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Articles : MediaSpin of the Week
The video “Al Gore’s Penguin Army,” which belittles the threat of global warming (suggesting viewers “stop exhaling”) and makes fun of the former vice-president, has a “home-made, humorous quality.” Yet the filmmaker’s email links him to ““DCI Group”:http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DCI_Group, a Washington, D.C., public relations and lobbying firm whose clients include oil company Exxon Mobil,” reports the Wall Street Journal. Ads promoting the penguin video appeared to people searching for “Al Gore” or “Global Warming” on the Google search engine, but these ads “were removed shortly after The Wall Street Journal contacted DCI.” DCI’s Tech Central Station website has also “sought to raise doubts about the science of global warming and about Mr. Gore’s film.” The firm “declines to say whether or not DCI made the anti-Gore penguin video,” but an Exxon spokesperson said they “did not fund” and “did not approve it.” What is certain is that “political operatives, public relations experts and ad agencies” are increasingly using video-sharing websites like YouTube to shape public opinion. Ogilvy & Mather “plans to post amateur-looking videos on Web sites to spare word-of-mouth buzz about Foster’s beer,” and AT&T has used YouTube to post videos against net neutrality
Source: Wall Street Journal (sub req’d), August 3, 2006
Posted by anthony
Anthony Lappé is GNN's Executive Editor. He's written for The New York Times, Details, New York, Paper, The Fader and Vice, among many others. He has worked as a producer for MTV and Fuse. He is the co-author of GNN's True Lies and the producer of their Iraq doc,...
related items:
Stephen Marshall’s attack on Gore
Shifty’s look at the film’s footprint
more from marshall’s article minus some tasty debate
Is it funny?
Meh, slightly. But this one is way better. To be honest, if the first one is indeed a PR stunt by the DCI Group, then it is poor. If they’re going to attack him, then attacking him in this fashion will only stoke Gore’s fire. Erm, non-carbon-emitting fire!
that stuff is pretty creepy. In the movie The Corporation one PR firm talks about immersive advertising, where people on the street are paid to talk about a product so casual walkers by hear about it. The door man hold boxes from a certain company as an advertisement, and people wear the clothing, creating a reality dominated by a single product or company name.
4 out of 5 doctor’s recommend lucky strike was more than just tv. i think these guys actually bribed doctors.
imagine going into the doctor with a hack and he recommends you change to the “smoother drawing” blend of luckies; easier on the throat…
Shit, we could say this video is also anti-linux since they use the Tux.
Anyway, even for an amateur video the quality is bad…
In the movie The Corporation one PR firm talks about immersive advertising, where people on the street are paid to talk about a product
Yeah I saw that movie. Plus I remember 1 or 2 years ago nokia started a similar system to promote their craptastic gaming phone the ngage.
They would pay college guy to play the ngage around the campus and talk about the gadget with their fellow students.
The phone failed miserably. Nokia should now that gamers may be weird, ugly and even potential school shooters, but dumb-ass consumerism bastards? Hell no!
Ahh, The Corporation
Great doc.
“Shit, we could say this video is also anti-linux since they use the Tux.”- HyperT
teheheha