One of the most important demands of new generations is to have a world in which they can live. Therefore, they attach great importance to the protection of the environment. As a result, companies want to develop more environmentally friendly methods and announce these methods in order to respond more to these demands.
Mercedes-Benz, which is preparing to produce its own electric vehicles and stating that it will take steps to reduce carbon emissions to zero, has launched a campaign called Nature or Nothing for this purpose. The campaign was parodied by an institution that criticizes those who use the environmental concept as a sales tool.
Campaign’s target isn’t Mercedes, it’s advertisers
The German automaker is now in Germany accused of actually not doing enough to protect the environment and is going to court. Still, the sustainability platform Wherefrom and London-based agency 10 Days, which make the parody, are not targeting Mercedes, they are advertisers.
Arguing that environmentalism is seen as a popular word stack and a selling point for some of the advertisers, and that’s why the agencies that do “greenwashing” (creating an image as if they are an environmentalist even though they are not environmentalist) are also creating a job for companies, Wherefrom aims to draw attention to environmental problems through Mercedes’ campaign. .
Environmental regulations are being made all over the world. Any word used by advertisers just to attract attention can be very different in terms of laws and regulations. For example, in order to write “sustainable”, you need to meet certain standards. There are companies that have to pay fines and are sanctioned because of advertisements and promotional materials that do not comply with these standards.
These images, in which Mercedes-Benz’s advertisements are almost put into reverse gear, actually criticize this uncontrolled approach. The nature images chosen by Mercedes are replaced by images that are symbols of climate change, such as oil spills, forest fires, barren land and cracks in the glacier. Only the lightning symbol remains, but its meaning has also been changed.
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