UK: ExxonMobil TV AD Banned by British Advertising Standards Authority

The Advertising Standards Authority said Wednesday that four viewers had challenged Exxon's claim in the ad, which ran over the summer, saying it falsely implied that LNG was environmentally friendly.
"We concluded that the ad misleadingly implied that natural gas was one of the cleanest sources of energy and that liquefied natural gas was environmentally friendly," ASA said in a statement.

"The ad must not be broadcast again in its current form," it added. The ASA rejected Exxon's defense that it had only said that LNG was one of the cleanest fossil fuels, a factually correct statement.

The agency said that the structure of the commercial could lead viewers to see the claim not just as a comparison with fossil fuels alone, but as a comparison with all the sources of energy listed in the ad, which included oil, gas, coal, nuclear, wind and solar.

"The claim was not true when natural gas was compared to all the sources of energy listed," it said.

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