Language & Ecology vol.3 no.1 (2009)
IT’S (NOT) EASY BEING GREEN: Unpacking visual rhetoric and environmental
claims in car, energy and utility advertisements in the UK (2007-08)1.
Susan HOGBEN
Division of English
University of Glamorgan
Pontypridd
CF37 1DL
Wales
[email protected]
1. THE ENVIRONMENT AS REPUTATIONAL CAPITAL
Corporate image, brand confidence and reputation are increasingly dependent on evidence of a
commitment to the growing political and public interest in social and environmental responsibility
(Livesey and Kearins 2002). It seems that corporations typically considered responsible for
detrimental or dubious environmental effects can especially benefit from associating themselves
with pro-environmental activities in, say, their production processes, the impact and disposal of
their products or through sponsorship of social and environmental organisations (Fombrun and
Rindova 2000; Beder 2002; Coupland 2004;). As Sandra Beder (2002, np) comments, if
companies “are willing to spend millions on advertising, public relations and promotion, these
companies will not shy away from spending millions on environmental improvements if there is
reputational capital in it”.
Corporations are, indeed, pursuing the highly desirable goal of accruing valuable symbolic
capital by foregrounding their commitment to social and environmental goods2. This practice has
been documented in a range of media including corporate websites (Coupland 2006), advertorials
(Livesey 2002) and, inevitably, in advertising. To manage the temptation to exaggerate,
corporations have been advised to ensure that promotional material should make accurate
reference to any environmental claims (Grant 2007) in order to avoid allegations of “green spin”
(Magee 2008), “greenwashing” or, in its extreme, “ecopornography” (CIPR 2007).
1
Parts of this paper were given at the 2nd Rhetoric in Society conference, University of Leiden, 2009.
Theaker (2004, 189) reports on survey findings indicating that 4/5ths of UK consumers are likely to use a
product because of its association with a good ‘cause’.
2
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Despite this laudable counsel, complaints to the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority3 (ASA)
about environmental claims in advertising rose from 117 objections about 83 advertisements in
2006 to 561complaints about 410 advertisements in 2007 and beyond.
The focus of the complaints and the subsequent adjudications brings me to the analytic and
interpretative issues central to this paper; the communicative tension between text and image or
linguistic and visual argument.
2. LINGUISTIC AND VISUAL MEANING-MAKING
Many theorists and analysts, following Barthes (1972), claim that that texts and images have
differing meaning-making capacities or “individual functions and strengths” (Lemke 1998). For
Jay Lemke this means that language is adept at encapsulating typological meaning or making
meaning by categorising whereas the visual can make meanings topologically or by degree (an
important point to which I return shortly). Language is interpreted as having more fixed or closed
meanings whereas images are deemed to be more polysemous, open to interpretation and often
(although not exclusively) subordinate to text 4.
However, there is also much competing evidence to support the equal treatment of text and
image. Mitchell (1994, 161) maintains “semantically speaking there is no essential difference
between texts and images”. van Leeuwen (2006, 179) similarly argues that just as other semiotic
resources operate in collaboration to generate implicatures, visual analysis should focus “not only
the image as representation but also on the image as an ‘inter’act”. That is, analysis should
address how the reader/viewer interprets and deduces meanings from the collage of messages
present in an advertisement.
There is also some support to move beyond this perceptual equity. Blair (1994, 54) emphasises
the “power of visual imagery to evoke involuntary reactions” and exceed textual argument. Further
research suggests that the visual (in, but not limited, to metaphor) can be more influential than
linguistic (either literal or figurative) arguments (Blair 2004). McQuarrie and Philips (2005) argue
3
The ASA is responsible for monitoring the content of direct mailings, and print, radio and television
advertisements to ensure that they do not mislead, cause harm, or offend. They are bound to investigate,
seek resolution and adjudicate on any complaints made by members of the public or other interested parties.
4
See van Leeuwen (2006) for a summary of text-image relations.
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that the juxtaposition, replacement or fusion of images to exploit figurative interpretations can
generate a range of meanings that require complex processing. This increased effort in the
comprehension process can result in an enhanced memory trace of the message and more
permanent impact (Petty and Cacoippi 1986).
This scope for multiple interpretations means that it also true that “not all assumptions in a
message can be taken as communicated with equal force, nor with the same degree of strength to
different people” (Forceville 1996, 177). Such a position is important when understanding which
aspects of an advertisement attract complaints and how these complaints are interpreted, upheld, or
rejected by the ASA.
Before I discuss the complaints and adjudications in some detail, I briefly want to foreground
another key aspect of linguistic and visual argumentation: truth claims and modality.
3. MODALITY and REALITY
The commonplace assertion that language is a classificatory instrument encapsulating meaning
by categorising generates the corollary that the visual deploys a topological form of expression
akin to linguistic modality. Modality refers to the status, authority and reliability of a message, to
its ontological status, or to its value as truth or fact (Hodge and Kress 1988, 124) and marks out
certainty, possibility and necessity. Lexical choice can impose a view of truth that is difficult to
challenge or truth claims may be more qualified or weakly asserted; “truth is … a matter of
degree” (van Leeuwen 2006, 162).
Visual expression similarly construes different truth values by degree often depending on
combinations of gradable differences available in terms of saturation, differentiation and
modulation (van Leeuwen 2006)5. Images can be produced using fully saturated colour, pastel or
muted tones or with the complete absence of colour. The communicative potential of saturation is
ambiguous: “high saturation may be positive, exuberant, adventurous, but also vulgar or garish.
Low saturation may be subtle and tender, but also cold and repressed, or brooding and moody”
5
There are also important distinctions in terms of light and shadow, depth of field and degrees of detail.
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(Kress and van Leeuwen 2007, 232). There are also, as we shall see, competing interpretations
regarding colour saturation and realism. Differentiation marks out a scale ranging from
monochrome to a diverse and complex colour palette. Colour can also be deployed from a flat to a
fully modulated scale. Flat modulation offers a general impression or generic characteristics of an
entity and produces a more abstract representation whereas fully modulated colour with graded
nuances realises a stronger perceptual truth or for Hill (2004, 29) carries greater “epistemic force”.
Hill (2004) argues that realism depends on vivid information using “concrete and imagistic
language, personal narratives, pictures, or first-hand experience”. Vivid information draws on
representations that are more ‘realistic’. For example, in Table 1, a photograph is considered more
true to life than a line drawing.
Most Vivid Information
actual experience
moving images with sound
static photograph
realistic photograph
line drawing
narrative, descriptive accounts
abstract, impersonal analysis
Least Vivid Information
statistics
Table 1. Hall’s (2004) hierarchy of vividness.
The relative veracity of an image is based on combinations of these modalities and the viewer’s
own judgments. Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) conclude “realism is judged on dimensions such
as colour, degree of contextualization, comprehensiveness of representation, nature of the
perspective, sources of illumination, and degree of brightness”. These are not insignificant matters.
Kress and Hodge (1988, 147) make the importance of modality plain when they assert that “social
control rests on control over the representation of reality which is accepted as the basis for
judgment and action... whoever controls modality can control which version of reality will be
selected out as the valid version in that semiotic process”
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These kinds of judgments and the process of being definitive can be explored in the following
images: a colour photograph, a black and white photograph with increased background saturation,
a coloured pencil sketch, and a line drawing 6.
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
These images demonstrate the tension between representation and resemblance (Lopes 1996)
and how form, communicative function and cultural interpretations influence judgments about
which is the more accurate version of reality. The colour photograph (Fig. 1) in contrast to the
line drawing (Fig. 4) following Hall’s criteria is likely (under some conditions) to be judged as
more 'realistic’. A line drawing can, thus, be considered to be “visual ‘opinion’ and less factual
than a news photograph which is held to provide reliable documentary information” (van Leeuwen
2006, 167). This overlooks the powerful communicative function of a line drawing or densely
saturated cartoon. People can identify an image more quickly when it is drawn as a cartoon than
when they are shown a photograph of a hand (Lopes 1996). Moreover, diagrams, line drawings
and illustrations also have the potential to be read as images with “high truth values and not as
fictions or fantasies” (van Leeuwen 2006, 167).
There are, of course, far more meaning-making mechanisms at work in print advertising
including, not least, the role of semiotic space and how different information values pertain to the
different placement of materials on a page. Figure 5, overleaf, demonstrates how the location of
image or text carries different information values. That is to say, when a page is spatially
6
My thanks go to Suzanne Curran for producing these images.
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polarised, information on the left inhabits the given domain; the already known or predictable.
Material located on the right, in the new domain, displays original, modified or unexpected
information. In the vertical dimension, material located in the upper part is presented as the
generalised or idealised essence of the information; in the lower part, the information is valued as
more specific, more practical or more ‘down-to-earth’ (van Leeuwen 2006).
Domain of
the given
Domain of
the new
Domain
of the
ideal
Domain
of the
real
Fig 5. Visual space in Western visual semiotics
To interpret meanings and attribute (truth) values, Chandler (2002) explains, readers must draw
on all their “knowledge of the world and of the medium. For instance, they assign it to fact or
fiction, actuality or acting, live or recorded, and they assess the possibility or plausibility of the
events depicted or the claims made in it”.
These issues of realism, the credibilty of the image and the legitimacy of linguistic claims are at
the heart of complaints and adjudications to which our attention now turns.
4. THE COMPLAINTS and THE ADJUDICATIONS
The data, under discussion, consist of five complaint-generating advertisements produced by
car manufacturers, utility and energy companies during 2007-2008.
The first text (overleaf) is a magazine advertisement (May 2007) for a Lexus RX 400h hybrid
fuel car. Its headline states “High performance. Low emissions. Zero guilt”. The advertisement,
deploys a highly decontextualised, intensely lit, minimally differentiated photograph containing a
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richly refracted reflection of the car, states that it has a category-leading low amount of CO2
emissions.
TEXT ONE
The complaints addressed the accuracy of the headline claims “low emissions” and “zero guilt”
suggesting that they misrepresented the environmental impact of the SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle).
The ASA concluded that the complaints about the decontextualised or rather unqualified use of the
ambiguous category term ‘low’ implied the vehicle's emission rate was negligible and readers
would infer that it had less detrimental emissions in comparison with all cars.
In terms of absolute truth claims, the ASA additionally decided that the term ‘zero’
(unsubstantiated by the body copy and additional evidence submitted) would (mis)lead readers to
infer that the car caused little or no harm to the environment which, the ASA concluded, was not
the case.
No complaints from members of the public or comments by the ASA questioned the highly
stylised, decontextualised, pristine setting and unrealistic representation of the vehicle. The limited
attention to images in meaning-making is evident in the next text.
TEXT 2
A UK national press advertisement (January 2007) for the Golf GT TSI shows a centrally
positioned image of the car on a split background. The left hand side of the advertisement pictures
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a dimly lit forest with wolves and the text "High performance". The right hand side of the
advertisement shows a brightly lit meadow with a deer and the text "Low emissions".
The body copy states "it also does over 38 mpg, and emits just 175g of CO2 per kilometre.
More power, less pollution. Better to drive. Better for the planet". The text at the bottom of
advertisements states, "CO2 emissions for the Golf GT TSI are lower than other engines with
similar power outputs". The complainants challenged the assertion “low emissions”. The ASA
maintained (in line with the previous adjudication) that readers were likely to understand the claim
“low emissions” to mean the car had less damaging emissions than all cars and upheld the
complaint. What is of interest is the lack of mention of the content or form of the images.
The image on the left is more fully saturated and the lighting adds to its near photographic
quality. The image on the right deploys low saturation, pastel shades, graininess and an
evaporating perspective along with more fanciful sources of illumination resulting in a more
visibly cartoon or sketch-like resonance. This lends to the interpretation that reduced emissions
inhabit the new information space and the reader should take the wolverine performance of the car
as given. It also ignores the implicatures generated by the low modality sketch of an unavoidable
intertextual reference to Disney’s Bambi grazing in idyllic rural pastures. This image is
undoubtedly being used to underscore and extend the textual claim that has been deemed to be
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inaccurate and misrepresentative. However, the evocative pastoral associations available to a
viewer of the image are allowed to stand without scrutiny.
A third text, a national print advertisement (March, 2008) for the Renault Twingo Dynamique
uses a photographic image of the car against a pale green background and shows illustrations of
differently sized leaves apparently emanating from the car’s exhaust.
TEXT 3
The text on one of the leaves states "eco2 economical ecological". One complaint challenged
whether the textual claim "ultra low" in the body copy was misleading. Another complaint argued
that the claims "ecological" and "eco2" were misleading because the terms exaggerated, without
evidence, the environmental credentials of the car. The ASA concluded that the unqualified used
of the terms 'ecological', the “eco2” logo could lead readers to infer that the vehicle caused
relatively little harm to the environment and had low emissions compared with other similar cars.
Whilst the ASA noted the use of large (certainly not to scale) illustration of leaves in place of
exhaust emissions, they did not ask for them to be removed in any amended advertisements. The
presence of oversized environmental ‘goods’ metaphorically replacing an environmental ‘bad’
clearly warranted but did not receive adequate critical attention.
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Having foregrounded the lack of attention being paid to the visual in complaints to the ASA the
next two advertisements have images at the centre of both the complaint and the subsequent
adjudications.
Text 4 is a direct mailing circular (February 2008) produced by npower (an energy company).
It has a black print headline “Wind Power News" and shows a monochrome photograph of four
wind turbines in the midground and background. Along side hedge bounded fields there are four
horses grazing in the foreground. There is a web link to an update about the Nun Wood wind farm.
TEXT 4
The complaint addressed the veracity of the photograph suggesting it gave a misleading
impression of the visual impact of the wind turbines for the proposed Nun Wood wind farm. The
photograph uses perspective, articulation of background, saturated colour and tonal shades to
produce a relatively highly modulated realisation. The ASA (2007) concluded that, given the
nature of the image, readers were “likely to believe the photograph represented” how the Nun
Wood site would look if it were to be built. The ASA noted the image was of an already
operational wind farm where the turbines appeared to be smaller than those proposed for the Nun
Wood site.
In the final text, the complaints addressed both the environmental claims in the image and in
the text. A national press advertisement (November 2007) for Shell was headlined "Don't throw
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anything away there is no away" and shows a generic silhouette of an oil refinery which has four
chimneys producing clouds of colourful flower heads.
TEXT 5
The body copy states "If only we had a magic bin that we could throw stuff in and make it
disappear forever. What we can do is find creative ways to recycle. We use our waste CO2 to grow
flowers, and our waste sulphur to make super-strong concrete. Real energy solutions for the real
world".
The complainants maintained that the image of industrial chimneys emitting flowers
misrepresented the environmental impact of Shell's refineries. The objections also addressed the
textual assertion "We use our waste CO2 to grow flowers" suggesting it implied that Shell used all
of its waste CO2 to grow flowers. The complainants offered evidence that less than 0.5% of carbon
dioxide emissions were used to local greenhouse growers produced plants.
In its adjudication, The ASA upheld the complaints regarding the unqualified assertion of
waste carbon dioxide use that invited the inference that Shell used all, or at least the majority, of
their waste carbon dioxide to grow flowers. However, the ASA did not uphold the complaint about
the potential inferences prompted by the incongruent metaphorical image that suggests that one
direct consequence of the industrial oil refining process is the immediate production of flowers. In
drawing up its decision, the ASA concluded that the image was “conceptual and fanciful” (ASA
2007) and that “most readers were unlikely to interpret it as a depiction of reality.” It seems that
because the image is a flatly modulated, impressionistic or generic silhouette with a highly
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simplified visual metaphor using images akin to a child’s rudimentary drawing of flowers and not
a photograph that it is not considered to constitute a direct or vivid reference to reality (cf. Hall
2004) 7. Its influence on viewers is deemed to be minimal.
This conclusion overlooks recent research exploring the potency of visual metaphors, openness
and incongruence to influence readers/viewers (Lagerwerf and Meijers 2008). The powerful
connotations encoded in the typeface redolent of 1960s pro-environmental ‘flower power’ drawing
on the densely saturated hybrid colour palette associated with that period are also summarily
ignored.
In these two adjudications addressing visual representations and truth values, the image in the
Shell advertisement is treated as “visual opinion” (van Leeuwen 2006, 167) and the photograph of
wind turbines functions as providing “reliable documentary information”. That is when images
are recognisable because of their geographic, historical or socially specific identity (e.g. the visual
impact of the wind turbines) they are treated as arguments and engaged with the same degree of
critique as linguistic claims. When they are decreed to be of a fictional or fanciful form they are
treated as peripheral and of minimal importance.
In these five advertisements (despite the perspectives outlined previously that image and text
should receive, at least, perceptual equity) it seems that the word or rather truth claims in the
linguistic argument are given special attention and treatment. When images are the focus of the
complaint the modality of the images are either ignored or differentially privileged by the ASA.
5. ADDRESSING AMBIGUITIES INCONSISTENTLY
The ASA demonstrate a laudable capacity to tackle ambiguities in linguistic claims about the
environmental impact. In particular, they seem keen to address assertions that overstate or aim to
extend the inferential reach of expressions such as “low emissions” and “ultra low”. They engage
critically with the implicatures arising from the unqualified or unsubstantiated use of such terms
7
It might be more relevant to argue about the generalised or ideal essence of the image if evidence regarding
its location in the upper part of the page or the ideal textual domain were deployed (van Leeuwen 2006).
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and conclude, rightly, that readers will infer, wrongly, that the products cause little or no harm to
the environment.
However, when images are presented with low modalities such as flat modulation, lack of
perspective, intense saturation or pastel shades their importance in creating arguments about
environmental benefits are downgraded or, more often, ignored. The extent of this continued
oversight can be appreciated in the ASA’s (2006) response to a complaint about the use (in an
advertisement for an airline) of a drawing of a female flight attendant holding out a glass of
champagne or sparkling wine. The complainant argued that the image was not representative of
the staff members or the beverage served on board. The ASA rejected the complaint on the
following grounds:
“We considered that readers would understand that the image of the Singapore Girl
represented the Singapore Airlines brand and because the image was an illustration not a
photograph readers would not interpret it as a literal reference to the drinks available in
economy class. We concluded that the ad was not misleading.” (ASA 2006, emphasis added)
Here we have an explicit, if misplaced, rationale for drawing a distinction between the reduced
epistemic force and truth value of an illustration rather than a photograph.
6. CONCLUDING COMMENTS, FUTURE DIRECTIONS
The lack of critical attention paid by both potential complainants but perhaps more importantly
by the ASA in their adjudications relating to the potential influence of the visual needs to be
addressed. This is because it is widely recognised that perceptions of nature are socially,
politically and culturally constructed (Hansen and Machin 2008, 778) and that imagery plays a key
role in this process (Urry 1992). Moreover, far more attention should be paid to how images of the
environment are being recontextualised with increasing abstraction or decontextualisation into a
limited number of symbolic or iconic forms (for example, flowers, animals, leaves, trees etc.)
It seems that far more research needs to be conducted to explore empirically how people
interpret and respond to different image modulations. This is particularly urgent, as it already
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seems that advertisers are alert to techniques that can smuggle in green values to generate
concomitant reputational capital.
I conclude with two stills from IBM’s (2008) unashamedly titled Go Green television
advertisement screened in the UK8. Seated at a desk, in an office, an executive is considering an
‘eco-friendly’ plan to reduce energy consumption. He is ultimately convinced of its worth because
of its related reduction in costs.
Previously in black and white, letterboxed in corporate blue, following the executive’s decision
to accept the plan to cut energy use the screen surround turns a vibrant green. The formerly
monochrome executive is elevated to full colour and his office becomes inhabited by cartoon
rabbits, squirrels, birds and plants with accompanying music redolent of a saccharine animated
film soundtrack. The environmental consequences or, more accurately, the economic benefits of
energy reduction are visually realised as reductive rewards in the form of ‘Disneyfied’ versions of
‘real’ nature.
Corporate marketing already seems wise to the different degrees of scrutiny paid to textual
claims and visual representations about environmental goods. If the exploitation of images that
are known to be treated as fanciful confections continues to go unaddressed the consequences are
likely to be profound. Corporations demonstrably eager to accrue positive environmental
associations and green reputational capital can accomplish this, it seems, with ease by
hoodwinking a visually lackadaisical public and a rhetorically inconsistent regulatory body.
8
The full advertisement is available at http://www.splendad.com/ads/show/2160-IBM-Go-Green.
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