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Greenpeace ad campaign targeting Shell Oil is an online spoof that everyone keeps falling for

New York Daily News: Greenpeace ad campaign targeting Shell Oil is an online spoof that everyone keeps falling for

Company says @ShellIsPrepared, which is asking Twitter users to stop passing around the fake ads, has nothing to do with the giant oil company.

By / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: Wednesday, July 18, 2012, 3:19 PM

The Shell Oil ad campaign hoax is bubbling up again.

A month ago, environmental activist group Greenpeace admitted it was behind a series of fake ads supposedly promoting drilling for oil in the Arctic. It included ads with taglines such as, “Because your gas should come from someplace beautiful,” and “Birds are like sponges … for oil!”

The website, ArcticReady.com, followed the same color scheme and layout as Shell’s real site, Shell.com, and duped many into thinking it was all a public relations move by Shell gone horribly wrong.

On Tuesday, a fake Shell PR Twitter account launched under the handle, @ShellIsPrepared, started the online realm buzzing once more.

The owner of the account urged Twitter users to stop sharing the “offensive ads” and claims the company is “a bit embarrassed.”

The message had the exact opposite effect, increasing retweets and rocketing the ads back into the social media limelight.

And plenty of people were fooled into believing the behemoth oil company was making another boneheaded PR move.

“Anyone hiring a social media manager? Whoever runs @ShellIsPrepared is going to be looking for work soon,” one user tweeted.

While Greenpeace hasn’t claimed ownership of this Twitter account, Shell has already shot it down.

A spokesperson for Shell Oil told the Daily News neither the website, ArcticReady.com, nor the Twitter account, @ShellIsPrepared, is related to the company.

In a statement on the Shell Alaska page, the company says the public has been “targeted with scams launched by organizations opposed to energy exploration in Alaska.”

Shell also debunked a video that “purports to show a bungled corporate PR event,” and a fake press release, both of which were released by Greenpeace and YesLab, an activist organization.

Greenpeace isn’t hiding its involvement with the anti-Shell campaign. On its website, the organization says it created ArcticReady.com to “speak on behalf of Shell’s Arctic Drilling id.”

“Come to an imaginary land where Shell gets real and says what its collective brain trust actually thinks,” Greenpeace wrote in a blog post on June 22.

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