Hill Heat

Join leading voices in the ad and PR industry, plus influencers, creators, and more in a night to remember the work agencies would rather forget. We’re handing out 10 awards to ads, campaigns, and agencies that promote the fossil fuel companies that are most responsible for the climate crisis.

Tune in to the show on March 2 to learn who is doing the dirty work, and how you can be a part of the solution for our industry.

• Rollie Williams, Host, Climate Town
• Tolmeia Gregory, Climate Justice Activist
• Bill McKibben, Author, Environmentalist, Activist
• Deb Morrison, U Oregon Professor of Advertising
• Colin Vernon, Co-founder & CIO, Slow Factory
• Max Moinian, Co-Founder, Future Earth Catalog
• Thania Peck, Sustainability Activist, * Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., President and Founder, Hip Hop Caucus
• Solitaire Townsend, Chief Solutionist, Futerra

In a letter to BP America CEO Lamar McKay, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) are demanding that BP disclose its “spending on corporate advertising and marketing relating to the the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and relief, recovery, and restoration efforts in the Gulf of Mexico.” Their request follows the efforts of Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) to get answers about BP’s massive greenwashing campaign, which includes months of full-page advertisements in national and regional newspapers, radio spots, television commercials, and Internet ads. Outside estimates of the scope of the greenwashing campaign managed by BP’s public relations firm Mediashare are in the tens of millions of dollars, the Washington Post’s Krissah Thompson reports:

After the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in April, BP went on the air with television ads and bought a series of full-page ads in The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and other papers to position itself as an imperfect but responsible corporation committed to the cleanup of the gulf. The company has spent $55.8 million on television and print advertising so far this year, according to the Nielsen Co., which tracks ad spending.

According to Media Monitors, BP’s radio spots surged to 10,684 last week, with a particular focus on Florida stations. Since mid-July, BP’s internet ads have been running on political blogs, including Talking Points Memo, the Common Sense Media network of liberal sites from FireDogLake to AmericaBlog, and a host of conservative sites, including Eagle Interactive’s network with RedState and the Salem Web Network’s Townhall.com and Hot Air.

BP seems to be working harder to protect its brand than to help the people of the Gulf Coast, argued Alabama Attorney General Troy King. He has filed suit against BP because “while BP is spending millions on print ads and airtime, it’s not spending what it should on claims.” Fortunately, BP’s control of the claims process will finally end Monday, with the launch of Kenneth Feinberg’s Gulf Coast Claims Facility.