PR firms can't stay silent on climate criticism
If fossil fuel boycotts aren’t the PR industry’s best answer to climate change, what is?
A spoof Edelman wellness app called Oilwell is the latest attempt by climate campaigners to shame a major marketing services company into making different choices. It’s one of the funnier ones, too, using the tropes of employee wellbeing (smog breathing exercises, drought meditations, and more) to skewer the world’s largest PR agency’s willingness to work with fossil fuel companies.
I’m not going to argue the pros and cons of agencies boycotting fossil fuel clients here, although for full disclosure, my most recent employer is owned by Edelman’s holding company, and I lean towards respecting agencies’ autonomy in deciding who they work for.
What’s more interesting, I think, is why agencies – comprising the cream of the world’s communications professionals – struggle so hard to address this kind of criticism. And how they could be doing things more effectively.
