That’s pretty much the only way I can describe the 2:30 Chevron commercial that premiered tonight on 60 Minutes. Click on the story and you can watch the spot.
Ad Age has more of a breakdown:
The commercial shows a montage filmed in 13 countries, as a voiceover from Campbell Scott (son of actor George C. Scott) tells the audience about the debate over oil, energy and the environment. “It is the story of our time and it is definitive and it’s all encompassing. . . . Make no mistake. It isn’t just about oil companies. This is about you and me and the undeniable truth that at this moment there are 6.5 billion people on this planet, and by year’s end, there will be another 3 million more and every one of us will need energy to live. Where will it come from?”
The commercial continues, showing snippets of Chevron’s 58,000 “citizens of the world,” whom Mr. Scott explains are “husbands and wives and part-time poets” and ultimately “the greatest source of energy in the world.”
Wow. Is this spot made for Wall Street? Because I can’t imagine what type of people this kind of spot works on. Chevron’s in the oil business and they’re not in a rush to get out of it. That’s fine. I dropped $45 on gas at the Chevron around the corner from my house yesterday, and it’s not like I find these guys any better or worse than other oil companies. So why do they need campaigns like this to, uh, make a big stink about themselves? Over at the Huffington Post, Jamie Court provides a bit of a counterpoint:
Chevron tries to present itself not as profit-driven oil machine but a human organization striving to save our planet. Obscured, of course, are little facts like the company’s war against California’s pioneering alternative energy development fund (Prop 87), its refusal to cleanup the oily mess its made in the Amazon, and its refusal to take pragmatic steps to deploy ethanol at its service stations. Let alone the corporation’s well-documented supply manipulation to drive up gasoline prices on us other human beings.
I wonder how much fossil fuel was burned by the creative team responsible for this as they criss-crossed the globe filming this masturbatory corporate brand-polishing monstrosity. And, perhaps they filmed in Burma.