Chevron Ad Campaign 'We Agree'

Many people fail to notice that today’s advertisements are often deceitful and do whatever it takes to make us believe we need to buy the product being advertised. Based on this statement, one may wonder how advertisements can make us buy into their lies and what the effects of advertisements lying to people may have on society as a whole. In order to understand this concept and its implications, it is useful to analyze an example of an advertisement that tries to convince people to endorse in a brand by withholding the truth and committing fallacies in the process of doing so. The advertisement that will be discussed is part of a Chevron ad campaign titled “We Agree” that has come out in order to promote the company’s positive external affairs

The “We Agree” ad campaign originally came out in response to “current critiques of oil companies” (“Posts Tagged”). According to the Rainforest Action Network, these critiques include the recent lawsuit filed by the Ecuadorian government against Chevron for “dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic oil pollution in the Ecuadorian Amazon” (“Posts Tagged”). Though the actual polluting of the rainforest took place about 18 years ago, it gained publicity within the past two years; and with BP’s oil spill disaster headlining the news at the time, Chevron saw the opportunity to distract viewers from the environmental devastation the company committed in Ecuador (“Posts Tagged”) by launching its “We Agree” ad campaign. The ad specifically being analyzed in this paper distracts its audience from Chevron’s corrupt activities in Nigeria and Ecuador by discussing positive things that Chevron has done for some of the communities that it has been a part of. The ad specifically mentions how it has “provided microloans to thousands of entrepreneurs in Angola, funded polytechnic universities in Indonesia, and committed $55 million to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria” (Chevron). Yet, all these details are meant to distract consumers from the contentious issues that Chevron has been facing in recent years. These controversies include

For women, the image evokes a sense of happiness and an understanding in the bond that the women in the image share. Revisiting the image, one can see that the women appear laughing and smiling together almost looking as if they have just shared a funny story or some gossip with each other. This in turn makes the female viewers feel empathetic because they can relate to the women in the photo. Thus, because these women are more prone to want to support the prosperity of these women they are more inclined to do so by supporting Chevron. However, some women may have recognized this fallacy of appeal to emotion and in a sense an appeal to the bond that all women share. They would have questioned, “How is Chevron making these women come closer in their bond of womanhood? Or, are women in Africa really smiling and laughing as a result of Chevron?” The answers to these questions are simply that Chevron is more than likely not making these women smile or have a closer relationship. In fact, if anything, some women in Africa may even be furious with Chevron for causing civil unrest in Nigeria (Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada). Consequently, it is noticeable how Chevron’s lies can begin to unfold as people question Chevron’s integrity