![]() ![]() Shell appears to have been the most prominent employer of influencer advertising over the last seven years. When influencers that people know and respect talk about something, they’re likely to believe them.” ‘We Needed Them to Think Differently About Shell’ “While there’s more knowledge in general around climate change and the harms of fossil fuels, I think that people have a lot of trust in creators. “There’s an endless supply” of greenwashing adverts on social media, environmental content creator Jacob Simon told DeSmog. Shell last year advertised for a new staff member to manage its TikTok campaigns, while oil and gas giant ExxonMobil has been the highest advertising spender on Facebook and Instagram in the last five years, shelling out $23.1 million since June 2018. In 2020, leaked internal documents from BP showed how the firm sought to “reach influencers” in order to become “more relatable, passionate, and authentic” and “win the trust of the younger generation” – admitting that the company is “seen as one of the bad guys”. This comes as major polluters are increasingly deploying digital tactics to detract from negative headlines about their record profits and decades-long contribution to climate change. One of the PR companies claimed that content fronted by UK inventor Colin Furze reached nearly a billion people, while another claimed that a campaign with explorer Robert Swan OBE made Shell’s audience “31 percent more likely to believe” that the oil company is “committed to cleaner fuels”. ![]() Our analysis uncovered promotional material from two PR firms representing Shell, boasting of the success of their online advertising. The campaigns have been deployed across a number of social media platforms and are part of a global effort to give “millennials a reason to connect emotionally” with oil and gas firms, and to tackle their perception as “the bad guys”.ĭeSmog analysed examples of more than 100 influencers being paid to promote fossil fuel firms worldwide since 2017, from the US to Malaysia, in campaigns that have reached billions of people. The influencers have included a popular former BBC presenter, a polar explorer, and an exasperated father of five who needs a break and finds it in the form of BP’s rewards app. Oil and gas supermajors including Shell and BP are using UK influencers to push false solutions to the climate crisis and manufacture a more family friendly image, DeSmog can reveal.
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