Mazda Is the Mazda Lorax ad good?

The Mazda CX- 5 SUV was advertised in 2012 with a tie-in to the Lorax movie. The advertisement promotes the SUV using Lorax themes. The Lorax is a Dr. Seuss book that is based around the concept of corporate greed creating environmental degradation, and the book has a strong environmentalist message. The ad seeks to improve the environmental perception of Mazda, loosely promoting the company's Skyactiv technology. This technology is not really explained other than it seeks to improve fuel efficiency without sacrificing performance. The CX -- 5/Lorax ad is not good, because it represents the concept of greenwashing. The cartoon Lorax character and its themes are used to present this vehicle as environmentally friendly, which is deceptive.

Greenwashing refers to the use of marketing techniques into to mislead customers into thinking that certain products or their production processes are environmentally friendly. Typically, greenwashing programs are produced by companies with large marketing budgets who want to improve their environmental perception. These efforts differ from promotion of one's environmental credentials in that greenwashing efforts typically do not provide evidence to support their claims. Greenwashing campaigns sometimes also broadly define their claims so as to be misleading for customers, and in some cases greenwashing campaigns simply provide false information about the products. Another strategy used by greenwashing companies is to make environmental claims that, although truthful, are not important for customers interested in environmentally friendly products. Other truthful claims are only used by companies in order to distract customers' attention from more important effects produced on the environment. False environmental claims are another important greenwashing issue that must be analyzed.

The claims contained in this advertisement include several of the above, but this ad goes further into the realm of greenwashing, not only crossing an ethical line but completely destroying...

The Lorax story is fairly well-known as it has been a popular children's book for over forty years; most of Mazda's target market will be familiar with its themes. By aligning Mazda with the Lorax, the implicit connection there is that Mazda is environmentally friendly. The company's government relations officer, Dan Ryan, has stated that "That's the kind of car we think the Lorax would like to drive" (Godelnik, 2012). In the psychology of persuasion, this technique means the company is connecting its products with an authority in some field in order to benefit and sell these products. In this case, the authority is The Lorax character, which has its lots of fans that would follow its preferences.
The problem of course is that the Lorax is a cartoon character, with no authority, and message portrayed by the cartoon character can be manipulated to suit any message. Moreover, the advertisement repeatedly trumpets an award that this vehicle has won for its environmental credentials. This award, the Truffula Tree Award, is entirely fictional. It is a plant in the Lorax book. There is no such thing as the Truffula Tree Award, and worse yet while people might clearly know that the Lorax does not exist, they might not know that this award is false. They might not understand that the truffula tree is a fictional tree, or they might think that somebody named their award after the tree in real life, because of the environmental connotations of the Lorax story. Ultimately, Mazda is seeking to pump up its green credentials using endorsement from a cartoon character and a non-existent award.

In that, Mazda's advertisement reflects an especially insidious form of greenwashing. Not only does this ad promote that idea that driving an SUV is good for the environment, but it promotes the broader idea that this kind of consumption is acceptable within the standards of sustainability. The entire message, however, is entirely unsubstantiated by either facts or by any credible testimony.

While some people might not see harm in a car…