Backhanded "green" values

by: Adam Bink

Mon Feb 08, 2010 at 11:19


If you didn't see the "Green Police" Super Bowl ad yesterday, here it is:

The message that Audi is going for is "drive this car and you'll be able to avoid the hassle", but the way they go about it is terrible. As Oaktown Girl writes in the comments, the message is that the green movement is turning us into an oppressive "police state", with cops searching through our trash and roadblocks set up for non-"green" cars.

This is what sometimes gets me about corporations and "green". Some large corporations institute incentives for biking to work, recycling programs, etc. out of pure concern for the environment. Others for complete profit. I recall several years ago I started seeing everyone from Chevron and ConocoPhillips to Pepsi advertising in National Journal, an insider DC publication, trumpeting their green values. With this kind of messaging, Audi punches the green movement in the stomach, scares its customers, and then tells customers to buy a green car to avoid the "green police" for the sake of profit.

On the merits of the business side of the ad, a friend of mine commented that, well, at least it will get people to purchase this new "green" car. Perhaps, but if its at the expense of ridiculing simple things people can do like using compact flourescent lightbulbs and taking bags to the grocery store, and perhaps even scaring people into opposing green initiatives, is it worth it? I have doubts about that.

Adam Bink :: Backhanded "green" values

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Backhanded "green" values | 18 comments
I have to say (0.00 / 0)
That I support the use of a certain level of monitoring and forced compliance if people want to get serious about the environment.  Relying primarily on financial incentives just buys into the myth of the rational economic actor.

Then again, as a nanny state liberal, I want to see the government do some automatic electronic economic surveillance of banks and lobbyists.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

seems like a bad ad (4.00 / 2)
It's incoherent and the only message anyone will remember is the "punch in the stomach." Too many Republicans working in Audi's ad agency.



New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

What's wrong with a punch in the stomach? (0.00 / 0)
Seems like a perfectly good message to me.  I wish someone would use that message to whip recalcitrant Senate Democrats.  It'd be pretty stupid to use the format of a 30-second ad to convey a load of statistics or explain the science behind environmental ideas.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both
[ Parent ]
what the f.... (4.00 / 1)
the green "state" is cracking down, those damn big government liberals

this is your future if you vote D kids

no doubt a republicrat is behind this...

I thought the ad was hilarious. (4.00 / 1)
I think the Green Police stuff was over-the-top and tongue-in-cheek - self-effacing (of Brand Green) in a way that opens space and breaks down people's ability to neatly categorize.  The ad takes ownership of green away from the stereotype "stuffy liberal elites" and casts a much wider class-conscious net.  The apparent economic class of the offenders (affluent) is central to why this ad is intuitively funny.  Whatever the intentions of the company, this ad scores cool points for Green.

"What can we do today, so that tomorrow we can do what we are unable to do today?" -Paulo Freire
It's a really bad ad... (4.00 / 5)
So, basically the ad is saying that you should buy this Audi to conform to the clearly absurd "Green Police" standards.  Who wants to be on the side of the "Green Police" after that ad?
On the side of the Green Police? (0.00 / 0)
I want to BE the Green Police!
[ Parent ]
The timing couldn't have been worse.. (0.00 / 0)
But most of the ads during the game were some of the worst and most drawn out ever. (the screaming chickens were pretty funny though.) already

On the Green front, don't know if anyone caught it but I happen to have Fox news on when the female host announced "an explosion at a green energy site".

And then this from a poster at a Connecticut right-wing blog:
" I will pass on making political comments. However, I would like to know if this power plant was a green jobs stimulous act program." http://radioviceonline.com/mid...
Wow. Could Obama's incessant pandering be fueling their  hatred rather then diiminshing it??
 

Nationalism is not the same thing as terrorism, and an adversary is not the same thing as an enemy.

green energy site? (0.00 / 0)
is natural gas green now?  I must be getting old, either that or they are really owning us on messaging and branding what is and is not green.

Figuring out how to be a progressive college graduate transplant to Ohio:  http://citizenobie.wordpress.com/
[ Parent ]
I'm waiting for the green/Hamas-Hizb'allah terrorist link.. (0.00 / 0)


Nationalism is not the same thing as terrorism, and an adversary is not the same thing as an enemy.
[ Parent ]
I agree that it's a stupid and counterproductive sentiment (0.00 / 0)
But if it works, then it's only because people already feel this way.  Advertising doesn't invent thoughts, it just capitalizes on them.

I think it's just one more argument towards moving the campaign away from "small individual actions" like light bulbs, and toward comprehensive international policy.

I saw Kos this morning had a diary on the rec list (4.00 / 2)
about this. The writer shares my concern:

The Audi advertisement feeds directly into this "political epithet", feeding a tea bagger-type framing of threats to civil liberty, serving to undermine public support for serious action to address America's oil dependency, energy profligacy, and the challenges/opportunities that Global Warming present us (the U.S.).

That post, by the way, also acknowledges opinions that disagree with this perspective and has some good historical info on the "Green Police" in Germany during WWII. Worth a read.

Edit note: Adam - I think the link in the post needs a fix. As of now it just links back to this post instead of yesterday's one to which you are referring.

You all are reinforcing the stereotype that Lefties have no sense of humor. (0.00 / 0)
Progressives need to get clearer about when our task is to push a specific, developed analysis and when it is intrigue, attract or make a splash.  You'd probably want to be very specific and defined when crafting talking points for a meeting with a member of Congress, but you may want to be intentionally ambiguous, intriguing and sexy when designing a flyer to get people out to an event, or an ad to get people talking.

We need to learn how to better use ambiguity (opening up space before nailing down definitions) as a tool in our toolbox.

"What can we do today, so that tomorrow we can do what we are unable to do today?" -Paulo Freire

Yeah, I think jumping all over this Audi ad is uncalled for (0.00 / 0)
Yeah it's stupid, but saying that it's some kind of subliminal anti-Left, liberals-are-tyrants propaganda is a bit much.
[ Parent ]
re: subliminal (4.00 / 1)
but saying that it's some kind of subliminal anti-Left, liberals-are-tyrants propaganda is a bit much.

it's not subliminal, it's crystal clear: environmentalists are the new gestapo

green thinking isn't so prevalent as to chalk this up to humor

[ Parent ]
Well, on #superbowlads on Twitter... (4.00 / 2)
...last night, that ad generated a significant volume of anti-environmentalist comments, appearing out of the blue in what had been a pretty light-hearted conversation.

With the possible exception of the threads re: sexist beer/car ads (which I joined in on), nothing came even close to generating the negative, politically-charged response that the Audi ad did.

Finally, consider that the folks on #superbowlads were not your hard-core Super Bowl fans.

I can't imagine what the comments in sports bars across the nation must have been after that ad.

Thanks a whole f*ck of a lot, Audi...

- bp

[ Parent ]
I would add, too, that the LA air is shown as cleaner than I ever saw it (0.00 / 0)
on 99% of the days that I lived there. Because you can't possibly connect cause and effect, huh?

And, OT: but what's with the anteater on a leash? I know Matthew Smucker is convinced that we all have no sense of humor, but perhaps self-contradicting ads involving anteaters on leashes are just not oh so funny?

Foucault's analysis of the relation of knowledge/power is in order (0.00 / 0)
It is a spiral ever fusing, faceless and unstoppable except by personal resistance against it.
Backhanded "green" values | 18 comments
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