In protest to Shell‘s controversial plans to begin drilling in the Arctic, environmental group Greenpeace orchestrated a seamless viral hoax lampooning the oil giant and generating enormous Internet buzz. The “Let’s Go” campaign passed itself off as a Shell initiative.
Yes Lab joined Greenpeace to create a fake Shell website, purporting to be its social media hub, where visitors could sign an anti-drilling petition and use a meme generator to create their own anti-drilling ads that could be shared via Facebook or Twitter. Users thought they were being snarky at Shell when in fact they were campaigning for Greenpeace. The winner—“You can’t run your SUV on cute. Let’s Go!” printed below the image of polar bears—was made into a billboard in Houston.
To round out the effort, Greenpeace released a supposedly leaked video, which quickly went viral, depicting an elaborately staged Shell PR snafu and a fake press release claiming Shell was seeking legal action against those involved.
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