

Elaborate fake Chevron PR campaign created by subversive ad group - rantfoil
http://tedfellows.posterous.com/chevron-spoofed-in-a-fantastic-hoax-by-the-br

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marze
Pretty quick, they seem to have put the whole stunt together in a single day,
if the real Chevron campaign was launched on the 18th.

From the fake press release:

"We were asked to show an agreeable, involved, of-the-people face for Chevron,
and we think we came up with some really great ways of doing that," said
Gordon Bowen, Chief Creative Officer of McGarryBowen. "But what’s unique and
different here is the honesty. We've never been able to do this before."

I've watched the Yes Men movie premier at Sundance Film Festival, it was
incredibly funny. I think it is out on DVD now.

If you look at the real ads, you can see they are crying out to be spoofed:

<http://www.chevron.com/about/advertising/>

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tomjen3
They were the same people who went on BBC, posing as spokes people for Union
Carbide and promising that they would finally pay a decent amount of money to
the people who where hurt by the Bopahl disaster.

It might seem like a nice stunt, but it hurt a lot of people who where hoping
that they would finally be given some help and Union Carbide didn't really
care.

~~~
jbronn
The stunt also created publicity and attracted press to an issue that
otherwise wouldn't have existed. Would you prefer the Bhopal victims suffer in
silence?

~~~
tomjen3
Since it didn't help them, and they suffered more because of it, yes I would.

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archangel_one
They talked to some of the Bhopal victims in the Yes Men movie and they seemed
to be happy about it, even knowing it was a spoof, because there was at least
a little hope that it would draw some attention to their plight.

Obviously there might be a selection bias in the people they interviewed or
the interviews they put into the final film.

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michaelchisari
I've been following the antics of the Yes Men for a long time now, and I've
always been stunned at the kind of moxie it takes to get away with the things
they've pulled. I've really appreciated not only their message, but just the
sheer bravado it takes to go to a conference posing as a WTO spokesman and,
with a straight face worthy of an oscar, proposing to the audience things like
an economic marketplace where shares in human rights abuses are traded.

 _Appearing in newly purchased suits, the Yes Men gave speeches encouraging
corporations to buy votes directly from citizens. They argued that the US
Civil War was a waste of money because Third World countries now willingly
supply equivalent slaves. They also urged people to listen to the WTO instead
of the facts. They then unveiled a gold spandex body suit that they claimed
would allow productivity to increase, as managers would not have to oversee
workers in person but could keep track of them via images on an attached
screen as well as implanted sensors._ \- Wikipedia

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jackolas
Their website seems down but if it comes back up soon, consider helping them
out in their Yes Labs <http://theyesmen.org/lab> .

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lionhearted
The parody ad is interesting, but spoofing emails from real people seems to
cross a line from novel protest to nasty malicious behavior.

~~~
sp332
Spoofing emails? How about pranking a BBC interviewer?
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiWlvBro9eI> or impersonating the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce?
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/oct/19/chamb...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/oct/19/chamber-
commerce-climate-hoax)

