Video: New Anti-Guzzler Greenpeace Ad
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada 
on 07.21.06
Greenpeace UK has just released a new video ad about SUVs in urban areas. "Using the language, style and production values of traditional car adverts, the film challenges the image portrayed by the advertising industry of 4x4 drivers escaping their urban environment for the freedom of the open road. Greenpeace took advice from advertising industry insiders before producing the film." Some might find the video a bit over the top, but considering that the auto industry spends more on marketing (especially for SUVs) than almost all other industries combined and that their adverts are often just as over the top in the opposite direction, we think it's only fair. You can watch the video here, download it here and read the Greenpeace press release plus some background info on the advert below.
The video was directed by Ben Sedley through the production Company Home Corp, and produced by Lara Schachat. A report recently published by Greenpeace, entitled ‘OFF ROAD CAR – ON ROAD MENACE’ and written by Dr Peter Wells of Cardiff University’s world renowned automotive research centre, reveals that many of the SUVs on Britain’s roads:
- Consume around 300% more fuel than an efficient family car
- Pump out 300% more climate changing gasses and other pollutants
- Are three times more likely to kill a pedestrian than an ordinary passenger car
Here is the press release:
Wednesday July 19th 2006NEW GREENPEACE AD SLAMS GAS GUZZLERS
Film subverts TV tactics - BAFTA actress gives support
As the Motor Show opens and Britain bakes in soaring temperatures that the Met Office say might be linked to climate change, Greenpeace has launched a new film targeting gas guzzling 4x4s. Using the language, style and production values of traditional car adverts, the film challenges the image portrayed by the advertising industry of 4x4 drivers escaping their urban environment for the freedom of the open road. Greenpeace took advice from advertising industry insiders before producing the film.
The advert satirises the aspirational images and glossy marketing used by motor manufacturers to encourage car drivers to purchase an urban 4x4. In the film a city employee encounters distain from his fellow employees, but only at the end of the film does the viewer learn why – he owns a city gas guzzler. The ad ends with the line, ‘What does your car say about you?’
The film urges car buyers to think about the consequences of their choices and not be suckered by car industry advertising. In 2004 alone Ford spent over £18 million in the UK marketing Land Rovers as glamorous products for town and country. The company spent £3.2 million on marketing the vehicles to Londoners. Publicity material for the new Range Rover Sport boasts, ‘On-road it is astounding. There has never been a Land Rover so focused on awesome tarmac performance.’ This year’s motor show will see the launch of the first right-hand drive Hummer. Based on a war-fighting assault vehicle, the Hummer’s size and fuel consumption will make it a deadly addition to the fleet of Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) on the roads of our cities.
Last year Greenpeace occupied the Range Rover assembly line in Solihull, shutting it down for a day. For several months, Greenpeace volunteers have been clamping 4x4s with cardboard clamps, putting leaflets under windscreen wipers and fixing fake tax discs to windscreens that call for extra road tax for gas guzzling vehicles. One of the targeted cars belonged to Thandie Newton. Now BAFTA-winning Thandie has sold her BMW 4x4 and replaced it with a hybrid car. The star of ‘Crash’ has also written to dozens of other celebrities suggesting they think about doing the same.
Thandie Newton said: ‘As you know, extreme weather events are on the increase. Climate change, which is largely brought on by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, seriously threatens generations to come. That’s why I swapped my SUV for a fuel efficient Toyota Prius. I hope this film from Greenpeace will persuade others to do the same.’
John Sauven, Greenpeace communications director, said: ‘Confronting the car advertising industry has never been more important. As climate change threatens our existence on this planet we cannot let the advertisers off the hook. Showing images of urban 4x4s driving across an arctic wilderness is insane given that the polar ice caps are melting due to the inefficient use of fossil fuels. We need to challenge head on the language and images that make 4x4s attractive, exposing the reality when you get behind the wheel. That’s what this film is about.’
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Okay, so where can I see this video?
Because I want to advertise against SUVs and I have friends who do too!
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editor note: The video is linked in the post:
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/gasguzzler/
Probably also going to be shown on TV in the UK.
What a lame video. About as much impact as a wet spounge thrown at you from 3000mtrs.
That’s so sad! How much energy did they waste making that!They will never get people on board with conservation if they alienate them!
Where is the love?
The idea of this ad is that people will shun you if you have a 4x4.Then the converse would be that people would befriend you if you are a treehuggeer.I have a Prius and it did not attract friends just weird looks.Old men wanted to talk about the car and look under the hood.Women in 4x4s just wanted to pass me and the kids would glance as mom gunned the throttle.American women make the purchase decisions that is why there is so much joking hostility towards men in advertising.This ad has another stupid male which is more of the same old stuff,they got Greenpeace's money and returned smeg.I will not donate to Greenpeace because they consider men just objects for ridicule.Enjoy the gas while it lasts your children do not know you are spending their college money to drive that 4x4.Make sure you kill me in an accident because I have a shank that I will push into your tearduct as soon as I smell your perfume.
I like the ad. It's not targeted at treehuggers so it might not work well here, but to the kind of people who bought SUVs for their image, because they have been sold as "cool" for so many years, it can help deflate that fantasy.
I watched it after reading the comments. Sorry, I thought it was great.
Well, the SUV ran on a diesel engine from the sound of it, so it had that going for it...
Why is it I keep hearing the "new" diesels in Europe are so much quieter than the old ones we used to have in the States?
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editor note: Wasting diesel is not much better than wasting gasoline. In Europe small diesel cars are very popular, you don't have to buy a truck to get the option.
Hmm, didn't find the ad that effective or funny. (*Disclaimer, I drive a carbon-offset diesel 4x4 and I live, work and play in rural areas. Yes, my 4x4 has been off-road.)
Plus, reading the rest of the Greenpeace site I have to wonder at their math... 4x4's are three times thirstier and three times more poluting? Than what?
If a guy in the city of London spends £68,000 on a V8 RangeRover Vogue SE he is getting 18.9 miles to the gallon and putting out 352g/km of CO2(*Figures from Landrover .co.uk)... if he decides his 4x4 is evil, sells it and spends that £68,000 on a BMW M5 saloon car... he's getting 19.1 mpg and putting out 357g/km of CO2 (*Figures from bmw.co.uk) ... aren't we all glad he got rid of his polluting demon 4x4... phew, I know I am.
Personally, if you live and work in London... take the damn train/tube/buses or bike it. Anyone who commutes by driving in or around the city of London is obviously insane.
Frank... nice attitude fella, how to win friends and influence people!
Let's face it, most people are buying an image with a 4x4... and most of them probably don't know about, let alone consider, the environmental impact of any of their actions, not least, driving.
I'm quite sure they're not all screaming down the road with their gas pedal to the floor and a devilish grin on their face thinking of all the polar icecap damage they can do before lunchtime... they simply picked a car they liked.
Surely the job of true treehuggers, and wannabe huggers like myself, is to *educate* people who don't know any better, rather than threaten them with homemade weapons?
Pretty funny video.
I don't have a problem with people driving 4x4s if they need to go off road or haul a lot of stuff, but driving one to the office does seem a bit silly.
I also think that all 4X4s over a certain size should come factory fitted with an CNG conversion.
Fishd wants to take the high road but that ad did not take the high road so I took my cue from them and sank to their level.There is a psychologist,Clotaire Rapaille who works for Detroit and says 4x4 owners are aggressive and selfish and rely on advertising to give them alibis for their behavior.If these people are so swayed by advertising maybe we should regulate advertising,there are rules against advertising to children maybe ads for vehicles that fall below the CAFE standards should be banned.London has a congestion charge can Greenpeace take credit for that?The Hummer is a childish backlash against the schoolyard teasing like that in the commercial.The tactic does not work it actually sells Hummers.
What a terrible ad. Cruelty gets you nowhere.
that childish ad made me regret donating money to greenpeace.
I think a lot of people missed the point of that commercial. Many people frown upon people that try to be eco-friendly (can't speak for Europe, but certainly here in the states). I am in college and every time I mention something eco-friendly to my friends I can feel their eyes rolling in their mind. Like heaven forbid we actually try to save the planet from devastation. The commercial is just showing what it would be like in a twilight zone show. Maybe their intent was to be mean, but I think they were just trying to imagine what it would be like if the world had the right mindset. I am serious about this because, people in America drive SUV's like they would a weekend car, a sports car, or a mid-size car. It's ridiculous. I went to go see an Inconvenient Truth, and I counted 8 SUV's, and that was just in my particular parking lot.
These are the reasons for which that commercial was made. People need to wake up. SUV's and trucks were invented for people that live in remote places, NOT NEW YORK CITY (yes when I visited Manhattan, I saw plenty of SUV's).
This advert is childish and stupid. Being nasty to people won't get them to become more environmentally aware nor will it get people to change their lifestyles in order to help the planet.
The arguments over whether 4x4s polloute the environment is ireelvant here, such nasty campaigning will not do anything to change people's choice of car.
Maybe we should all be driving greener less gas guzzling cars but we won't be encouraged to do so by such idiotic campaigns.
And Greenpeace and other anti 4x4 groups should stop using harrasement of 4x4 drivers as a campaign tool. All it does is put people's backs up and makes Greenpeace and other groups look like fascists rather than people concerned with the planet.