The Big Oil Origins of the Term ‘Carbon Footprint’
British Petroleum created a ridiculously effective marketing campaign to obfuscate and deflect blame onto individuals
These days, like the legendary Seth Godin, I see just about everything through the lens of marketing. From electoral campaigns to political movements, from Pumpkin Spice lattes’ twelve years without any real pumpkin to guru entrepreneurs like SBF, Elizabeth Holmes, or Bill freaking Gates claiming they’ll save the world, and from NFL Armed Forces Weeks to bringing ‘democracy’ by droning schools, the United States of America is too damn good at marketing.
The obvious other word that could be used is propaganda, and there is an interesting history of the public relations and communications fields euphemizing that ‘p-word.’
Today, it is generally agreed that companies run marketing campaigns and (foreign) governments run propaganda influence operations.
But, with its ‘innovative spirit,’ the US is by far the best in both.
As the former CIA director Bill Casey famously said, “We’ll know our information operation is successful when everything the American people believe is false.” Mission accomplished, Bill.
