September’s anti-airline ad campaign

In September, climate change activists took over billboards in 15 European cities.

Their target? Europe’s airlines. Their aim? To draw attention to what they see as aviation’s growing share of carbon emissions, and to continue pushing the narrative, started by the ‘flight shaming’ movement, that flying is selfish and a social ill.

As far as they are concerned, airlines are now part of the wider fossil fuel industry just like oil giants such as Shell, BP or Exxon-Mobil. And so using the hashtag #BanFossilAds, they also called for all fossil fuel company advertising to be treated like tobacco advertising.

In addition, they wanted to ‘shame’ advertising agencies with aviation clients.

According to Tona Merriman from Brandalism: “The allure and glamour of high carbon lifestyles such as frequent flying has been purposefully crafted by the advertising industry and shows no signs of relenting – despite one of the hottest summers on record.

“Advertising agencies such as Ogilvy, VCCP, Dentsu, DDB Munchen need to consider their role in driving up emissions for airlines they work for such as British Airways, Easyjet, KLM and Lufthansa. We call on employees in those firms to refuse work for high carbon clients.”

Here are a few examples of their work:

“Fly responsibly towards a more responsible future” , read this bus stop ad in Nantes, France, with a picture of a plane circling over a burning planet. The slogan made reference to KLM’s ‘ Fly Responsibly ’ campaign.

This poster in London was done in the style of a British Airways ad with the headline, “We’re turning business class green with the world’s first on-board golf course.”

The ad referenced the fact that business class is responsible for a higher per passenger share of emissions than economy.

It then made a joke at BA’s expense in talking about each on-board golf course coming with a “biodegradable golf ball.”

Meanwhile an anti-Lufthansa ad called out LH’s advertising agency DDB, and turned Lufthansa’s marketing slogan, #SayYesToTheWorld into #SayYesToTheEndOfTheWorld.

The ad also seemed to reference Lufthansa’s carbon offsetting scheme, Compensaid, with the tagline “we distract you with pictures of trees while we fry the planet.”

Other airlines targeted included Air France, easyJet, ITA Airways, and Ryanair, while there were also billboards objecting to proposed airport expansion in Liege (Belgium) and Bristol (UK).

What do these campaigns tell us?

Reputationally, campaigners perceive there to be little difference between oil giants and airlines

As they see it, it is all part of the wider fossil fuel industry contributing to global warming

Direct action of the kind oil companies have been subjected to for a few years now, will increasingly be targeted towards the aviation industry

Climate change activists simply don’t believe that the aviation industry is serious in wanting to decarbonise, and in fact don’t even think there’s a viable route to doing so, other than stopping people from flying. This is an important point, and one we will come back to.