Background

Companies marketing themselves as “green” has become more common in various different businesses areas in recent years. Some might even say that it is the largest fad of the 2000th century. If a company is making tremendous efforts in branding itself as green but actually operates in an environmentally unfriendly industry, you may claim it is greenwashing. One of those industries is the oil and gas industry. It is often described as one of the most eco-unfriendly industries in the world, with large actors spending billions of dollars trying to market themselves a “green”.

Purpose

The purpose with this thesis is to study two of the largest oil companies, BP and Shell and see whether the consumers perceive their advertisements to be greenwashing, and if so, look into how that might affect their brand image.

Theoretical framework

The theoretical framework is based on theories about brand image. We discuss several directions of brand image such as definitions, how it is created, how it can be measured and visual metaphors.

Methodology

This paper adapts a quantitative methodology in form of questionnaires analysed in SPSS Statistics. In total 336 questionnaires were collected, mainly from people in the age segment of 20 – 29. All questionnaires were handed out in the two Swedish cities Växjö and Kalmar.

Empirical data

The empirical data consist of primary data from 336 questionnaires and secondary data from newspapers, environmental organizations and financial reports.

Conclusions

It was found that at least 30% of the BP respondents and 25% of the Shell respondents perceived the advertisements as greenwashing. Greenwashing was also likely to have a negative effect on the image of the companies in general. Other factors like the respondents knowledge level about the company and media exposure such as the oil accident in the Mexican Gulf were found to play a role besides greenwashing.