Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Annals of advertising: Who knew ExxonMobil had a great sense of humor?
So, the New York Times is apparently in such dire financial straits that it has sold precious front page real estate to... ExxonMobil. And not just for benign corporate image stuff, but to promote the eco-strengths, such as they are, of the car culture ("Today's car has 95% fewer emissions than a car from 1970," as if that were somehow relevant). Behold:
Goddamn, that's funny. If you listen carefully, you can hear them laughing down in Houston.
8 Comments:
By 
Viking Kaj, at
Tue Jun 16, 07:52:00 AM:
Hey, didn't their slogan used to be "Put a Tiger in your tank!" ?
We assume that any connection to this blog is pure serendipity. But maybe we need a picture of that tiger...
By Viking Kaj, at
Tue Jun 16, 07:58:00 AM:
PS. I'll bet the guy who approved the ad has a '67 Camaro in his garage.
By 
, at
Tue Jun 16, 08:12:00 AM:
At least the Times still has some standards. They only sold below the fold.
By , at
Tue Jun 16, 08:51:00 AM:
XOM World HQ is in Irving (Dallas) TX.
By , at
Tue Jun 16, 11:43:00 AM:
I can't resist pointing out that XOM is HQ'ed in a state with reasonable taxes, ie not New Jersey (Exxon) or New York (Mobil), or especially my native Ohio (Standard Oil Trust). High taxes drives jobs away, and I'm addressing all you spendthrift politicians of all parties, and raising taxes in all states will simply drive these jobs to other countries!
Eventually, even the NYT will understand that they are looking not just to a hated industry and company for advertising revenue, but also to a healthy survivor of the high tax purge of jobs the paper has encouraged and even demanded. Soon, the paper itself will no longer exist, a victim of the economy they helped to create.
By , at
Tue Jun 16, 06:05:00 PM:
("Today's car has 95% fewer emissions than a car from 1970," as if that were somehow relevant)
It's very relevant as a counterpoint to the "cars are destroying the world" BS.
Btw, why doesn't this blog accept blockquote tags?
By Georg Felis, at
Tue Jun 16, 10:16:00 PM:
A restrained and polite "USA Today" type ad. Very nice. If they wanted to be mean, they would have just bought the Times out of the loose change in their ash tray and "Right-sized" it.
By , at
Wed Jun 17, 03:00:00 PM:
New Jersey has a vested interest in Exxon Mobil. XOM had a refinery in South Jersey. They still have a research lab in Princeton. The refinery was sold in the '90's. Since XOM was the largest employer in Gloucester County, there remain a tremendous number of XOM retirees and former employees.
The reduction in emissions is from the use of catalytic converters and the cleaner gasoline produced with the technology developed at XOM's labs.
