Ad Campiagn targets Albert's Oilsands
A scathing advertising campaign by a U.S. environmental coalition against Alberta’s northern oilpatch projects has the provincial government on the defensive about its international tourism image.
The oilsands public relations war has heated up, as billboards were unveiled in four major U.S. cities comparing Alberta oil production to the destruction caused by the Gulf oil spill.
The billboards in Denver, Portland, Seattle and Minneapolis described the province as home to “the other oil disaster.”
The billboards feature pictures of a dead duck found in a Syncrude tailings pond and an oil-soaked pelican in the Gulf of Mexico. “We think that actually in the end there’s no comparison. The tarsands are much worse,” Corporate Ethics director Michael Marx said.
Corporate Ethics International — partnered with a handful of organizations such as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and others — said Wednesday the billboards cost as much as $50,000.
The price tag for the whole “Rethink Alberta” campaign, which includes a hefty Internet presence and promises to take the campaign to potential tourists in Europe and perhaps Asia, was kept under wraps.
“I can tell you it’s substantial. We have major funding for this effort and a commitment for multiple years,” Marx said.“I think we have all been caught offguard by the scope of anti-oil campaigns, that these are international campaigns,” said Janet Annesley, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
In the past six months, her organization has changed its communications strategy, buying ads in national newspapers, magazines and on television to tell Canadians about how the oil industry is trying to lessen its environmental impact.“The attacks on the oilsands are attacks on the industry, not necessarily attacks on individual companies. So it’s incumbent on the industry association to step up, and be more visible,” Annesley said.“Just as a lot of the NGOs and the environmental activists ... don’t disclose to the news media what their costs are, we are not disclosing ours.”
Marx noted that Premier Ed Stelmach’s 2008 promise to spend millions to improve its image was seen as a challenge by environmental groups. “The government was very clear about the fact that it was setting aside $25 million to rebrand itself, partially in response to the negative image that it was gaining as a result of the tarsands,” Marx said. “Our role is really to expose the inconvenient truth about the social and environmental irresponsibility of corporations, and now of this province, and see how it affects their brand.”
Stelmach defended the province. “We absolutely will fight back through promoting Alberta’s story using accurate information.” While industry and government officials painted the Corporate Ethics campaign as misleading, Stelmach said the province has no plans to pursue any court action against the environmental group. He said court proceedings would “give them $5-million worth of media.” See page 3
I think it is now time that we stop shipping oil to the US let them sort their own energy problems out on their own. This includes any raw bitumen leaving Alberta and also includes any US investment in the oil sands.
.jpg)
