BP spent more over £800,000 on social media influencer advertising in Great Britain is year that protect the company’s investments in green energy, it can be revealed.
Tuesday BP announced fourteen-year high profit of £7 billion for in second quarter of this is year. The company paid Facebook and Instagram about £570,000 over the previous eight days. for influencer announcements reaching dozens of millions of spectators in United Kingdom.
“These ads are designed to create a clean, warm glow about the companies. concerned by giving them more social license to operate,” said Doug Parr, head of scientist for Greenpeace UK.
Influence advertising that also highlight BP’s contribution to the UK’s energy security, two days after Labor proposed a contingency tax. on Oil and gas of the North Sea in January. BP expenses on these ads have increased in a few weeks before Rishi Sunak announced “collection on profit from energy” on May 26, Eco-Bot.Net and The Guardian investigation. found. “Supporting Britain: Delivering Homegrown Energy” was read by many of advertising in green script on the map of United Kingdom.
“Corporate interests used advertising for many years to improve their reputation. As for corporate taxes, reputation matters to politicians,” said Laura Edelson, researcher in online political communication at New York University.
Influencer advertising promotes BP’s plan to “transition to net zero” by gradually reducing oil and gas production and investing more in low carbon and renewable energy sources.
“BP positions itself as offering sustainable solutions that good for UK, but this investment is negligible how a lot of money they are heading into fossil fuels,” Parr said. “They do it by doing record profit and how millions of British households face fuel poverty.”
BP has of in more ambitious energy transition plans among large oil and gas companies, but the analysis of Oil Change International in May found that sector plans far from enough to limit global heating 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – goal outlined in Paris Agreement.
“The green investments they describe represent only a small part of of in current energy production and investment behavior,” said Gregory Trencher, who explores energy policy transitions to sustainable development at Kyoto University. “In that sense, advertising is misleading.”
“His like somebody who still in process of transition to a healthy diet, but who asks for praise ahead of time. This does not tell the reader that BP is continuing to open. up new oil and gas fields,” Trencher said. who describes advertising as “green laundering”.
representative for BP said: “The UK is a microcosm.” of our strategyand we are investing heavily here. Our advertising emphasizes the features, range and scale of what we plan to do here, including offshore wind, North Sea oil and gas, hydrogen and carbon capture, and electric vehicle charging.”
The shell that announced record profit last month, yes also paid meta, parent companies on Facebook and Instagram, run dozens of influence advertising. year who reached more than a million viewers in United Kingdom.
The ad promoted Shell investments. in renewable energy and electrical car charging stations, but were not listed by the company as being related to “social issues, elections and politics” – and as such fled without reservation about who paid for ad.
“Higher transparency for users, for example, who pays for it information in front of them, helps them put what they see in context,” Edelson said. who is also adviser Real Facebook Supervisory Boardself-proclaimed activist group who controls Facebook board on account.
Information on costs and coverage is only disclosed on Meta Ads Library for social issue and political advertising, and only this advertising remain visible in library after they run out.
Investigated Shell ads were eventually taken down down by meta for breaking company policy but investigation found dozens more similar ads were shown without a disclaimer for more than a month apparently undetectable by the Meta moderation process.
A Shell spokesman said: “Shell is committed to for clarity, transparency and trust in all of our communications. Denial of responsibility policy which applies on Meta ads are something that Shell fully supports.
“Initial investigations show that the disclaimer was, in error does not apply to some recent shell content and we are investigating this with our media buying agency. We have also instructed them to take immediate corrective action.”
A spokesperson for Meta said: “We require all advertisers to advertise about social issues, including on environmental topics, to include “paid for Denial of responsibility. Our enforcement is not perfect, but we are always working to strengthen and improve our processes.”
Eco-Bot.Net cleans up databases of social media advertising is paid for some of the world’s most polluting companies. The ads are then analyzed by journalists and researchers.
Meta offers to place ads in front of in eyes of specific “custom audiences” based on on detailed profiles of users they build up. The audience is segmented by age, gender, geographical location, income and many other types of personal data in a practice It’s called microtargeting.
Analysis found that the majority of BP’s UK advertisement is year reached viewers between the ages of 25 and 44, but more granular analysis of there was no targeting practice possible based on on data available in Meta Ads Library.
Shell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
