Ads and the Image of Oil Companies

While reading through a magazine today, I found an ad for Chevron. This ad's main headline said "It took 175 years to go through the first trillion barrels of oil. It will take 30 to go through the next trillion." and in small print below this it said "so why should you care?" Further down the page, there is a letter sitting on top of papers that have various other graphs about oil usage and oil exports. The letter reads that Chevron cares about innovation and conservation and is calling all consumers to do the same. It also calls out to scientists and researchers to innovate new energy solutions. The Chevron logo is small and not prominent in the ad at all.

But isn't Chevron an oil company? Shouldn't they be trying to sell their product? I can only read this as a response to consumer criticism of oil companies. Oil companies have to clean up their image so consumers don't feel guilty buying their product. We talked about this a while ago in class, I believe, back when talking about utopian entrepeneurs and the like. British Petroleum's BP now means "beyond petroleum." Schlumberger founds schools (through the SEED program) wherever it operates. This Chevron ad is just another example of the trend of oil companies to try to undirty their public image. The small prominence of the Chevron logo simply points out even more that this is still advertisement and not a true challenge to America's overwhelming consumption of oil.

Does this change anything, though? Does it convince consumers to actually make a change, or does it just alleviate the guilt of the consumer enough to keep them consuming from whatever company makes them feel less guilty? I guess... as always.... that I'm skeptical.

posted by laura e. nichols on 11/02/2005 09:36:00 PM
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