Last week HSBC became the latest brand to have its ads banned for greenwashing by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

Advertising has an important role to play in influencing consumer behaviour and brands are increasingly keen to show off their sustainability credentials, but as we’ve seen over the past year, there’s plenty of scope for error.

The ads in question gave the misleading impression that HSBC has an overall positive effect on the environment, by highlighting green initiatives like tree planting, without acknowledging its financing of fossil fuel projects. 

‘In the war against corporate guff, the ASA’s ruling is a rare victory,’ wrote Henry Mance for the Financial Times. ‘It should mean that companies can no longer cherry-pick random actions as if they were citations for the Nobel peace prize.’

And it’s not just enabling banks and fuel-guzzling airlines falling foul of the watchdog. In January, alt-milk brand Oatly was banned for ambiguous and unsubstantiated statements about the lower environmental impact of its products, and a poster for Lipton Ice Tea was jettisoned for a confusing ‘100% recycled’ claim.

The following month, drinks brand Innocent was ruled to have mislead consumers by exaggerating the environmental benefit of its products, and more recently, Unilever-owned Persil was penalised for failing to substantiate its ‘kinder to our planet’ claim.

‘We’re signalling that we intend to go further, to crack down on misleading and socially irresponsible environmental advertising,’ said the ASA in a statement in September 2021.

While the watchdog won’t be able to erase greenwashing completely (sponsorship, for example, isn't held to the same standards as advertising), its clampdown on disingenuous drivel is something we can get behind.

Campaign of the Week /

Dismembered Moments

Liquid Death is selling gruesome-looking candles in partnership with businesswoman, TV personality and former federal prison inmate Martha Stewart.

The brand is selling candles that look like severed hands holding one of its cans of water for $58 through Stewart’s website, and it is promoting its macabre product with a social media film in which the homemaking entrepreneur merrily mutilates her fans.

In 2021 Liquid Death’s CEO Mike Cessario told us, ‘Why would you want to follow a f**king water brand that just posts photos of their bottles all day? If we create actual entertainment and not try to just sell, sell, sell, it will naturally create that fandom for Liquid Death that you can’t even buy with money.’

This Martha Stewart partnership feels very much like an extension of that philosophy. Watch the film and read our full analysis here. Contagious.

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Young and free…to change their ad message

Researchers used advertising and market data from the minivan sector in the US to figure out whether young and old brands have to play by different rules when it comes to advertising.

They looked at how the brands changed their ad messages and ad styles over a 14-year period and measured how this affected sales.

The results showed that when young brands switched their advertising messages to cater to customer preferences, sales increased. But when old brands did the same, it could actually hurt sales. Conversely, while young brands didn’t appear to benefit much from varying their ad executions, older brands did. Contagious.

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Apple wants its cut

Media strategist Eric Seufert provided the best analysis of the effect of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency framework on Facebook’s advertising business when he described it as ‘robbing the mob’s bank’.

Seufert’s point was that Apple’s privacy play was really about hobbling a competitor, but no one cared because the competitor was Facebook. And Apple seems to have taken to heart the lesson that it can be as ruthless as it likes, as long as it hits the right targets. New App Store guidelines published on Monday reveal that Apple counts sales of social media boosts as in-app purchases, meaning that it is entitled to 30% of that revenue.

The relevant clause states that while purpose-built advertising management apps are exempt, ‘digital purchases for content that is experienced or consumed in an app, including buying advertisements to display in the same app (such as sales of “boosts” for posts in a social media app) must use in-app purchase.’

But if the apps affected by this policy pass on the loss of revenue, then it will most likely affect the long tail of independent businesses that ply their trade on social media. MacRumors.

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Most Contagious UK and USA

Most Contagious is coming to London on 24 November – and then it’s coming to New York on 26 January.

Join us at either one of these events to learn about the most influential advertising campaigns and trends of the year through a series of insight-packed talks. You’ll leave feeling inspired and equipped to produce world-class creative ideas of your own.

For more information about Most Contagious USA and our limited-time trust-pass deal, click here.

To learn more about who’s speaking at Most Contagious London and secure your place at the best price, click here. Contagious.

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Uber's ad play

Uber has become the latest company to attempt to capture some of those sweet ad-business margins. Last week the taxi and delivery app launched a new advertising division that it hopes will gross more than $1bn every year by 2024.

Uber already hosted some advertising, on top of its taxis and within its Uber Eats app. But it is introducing more ad formats, including on the main Uber app and in emails to its users. It is also running a pilot scheme in a couple of US cities in which it is displaying adverts on screens that face customers sitting in the back seats of its taxis. Uber.