Persuasive Essay On Green Advertising

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Green is good. Political color-coding and branding as of late associates the adjective “green” with nature, with balance, and with a sense of regard toward Earth. Greenpeace, Green Party, Going Green. Owing in part to basic consumer awareness, shifting political winds, and ever-evolving market sensibilities, advertising has grown much greener in the past few decades. However, the idea of green advertising offers a striking contradiction. With the basic philosophy of advertising essentially dirty and “brown,” and with the tenets of pure capitalism fundamentally opposed to a truly ecological society (Corbett 237), the term “green advertising” offers little more than an oxymoron. Though research on marketing trends indicate a decline in pandering …show more content…

Such ploys seek to undermine any legitimate eco-consciousness in the audience, replacing it with rhetoric that is ultimately ambivalent toward the health of ecosystems, but definitively pro-business. These tactics assume a rigidly anthropocentric point of view, shutting out any consideration for the well-being of non-human existence; they seem to suggest that nature lies subordinate to our base desires. In addition to upholding the subordination of nature to business and leisure activities, this view establishes nature as something privately owned and partitioned (243), rather than something intrinsic to the world. Our relationship with nature becomes one of narcissism. BP is not alone with its marketing practices. General Electric (GE), an American firm and among the largest in the company, frequently exploits the green image to push its own brand. While on the cutting edge of developing renewable energy technologies, GE pushes its business at the expense of natural dignity. The earth becomes a giant problematic marble, hurtling through space, according to GE’s advertising, and GE knows how to fix …show more content…

The power of “green” advertising lies in its sheer ubiquity and its particularly charismatic approach to manipulation. It feels good to support a cause, and who could possibly be (openly) against the environment? Because of its broad manipulation coefficient, “green” advertising--advertising that panders to our desire to make the planet clean again--is making a comeback. Innumerable advertisements still contain the sublime appeal of helping the planet. Green still

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