The Government of Alberta is throwing $77,000 behind a new advertising campaign to help promote the XL Pipeline in the U.S. Throughout the coming week, the ads will appear on several news websites as well as the print edition of the Washington Post. The quarter-page Washington Post ad will continue with the slogan “Keystone XL: The Choice of Reason,” the same (suspiciously loaded) headline used last month in a Sunday edition of the New York Times.
The online ads, which feature the text “Learn more about Alberta’s oil sands” superimposed over a picture of a forest, seem to be appealing less to “reason” than cognitive dissonance. Though my limited advertising experience screams “Don’t remind them about the forests!” I’m guessing the Government of Alberta is hoping Americans will just make the absurd mental hurdle of associating more oil production with more trees.