A fake Shell Oil billboard in Houston reads “You Can’t Run Your SUV on Cute, Let’s Go.”
The sign, courtesy of Greenpeace activists, mocks Shell’s current advertising campaign with an image of a polar bear and cubs. According to Greenpeace, “by chasing after hard-to-reach oil in remote and dangerous places, Shell is putting polar bears, walruses, and other Arctic wildlife at risk.”
Interestingly, the ad was crowdsourced, being selected from over 10,000 user-generated online submissions to ArcticReady.com, an online collaboration with Yes Lab to increase awareness of their anti-Shell campaign. The website, which is modeled to look like an authentic Shell site and created by Greenpeace and Yes Lab, includes an iceberg-zapping game and more spoof ads.
The Houston billboard is one of several moves for opponets of Arctic drilling. Protests have been staged around the globe to bring attention to oil company’s planned exploration in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. Activists in England, Holland, Germany, and other countries unfurled “#SaveTheArctic” banners and also blocked access to Shell gas stations. The Twitter hashtag campaign included pleas from Sir Paul McCartney and Pamela Anderson.
The Guardian described some of the protesters’ tactics in England, which involved using an emergency-shut-off switch to prevent the pumping of petrol and then removing a fuse to keep it from being reactivated. About 70 Greenpeace activists also blocked access to Shell’s headquarters in The Hague and hung a banner on the building proclaiming “Stop Shell, Save The Arctic.”
Here are other examples of the campaign:
