Flower Power No Match for Regulatory Power

Britain's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has trash canned an from Royal Dutch Shell that portrays the outline of an oil refinery with flowers sprouting from its chimneys. According to the authority, the ads may mislead consumers. The ad, pictured above, was headlined "Don't Throw Anything Away. There is No Away." It showed the outline of an oil refinery, which had chimneys producing flowers. Part of the ad read: "We use our waste CO2 to grow flowers, and our waste sulfur to make super-strong concrete. Real energy solutions for the real world."

Groups such as Friends of the Earth filed the U.K. complaint against the ad. The complaint alleged the ads implied that Shell used all of its waste CO2, or carbon dioxide, to grow flowers, whereas the group believed only 0.325 percent of Shell's emissions were used to grow flowers, and the waste sulfur claim implied all Shell's waste sulfur was used to make concrete.

"In the absence of qualification, most readers were likely to interpret the claim 'We use our waste CO2 to grow flowers,' especially in the context of the image and the headline claim 'Don't throw anything away there is no away,' to mean that Shell used all, or at least the majority, of their waste CO2 to grow flowers, whereas the actual amount was a very small proportion, when compared to the global activities of Shell," the ruling said.

Regarding the waste sulfur claim, the authority said "readers were likely to interpret the claim 'We use ... our waste sulfur to make super-strong concrete' to mean that Shell used all, or at least the majority, of their waste sulfur to make super-strong concrete."

Wow, what would the ASA do with some of our country's infomercials? You can read the full story about the flower power signs here. You can find the Wikipedia article on the ASA here.