Like financial services, advertising and marketing were at the forefront of the net-zero thrust, taking commitments to reduce emissions and demonstrate a desire to put pressure on the energy industry to be decarbonized. In addition, such as financial services, advertising and marketing companies are in return from Net Zero and wishing to obtain Big Oil affairs.
The Financial Times reported this week that advertisers were following the banker path in the reformulation of their messages of decarbonization on websites and rediscovering the energy industry as a customer – a well -paid customer. The essential explanation is, of course, President Trump and his rhetoric and his anti-net policies. However, it seems that a much greater reason for withdrawal is simply money. Like the banks before them, advertisers and marketing specialists discover that the energy industry earns money and that does not bother to pay generously for advertising.
The FT has cited the data of a climate campaign organization called Clean Creative showing that publicity and public relations agencies have stimulated the number of contracts with their energy industry customers in the past 12 months. The trend strongly suggests a development realization that the net-zero campaign is very good, but it does not really pay the bills. If it had been otherwise, the advertising industry – and the bankers – would have stopped doing business with Big Oil.
What really happened is that banks have started to withdraw from net-zero organizations. It is a fact that the Trump administration had a lot to do with it, just like the governments of the Republican States before Trump became president. The saga began in 2022, when Texas adopted legislation prohibiting state agencies from investing in one of the companies which, according to the government of the State, boycotted the petroleum and gas industry. The blacklist of these companies included many heavy goods vehicles of Wall Street wishing to obtain an element of the energy transition activity.
Other states have also criticized banks and asset managers for their new investment selection and have taken similar measures in Texas. Banks and asset managers rushed to defend themselves, even when they continued to emphasize their zero net commitments which inevitably implied a reduction and an exit from oil and gas. Only, it never got there.
“Reality is that for a while, fossil fuels will be with us,” said Barclays CEO in Bloomberg last year, even if the bank had pledged to completely suspend the financing of petroleum and gas projects, but only new ones. The financial industry, CS Venkatakrishnan, said at the time: “cannot make a cold turkey” on hydrocarbons.
The decline against what the banks have called sustainable investment have done a lot to change their point of view on the energy transition – and their fiduciary obligation, which is to earn money for their customers, not to force them to reduce their emissions. Now advertisers follow the same path for almost the same reasons. Banks have discovered that investments in the reduction of emissions, carbon credits and what transition supporters call climate technology do not pay as well as expected and, in fact, in some cases, it does not pay at all. Now advertisers discover that artificial intelligence is encroaching on their territory and that they need paid customers.
According to the FT – and Clean Creative Outlet report – the rediscovery of the advertising industry of the importance of earning money has led to a change in marketing messaging for the energy industry which, according to the report, is incompatible with zero net efforts. “Marketing expenses move towards making them appear [oil and gas] Inevitable and vital, ”said Duncan Meisel Executive Director.
It is a fact that zero net experts feel the idea that oil and gas are indeed inevitable and vital for modern human civilization. In fact, some of these experts recognize this, in particular those involved in electricity production. Each winter, the northern hemisphere remembers how the essential hydrocarbons are to fix the power and the heating once the wind goes out and the sun passes beyond its period of advanced power production.
In the end, however, it is survival. “Advertising is in difficulty – so all cases are taken into account,” an Industry initiate at the Financial Times told. AI is transformed into a substantial challenge for advertisers and marketing specialists, threatening to make industry useless. “The AI will make all the expertise in the world available to everyone at an extremely low cost,” said Mark, the former WPP chief earlier this year. “The best lawyer, the best psychologist, the best radiologist, the best accountant, and indeed, the best advertising creatives and marketing people will often be an AI, you know, will be motivated by AI.”
In response to this challenge, the advertising industry is, first of all, to find ways to use AI itself and, two, to obtain all the cases it can obtain to guarantee its survival in the longer term. It turns out that oil and gas majors have money, and companies such as Ørsted do not have money, because oil and gas are indeed inevitable and vital and will remain so until such an energy technology is developed which has all the advantages of hydrocarbons without any disadvantage.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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