The PR campaign grabbing headlines this month is Greenpeace’s attack on Volkswagen's green credentials. A clever combination of a-t-l, digital and stunt PR, it is designed to draw attention to a report called The Dark Side of Volkswagen, in which Greenpeace alleges that VW has restricted its most fuel efficient engines to a minority of vehicles while simultaneously increasing the price for consumers. It goes on to say that the German giant is lagging rivals like BMW and Toyota in terms of emissions reductions while also lobbying against new laws designed to force the pace of change. 

Darth Vader 

All of these, however, are quite dry messages to communicate. So Greenpeace decided to cut through with its own tongue-in-cheek variation on VW’s award-winning TV ad campaign The Force. 

In VW’s original ad, we see a small boy dressed as Darth Vader attempting to make various inanimate objects come to life. Eventually, he surprises himself by appearing to start up his father’s VW car. What he doesn't realise is that dad is in the kitchen, starting up the engine remotely with his car key. 

Destroys Planets 

The ad went viral for VW. And it’s this point that Greenpeace has cleverly picked up on.  Having noted how VW used Darth Vader as a cute and humorous story-telling device, Greenpeace has gone back to basics by linking VW to the real Darth Vader, the one who destroys planets and squeezes the life from people via suffocation. 

It has done this by creating its own online ad, in which a bunch of children dressed up as the good guys in Star Wars confront the little boy playing Vader. Like the VW ad, the Greenpeace ad attracted millions of views on YouTube. Until, that is, a complaint from copyright holder LucasFilm forced YouTube to take it down. 

Imperial Stormtroopers 

To support this activity, Greenpeace also organised a stunt at Old Street roundabout in London where it hijacked a poster ad site and sent some of its people out as Imperial Stormtroopers. At first sight, the Greenpeace ad looked like a new piece of VW work. But closer viewing showed it was more anti-VW subversion (even going so far as to have the VW symbol embedded on Vader’s mask). Not quite finished, Greenpeace created a VW Dark Side website, where visitors were rewarded for campaigning on the charity’s behalf by rising up through Star Wars themed ranks. 

Firestorm 

So what lessons can we draw? Well from Greenpeace’s point of view, the genius is the way it has done the PR equivalent of a judo throw, using VW’s investment to create a PR firestorm that heads back in the direction of the corporation. At the same time, it has avoided seeming vitriolic or blindly ant-business by offering constructive advice about how VW can improve its green ratings. 

As for VW (and any other brands in a similar position), there are two points to consider. Firstly, is it possible at the creative development stage to foresee this kind of activity? Not easy of course. But given the low cost and high impact of viral video marketing, could VW have pre-empted ways in which the creative execution might be used as a PR weapon against the brand? 

Big brand behaviour 

Secondly, what does it do now? Well in the short term the answer is not much – unless Greenpeace can be shown to have made some deeply flawed claims. Fighting humour with humour would not be appropriate big brand behaviour on such a serious subject. And moaning too much about being treated unfairly would simply fan the flames.  Perhaps that is why VW has not taken any action against Greenpeace yet, preferring to let LucasFilm be the killjoy that insisted on the Greenpeace campaign coming off YouTube.