Something that's actually good

As a friendly mid-week reminder of what the power of a sensible mind, a decent computer and a relentless thirst to add some humor to the wreckage of oil industry CSR communications can do, I think it's about time we reflected on the success of the Yes Men in hijacking the Chevron We Agree campaign. In fact, the Yes Men effort was so authentic I believe I mistakenly linked to their ingenious version of the actual Chevron site when I originally wrote about this here.

Firstly, the Yes Men replaced Chevron's extraordinarily disingenuous statements--real winners like 'Oil companies should get behind the development of renewable energy' and 'Oil companies should support the communities they are a part of'--with mind-blowing ones. Try 'Oil companies should clean up their messes' and 'Oil companies should stop endangering life' on for size.

Secondly, they put out a press release which was adopted by key journalists even before Chevron had time to respond. The release is a tour-de-force of corporate language, including fake commentary from the ad agency which allegedly created the campaign, and insidious gems like this one:

"The "We Agree" campaign is an evolution of Chevron's "Power of Human Energy" campaign, which launched in 2007 with a series of print, online, broadcast and outdoor ads that all sought to raise awareness and encourage discussion about the major issues facing the energy industry. Though the exact cost of "We Agree" remains confidential, Chevron routinely spends $90 million per year on US advertising alone."

Lastly, in light of my egregious linking error, let's take an additional moment of reflection on what that means. It means that my expectations for what oil companies are capable of greenwashing is so breathtakingly low at this point that I would actually accept the Yes Men campaign as a possibility. This is not an unjustified perspective--it's getting really bad out there. Or, as our friend HST would say, really weird.

Here's to more armchair activism from our friends the Yes Men. I'd like to be fooled again.