One page 51 of the March 7th issue of The Economist, I noticed an unusual advertisement for Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defence contractor by revenue:
When you read the text at the bottom, the error in the ad is obvious. Somehow, the advertising firm they hired failed to include any actual Lockheed Martin products. It is all well and good to express your firm’s sincere support for reduced consumption and increased conservation, but it seems important to include some evidence of the concrete actions your firm takes.
With that in mind, I took it upon myself to add one of their quality products, the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile:
These are the missiles that make up the deterrent force of the United Kingdom, another entity sincerely committed to environmental protection. Lockheed also manufactures fighter jets, munitions, missile defence systems, and satellite-launching rockets.
I encourage others with a bit of Photoshop skill to add other Lockheed products to the ad. Here is my original photo. If someone could produce a higher-quality scan, that would be excellent.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Brilliant!
This is a good candidate for EcoBunk 2009:
http://www.torontoenvironment.org/ecobunk2008
Ten points, Milan.
That’s a confirmed kill.
Seriously, though. If we were to make a list of all the things society should cut back on for the sake of the environment, everything Lockheed manufactures would be on it.
Lockheed Martin’s slogan is ‘We never forget who we’re working for.’
… Death?
What a strange tag.
Their ‘how’ campaign has a flash-based website. They claim that they are “working toward eliminating the impact of [their] operations on the environment.”
Here is the campaign’s environment page.
In an indirect way, this ad could be good news.
The fact that even Lockheed Martin feels the need to pretend to be green is arguably evidence of the increased importance of environmental issues in the public sphere.
They have excellent PR skills, judging by this video. Too bad that the 40 million dollars they invested in ‘greening’ is siphoned from the growing monetary translation of the destruction of human life.
But, they aren’t working for *those* people.
(the environment page video that Milan linked to)
The fact that even Lockheed Martin feels the need to pretend to be green is arguably evidence of the increased importance of environmental issues in the public sphere.
Perhaps, though it also demonstrates that people are easy to fool. As long as it remains cheaper to trick people about your environmental record than to genuinely clean things up, the deceptive approach will be appealing to firms.
People working for companies like Lockheed must have long-standing mental justifications for what they do, probably based around some notion of ‘protecting the country’ by assembling delivery systems for nuclear weapons.
If you ever watch American cable news (CNN/MSNBC in particular) nonsensical “green” ads like this for industrial/gas titans, combined with ads for pharmaceuticals, make up 90% of every commercial break.
When I showed the Lockheed ad to some co-workers with the corporate logo covered, they all thought it was for an oil company.
Even stranger advertising from an arms company, this time Rafael Advanced Defense Systems:
Israeli Rafael’s Indian promo
The Bollywood style is odd, though the video does at least include a mock-up of a Rafael missile.
As an aside, Rafael and Lockheed are partners on the Protector unmanned surface vehicle (USV).
The mock-up seems to be of a ‘Spike’ anti-tank guided missile.
At Lockheed Martin, we contract with people for profit:
http://bit.ly/cHbmqV
At Lockheed Martin, we count people for profit:
http://bit.ly/feUPNE
At Lockheed Martin, we coerce people for profit:
http://bit.ly/gk1fUE
At Lockheed Martin, we control people for profit:
http://bit.ly/dQVdT9
At Lockheed Martin, we kill people for profit:
http://bit.ly/eABhOY
At Lockheed Martin, we never forget what we’re working for…
http://wp.me/p19dS3-5d