Shell is Always Forward” campaign with the note “this is an advertisement“.
Evolutionary Tree says:
“In the 1980s, oil companies like Exxon and Shell conducted research on the inner workings of carbon dioxide released by fossil fuels and predicted the consequences of the damage these emissions would do to the planet.
For example, in 1982, Exxon predicted that by about 2060, CO2 levels would reach about 560 parts per million, with levels of this greenhouse gas doubling that of pre-industrial times, which would increase the planet’s average temperatures by about 2°C (even more than pre-industrial levels) compared to then.
Towards the end of the same decade, an internal report by Shell in 1988 predicted similar effects and also showed that CO2 could double earlier by 2030.”
Shell’s assessment predicted 1-metre sea level rise and noted that warming could also fuel the breakdown of the West Antarctic ice sheet, causing a worldwide rise in sea level of “five to six metres”. This increase would be enough to flood all low-geographical countries.
Shell analysts also warned in those years about “the loss of some ecosystems or the destruction of habitats“, forecasting “surface runoff, increased destructive flooding and flooding of lowland farmland” and saying that “new freshwater resources may be needed” to compensate for rainfall changes . Global changes in air temperature would also “drastically change the way people live and work.” The Tree of Evolution concludes:
As a result, Shell analysts concluded, ‘These could be the biggest changes recorded in history.’”
Shell is an example, of course. In the realities we face today with the climate crisis, there are many companies that have successfully kept the developments that have brought us to this point away from public attention. Not only with the climate issue, but of course, there is always a struggle between what we know to be true and the facts in many business areas, especially in industries such as medicine, health, food, tobacco and seeds.
For example; As I watch the Shell Always Ahead campaign, I am haunted by the fact that Shell has known about the climate crisis through scientific reports since the 1980s, but is hiding this fact.
“The documents unearthed by Jelmer Mommers of De Correspondent show that oil giant Shell has a deep understanding of the science and risks of global warming caused by fossil fuel emissions dating back to at least the 1980s.”
Moreover, his own research team warns Shell of the seriousness of this issue.
“In a 1988 report based on studies completed in 1986, the company researchers found that the potential consequences for the world are so great that policy options need to be considered much earlier. And the energy industry needs to think about how it should play its part. Otherwise, it may be too late to take effective countermeasures to mitigate the effects or even stabilize the situation.”
Right next to my impressions of the Shell campaign is, of course, lobbying.
“Shell seems to be highly committed to climate change policies and is taking mixed positions. While the company expresses the highest level of support for emissions reduction targets and carbon price, it continues to lobby for its policy of advancing fossil fuel production and consumption, especially fossil gas. It also maintains a membership in various industry associations that take a negative approach to climate policy.”
The company’s management, which in the 1990s engaged in an open war with environmental activists when it wanted to sink the Brent Spar oil exploration platform in the North Sea because it was finished, has never fallen off the agenda since those years due to its “unproclaimed” policies regarding its approach to environmental issues . So much so that at the annual general meeting held in May 2022, even investors voted that they were not satisfied with the company’s climate strategy!
Activists protesting Shell’s climate targets, shareholders’ support of the strategy in lower numbers than last year, and the energy giant’s continued development of fossil fuels have delayed the general meeting by three hours.
“Under the ornate domed roof of Central Hall Westminster in London, protesters, who had to hold Shell shares to gain access, shouted slogans and shouted as Mayor Andrew MacKenzie tried to speak.
The group, made up of around 50 shareholders, sang ‘we will stop you’ as they pledged to chain themselves to Shell’s ‘fossil fuel pipelines’ and with the melody of Queen’s 1977 hit song We Will Rock You. As a result, the police were called to the general assembly hall and the protesting shareholders were removed from the general assembly.”
Shell management, of course, is not silent in the face of these allegations. On its website, it comprehensively describes the action plan against climate change in accordance with scientific data and the Paris agreement targets. It sets out concrete goals. But why can’t he attract public opinion?
How Deep is this Horizon?
BP Deep Horizon is of course still right next to us. For the first time in the company’s history, it had to pay compensations of up to $ 100 billion for failing to deliver a performance to satisfy public opinion in this environmental disaster, which failed to distribute dividends to its shareholders. For example, after this incident, the sponsorship in the British Museum was not continued for many years. Civil society drew the “Either us or BP” backlash to the museum management with highly creative demonstrations.
Exxon Valdez entered the textbooks as one of the principal crises in the history of public relations.
When we put them together, on the one hand, there is the fact that the planet has turned into a bedridden patient, and on the other hand, there is the fact that some industries responsible for this ignore the scientific facts and continue their work to ensure the “sustainability of their profitability”. After all, it’s been forgotten that we’re all passengers in the same boat. The employees, managers and children of these companies travel side by side in the cabins with us.
Fossil fuel-based energy companies, of course, are not the only ones responsible for the climate crisis we find in our laps. As I mentioned in another article about greenwashing, Fast Fashion is another sector. But the real greenwashers are “us”! So as consumers, we either ignore what’s going on, or we don’t see it and make a sound, or we continue to consume these products and play into the hands of greenwashing.
The rising value is “accountability”.
An action plan that will be put forward with convincing and convincing data can also be an “opportunity” for brands and companies whose names are circulating around the concept of greenwashing.
Brands that can openly and transparently settle accounts with the mistakes in their past can take advantage of this opportunity.
The public is desperate, especially on the climate crisis, ignorant of what to do, and looking for a shoulder on which it can trust its opinion and vision.
I am one of those who think that companies that put accountability on the agenda can also differentiate themselves in competition.
Shell can do just that!
Leave a Reply