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Bank to “Eco-Terrorists”: Don’t worry, we’ll take your money, too!

Nov 26th, 2008 by Will Potter

We’ve seen Adidas endorsing “eco-terrorism” in their ads. Now HSBC, one of the largest banks in the world, has an ad that’s an epic terrorist love story complete with tree sitters, folk music, and happy, apolitical ending.

Here’s the summary: Cops are attacking environmental activists, pulling them from tree sits, using pain compliance holds, carting them off to jail (as “terrorists” I’m sure). As one activist is being hauled off, she sees her husband/boyfriend is one of the loggers. He bails her out of jail, she’s pissed, but she puts her arms around him on the way home. Awww. The message from HSBC? “We recognize how people value things differently. So what we learn from one customer helps us better serve another.”

Blargh. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

You know what really disturbs me about this? It’s not even that corporations are trying to capitalize off of social movements (I don’t think this is nearly as offensive as Nike’s blatant rip-off of Minor Threat). What really disturbs me is that the big message here is: Politics don’t matter.

Well, you know what, HSBC, political beliefs DO matter. They matter a lot. They matter more than your interest rates and profit margins and advertising campaigns.

There’s good and bad, right and wrong, and I’m so sick of people acting like “to each his own.” As Howard Zinn says, “You can’t stay neutral on a moving train.” The train has left the station, folks. And I hope I don’t sound too curmudgeonly and grumpy and jaded in saying this, but there ain’t going to be hugs at the end of the ride.

I can almost see the FBI putting out its own little YouTube propaganda. They could cast Anna the provocateur. It would show her working undercover for the FBI, poking and prodding environmental activists to commit crimes, and then when lives are ruined and people are sitting in prison, there can be a sweet hug at the end and the FBI logo. See? We can all get along. Right? Right?

Blargh. There I go again.

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Posted in Media, Opposition

  • Nice to know other people are hating these ads as much as I.

    It's smart marketing, I must say, like Manhattan Mini Storage's sortof-but-not-too political ads, except that Manhattan Mini Storage is a) not an International Bank and b) actually doing some good for carriage horses in NYC.

    Smart marketing is going to happen, and logging and demos and "eco-terrorism" are enough in the news that they are going to be used. What matters, then, is how we absorb the information. I do pay attention to the ads because they're smarter and more interesting than the usual ones, but know that all it means is that HSBC had enough $ and smarts to hire someone plugged into this vernacular. It doesn't make them better or worse than any other huge bank. Just a little appealing and familiar and a little repulsive.
  • ashley
    UGGGGGH i just threw up in my mouth after watching that. i would seriously love to know the relevance of that ad and international banking, at least on the surface. of course under the surface this is just propaganda against people who care about the environment enough to do something that doesnt involve buying the latest green thing about it...
  • Harry
    I'll remove everything wood from your wife...

    But in all seriousness, your wife is hott!

    No really, just because we're coerced by our culture to use certain products doesn't mean their production is ethical, and doesn't mean we should be okay with how they're produced no matter how destructive. What an incredibly stupid premise for you to operate under!
  • Joe
    Harry..If that is how you feel then I suggest you remove everything wood from your life.
  • Harry
    Joe said:

    "There is nothing wrong with logging! Loggers provide the wood for the house you live in, the desk you write at and the pencil you use."

    Just like there is nothing wrong with rape...It feels good, it kills time, and it burns calories!
  • Harry
    "Of course there is nothing wrong with “legal” logging."

    Yeah, because legal logging never decimated a forest, dumped silt into creeks and rivers, killed owls and murrelets and salmon, or poisoned a watershed with herbicides!
  • "That a bank will go so far as to poke its nose in matters which it knows nothing about (i.e. social justice movements and their various tactics), and then have the audacity to interpret those matters and transform into sensationalistic images, is appalling."

    Great way of saying it. This didn't surprise me, but it just got under my skin to see an international bank interpret and then transform a scene like this to sell sell sell.
  • Joe: Of course there is nothing wrong with "legal" logging. It's illegal logging of old growth forest, logging prior to a decisions being made and then claiming 'it was an honest mistake', and using money and influence to force decisions to the detriment of the majority, in favor of short term monetary benefit for the few, that we are concerned about.
  • lantz.
    Thanks to my mostly useless degree in film, I can sort of assume the production of this bullshit propaganda video cost a LOT of money. It looks like they shot it on high definition, maybe even on 16MM or 35MM film, which is less likely but entirely possible. The video will be far cheaper than the film, but still costs a lot. You have to pay your cast and crew, secure locations, have craft services, pay for transfer, dubbing, etc etc etc.

    I watched it without the sound because the computer I'm on doesn't have a sound card. And it was still infuriating. Capitalism is such a dirty, dirty thing. That a bank will go so far as to poke its nose in matters which it knows nothing about (i.e. social justice movements and their various tactics), and then have the audacity to interpret those matters and transform into sensationalistic images, is appalling. But it's also to be expected.

    Banks - ALL BANKS - are tools of The State. Abolish banks, and capitalism doesn't have much of a leg to stand on. Abolish government, and the monster comes crumbling down. But don't expect the corporate media to paint activists in any sort of positive light, regardless of their cause. It just illustrates that we need to fight harder, and stronger.

    By the way, Joe, what's your badge number?

    - lantz.
  • d
    this is deeply disturbing for folks who have been in situations such as this and have been threatened by police with pain compliance holds. it's emotionally triggering. i'm appalled. feeling so strongly towards the state of the earth to the point of being a direct actor in civil disobedience is an intense thing to go through and for a bank to capitalize on it and water down the image is sick.
  • Eileen: OOH! A musical! This keeps getting better...
  • Jersey Fresh
    HOW DARE they drag Joanna Newsom into this... peachplumpearkumquatgrapefruitzepote.
  • Joe
    There is nothing wrong with logging! Loggers provide the wood for the house you live in, the desk you write at and the pencil you use.
  • Eileen
    Maybe the movie (or stage musical?) could end with the fictitious "Anna" having changed sides.
  • Matthew--It airs on all the football games? I don't know how I missed it. Oh wait, yeah I do.

    That being said, I'm down for Hate Bowl. And after its passage, I will rename it SCOREBOARD Bowl, or maybe just Scoreboard, cause really, that's all Longhorns ever have to say.

    Burn.
  • Justin
    Joanna Newsom loves global capital.
  • matthew
    The Joanna Newsom song is great, though. I listen to that song on repeat over and over and over again, and as much as I dislike a bank getting a hold of it, I'm happy to hear it every time it comes on the radio.

    And com'on Will - this ad has been out for 6 months. It airs on every damn football I watch. You should be watching more of those UT games.

    Oh, and speaking of that, if somehow USC and Texas get matched up in a bowl game this year, I'm having a HATE BOWL party at my place and everyone is invited (and I will hate every one of my Longhorn friends).
  • Lindsay
    HSBC also has these ads all over the subways in new york, 3 pictures of a windmill, one says "nature", one says "future", and the other says "eyesore", and the line is the same about how different values make the world a better place. seriously disgusting - but at least it's been nice to see angry graffiti all over a lot of the "eyesore" ones.
  • B
    This is appalling! First off, the scenario is just ridiculuos, as if they wouldn't know what the other is up to. Your howard zinn quote is so right, you can't be neutral on a moving train. It seems like HSBC was trying to appeal to wide variety of audiences, but hopefully they just ticked ppl off.... Keep us posted for when the undercover Anna video comes out....
  • Thanks, Sammich! Interesting what else the production company has put out... they're kind of all over the map.
  • Will Sandwich
    Here's all the info on that ad. I would have sworn Weiden+Kennedy had something to do with it, but no.

    http://www.splendad.com/ads/show/2624-HSBC-Lumb...
  • Maybe she saw him leaving every morning with that chainsaw and thought... "Oh, he must be a mass murderer. Zombie killer. Mad Max apocalyptic hero. Anything but a LOGGER!"
  • I'm also bothered by a woman not knowing what her husband/boyfriend does for a living. Clearly he's lied to her, and she shouldn't be so willing to forgive him. It calls into question her belief in her cause, as well as her own self-esteem.
  • DogStuff: Absolutely, I think that's an important point to remember. It's interesting to think of this ad in light of that... an attempt to co-opt and neutralize a true threat to profits ("eco-terrorists").
  • Well, you know what, HSBC, political beliefs DO matter. They matter a lot. They matter more than your interest rates and profit margins and advertising campaigns.
    I agree 100% - but HSBC is a bank - they'll never understand anything deeper than profit/loss; and that ultimately will be their loss.
  • Hey Jonathan,
    Not sure how much they spent on that ad (if anyone has a good ad industry site to check, that would be interesting to know...) but I did see this about HSBC making the biggest single-issue advertising buy in magazine history.

    Also, they sent a cease and desist order to the Yes Men for the spoof New York Times edition they published (please check it out if you haven't!), in which they twisted one of these idiotic ads around.
  • *barf* this makes me die a little on the inside. What market exactly are they trying to reach? The blue collar/protester niche? I wonder how much money the spent on the ad? and how many acres of forest the could legally protect from logging with that money? any ideas?
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