Ford "Greenest" Automotive Factory ad in July 2004 National Geographic magazine

Ford "Greenest" Automotive Factory ad in July 2004 National Geographic magazine

creative storytelling at it's best: The auto factory is "green" because it is surrounded by100 acres of "reclaimed green space, new wetlands and wildlife habitats", and employs reclamation technologies to capture and reuse waste while still producing hundred s of thousands of 16mpg F-150 trucks a year.

This photo shows the Dearborn MI truck plant with its dozens of smokestacks surrounded by a couple of wildflowers, two saplings and a fence. A wildlife habitat this is not, no matter what the advertisement says. The camera is angled from the height of the wildflowers, aimed at the plant, which tells us that the focus is the plant, not the plants, else we'd be offered a view of the reclaimed land they boast. We instead of given visual snippets or hints of what 100acres of land that will inevitably be affected by the plant runoff, emissions, traffic as freight trucks bring supplies and tote finished products, and commuting workers. This advertisement willfully ignores, even denies the ongoing effect this plant will have on even this newly fashioned "environmental-esque" landscape.

This style of ad, from the elements to the angling appeared in 1968 when Standard Oil of New Jersey tried to convince National Geographic readers that an Oil refinery makes a good neighbor to humans and wildlife, just 6 years and 1 month after Rachel Carson published Silent Spring.

National Geographic magazine

National Geographic Society

July 2004

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This is reminiscent of the Standard Oil of New Jersey gasoline refinery ad of the 1968: Oct 1968 National Geographic Magazine Ad, published just 6 years and one month after the initial printing of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

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English

Print advertisement

print advertisement: glossy paper

Two-page advertisement in National Geographic Magazine