The Yes Men and Greenpeace collaborated on a campaign to raise awareness of Shell's Arctic drilling by creating a fake pro-drilling website and social media accounts for Shell that promoted Arctic drilling; this caused initial confusion by appearing legitimate until people realized Shell was not actually behind it, though it brought attention to environmental concerns around Shell's activities. The document provides analysis of how the campaign was executed across different online channels and its impact on Shell's brand and reputation.

1. Shell – 20 August
Case Study: Social
Media Hi-jacking
Danielle Roe, Analyst

2. Formalities
This case study is based on research done during the month of August.
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3. Background
The Yes Men
The Yes Men are Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos. They are known for challenging
major corporations, government institutions and their policies. They create phony
websites and campaigns, pretend to be executives of the organizations and wait to
be invited to conferences. Their aim is to expose unethical behaviour, social
issues, and create environmental awareness through tactical media.

4. Background
Organisations they’ve challenged:
 McDonalds
 Dow Chemicals
 WTO
 United States Department of
Housing and Urban Development
 The World Trade Organization
 2000 US Presidential Election
 ExxonMobil
 BP
Their satirical approach includes making
ridiculous and shocking comments that
caricature the ideological position of an
organisation or person.
They recognise that many corporate or
government entities manipulate their
ideology using spin, in response, they use
this power to their own advantage, and use
media outlets to distribute their personal
interpretation of the situation.

5. Background
The Yes Men team up with Green Peace in Shell Oil Campaign
“A non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and
with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Greenpeace states its
goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity" and focuses its
campaigning on world wide issues such as globalwarming, deforestation,
overfishing, commercial whaling and anti-nuclear issues. Greenpeace uses direct
action, lobbying and research to achieve its goals.”

6. The Idea
The aim of the campaign is to highlight Shell’s leading role in exploring the Arctic for new
oil reserves.
They created a near identical version of Shell’s own website called Arctic Ready and filled
it with content that savages the oil company albeit in the language of so many corporate
websites.
Like failed crowdsourced campaigns of the past such as the “Design Your own Chevy
Tahoe”, they launched a competition to create captions that would accompany Shell’s very real
“Let’s Go” campaign.
http://socialmediainfluence.com

7. How They Did It: The Phony Website

8. How They Did It: The Poster Campaign

9. How They Did It: Branded Applications
A parody of the
popular game “Angry
Birds” was created
called “Angry Bergs”.
Aimed at kids the
game and page also
outlines the ways in
which oil benefits
humanity:
“Mommy and Daddy
can drive to the store to
buy you new toys.”

10. How They Did It: Phony Facebook Account

11. How They Did It: Phony Twitter Account

12. How They Did It: Phony Twitter Account
The hi-jackers
legitimised their phony
campaign by covering all
the necessary social
media touch points:
 Facebook
 Twitter
 YouTube
The phony account is still
active and kicking, with
many activists interacting
and engaging, long after
the rouse ended.

13. Statistics
Most popular keywords:
• #ShellFail
• #ArcticReady
• #Shell
• #adbusting
• #FAIL
• @arcticready
• @ShellIsPrepared
• #oops
• @shell_alaska
• #Alaska
• #Arctic
• @GreenPeace
• #Oil
• #Whale
• #GreenPeace
• #Let’sGo

14. What was said?
Shell manages quite a few
Twitter accounts, and the hi-
jackers created quite a few of
their own. This created mass
confusion.
The phony accounts tweeted
in response to the campaign
as if they were trying to react
to the phony poster campaign.
The legitimate accounts did
not respond.
How were users to
know who’s who?

15. What was said?
Real Account
Phony Account

16. What affect did it have on the brand?
Did The Yes Men hurt or help Shell?
They managed to create awareness about the environmental issues involved.
Twitter lit up with conversation and for a while they had us believing. However, it is
unclear what the exact objective of the campaign was, which makes measuring
the results difficult.
What matters is how Shell responded:
Shell “…didn’t take Greenpeace’s bait. Instead Shell let the elaborate ruse play
out without commenting, save for one statement on its website acknowledging the
campaign but making clear that Shell didn’t have anything to do with it. And Arctic
Ready makes it easy for them to do so. By pretending to be Shell and doing such
a thorough job of trying to hijack its brand, Greenpeace caused an initial shock
with the way it portrayed the oil company. But as soon as people realised that
Shell had nothing to do with this and were on the receiving end of an elaborate
hoax the sting went out of the stunt. By continuing to perpetuate the prank when
there are newsworthy elements of Arctic drilling that warrant attention,
Greenpeace continues to make it easy for Shell to say nothing and just keep
drilling.”
http://socialmediainfluence.com

17. Conclusion
Shell is a controversial brand which is surrounded by many environmental
concerns. This does not make them villains. It does mean, however, that
they should be extra mindful of their reputation.
When a brand decides to go online it is opening itself to the
public. The point of social media is to interact and engage.
Big brands have been inaccessible and somewhat
untouchable in the past, this has changed. And
it’s a good thing!
If brands prepare themselves, there is nothing to
be afraid of.

18. How To Protect Your Brand From Being Hi-Jacked
PREPARE – TRACK – MONITOR – MANAGE
Assess and know your audience.
Develop a social media strategy.
Educate employees on all aspects
of your strategy.
Track your brand mentions and
online reputation very carefully.
Have a comprehensive plan for
when things go wrong.

19. How To Protect Your Brand From Being Hi-Jacked
Think every tweet and post through
thoroughly.
The same goes for any campaign,
especially online.
Handle audience engagement
(positive or negative) appropriately.
Stay in touch and research current
issues as well as trending topics

20. More Information