Canada's online magazine: Politics, entertainment, technology, media, arts, books: backofthebook.ca

Politics, tech, media, culture and more, from a Canadian point-of-view

  • Politics
  • Media
  • Culture
  • Science and Tech
  • Living
  • Arts and Books
  • Features
  • The Video
You are here: Home / Northern Gateway / You’ve seen the ads — now play the game!

You’ve seen the ads — now play the game!

06/23/2014 by backofthebook.ca 1 Comment

By Drew McLachlan

If you live in British Columbia, odds are you’ve seen the video below about a million times. It’s not a Tourism BC advertisement or the new video for that chillwave band your coworker told you about — it’s one of the many ads produced for Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, which are constantly being beamed into the homes, cars, and cell phones of British Columbians both on air and online. All feature footage of BC’s serene landscape (which is an interesting strategy for advertising a project whose strongest opposition has come from a slew of environmental groups), or somebody who just got a job with Enbridge praising the pipeline. (Takeaway: If you’re lucky, you could end up working for Enbridge too!)

The company’s aggressive marketing, however, has failed to penetrate at least a few hearts and/or minds. GatewayFacts.net, for example, has been created by an anonymous “Canadian Citizen” who claims to have no ties to either the project’s opponents or proponents, but who obviously knows something about west coast geography, not to mention flash animation.

For the most part, the website mimics Enbridge’s gatewayfacts.ca, though instead of photos of mystical rainforests it offers a close-up view of an oil spill, and clicking on headers like “benefits” or “environmental responsibility” sends users to online articles from the CBC, The Times Colonist, The Vancouver Sun, and several environmental organizations that are critical of the pipeline.

But the most noteworthy part of the parody is the Great Bear Gamble, a flash game in which players must dodge islands and orcas in order to deliver oil from Kitimat to China. Bumping into land prompts the screen to turn black, and the message “You have utterly ruined the Great Bear Rainforest!” to pop up.

Despite its no-budget look, the game uses a map that’s markedly more accurate than the one Enbridge has been disseminating, in that it actually includes the many islands and channels around which and through which the oil tankers will have to maneuver.

Enbridge Map

Enbridge may have sunk a lot more money into advertising Northern Gateway than Mr. or Ms. Citizen has into the Great Bear Gamble, but when it comes to mapmaking, reality still counts.

Filed Under: Northern Gateway Tagged With: British Columbia, business, Canada, Enbridge, Enbridge Pipeline, environment, forests, nature, Northern Gateway Pipeline, oceans, oil, oil sands, tar sands

Subscribe to BoB by e-mail or RSS

Comments

  1. Chris Parent says

    06/25/2014 at 11:37 pm

    Somewhere an oil executive is playing this game for all the wrong reasons imagining how much money his subsidiary company will make cleaning up all that oil…..

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Google+
  • Living
  • Politics
  • Media
  • Culture
  • Arts and Books
  • Features
  • The Video
Fire sale sign

Fort McMurray: Shopping time!

By Brady Tighe We’re now officially in the aftermath phase of the northern Alberta wildfire crisis. The fire is long gone, and everyone with a home to return to is back in its … [Read More...]

Nathan Cullen

Electoral reform: Hashtag fresh thinking

By Alison@Creekside The most interesting and innovative idea to come out of the first meeting of the all-party Special Committee on Electoral Reform, or ERRE, was Nathan Cullen's suggestion, … [Read More...]

Trudeau on quantum computing

The Trudeau gush fest is getting old

By Jim Henshaw There have been several bewildered as well as angry accounts coming out of the USA lately about how little media time has been spent covering the Democratic Presidential Primary … [Read More...]

Rick Meyers in Nanaimo Pride Parade

My friend, Rick, at the Pride Parade

By Frank Moher On this dreadful day, I don't want to write about the shootings in Orlando. I want to write about my friend, Rick. Rick lives just outside of Nanaimo, a city of about 80,000, … [Read More...]

Stephen Colbert on Late Night set

Triumph of the drama nerds

By Frank Moher Two drama nerds have recently moved into high profile positions. Before I name them (or perhaps you’ve already guessed who they are; or perhaps you’d like to scroll down and look at … [Read More...]

From “Our Rape Blog”: Shooting the Moon

Originally published on Our Rape Blog, the author's account of the aftermath of a violent sexual assault. By Mary Fraughton Have you ever played Hearts? It’s a card game. For our purposes, … [Read More...]

First Nations defending Lelu Island

The video: Lelu Island: “They will come.”

From Creekside: The B.C. provincial government is trying to green light the construction of a massive LNG terminal on Lelu Island in the Skeena Estuary -- Pacific Northwest LNG, backed by Malaysian … [Read More...]

Google

Follow Us!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • RSS
  • Twitter

RSS CBC News



Recent Posts

  • Fort McMurray: Shopping time!
  • From “Our Rape Blog”: Shooting the Moon
  • Electoral reform: Hashtag fresh thinking
  • The fish hotel
  • Hatred on an Alberta golf course
  • The video: Lelu Island: “They will come.”
  • My friend, Rick, at the Pride Parade
  • Our selective sympathy
  • The Water Bomber, The Frogman and The Great Canadian Novelist
  • Komagata Maru: The story behind the apology

Tags

9/11 Afghanistan Alberta bad behaviour books British Columbia business Canada Canadian military Canadian politics CBC celebrity computers Conservatives crime environment family film G20 Globe and Mail internet Jason Kenney journalism Justin Trudeau law Liberals Maclean's music National Post NDP newspapers oil sands online media Ontario Quebec RCMP religion sports Stephen Harper television theatre Toronto U.S. Vancouver women

Archives

The Video: Lelu Island: “They will come.”

Pages

  • About
  • Privacy

Copyright © 2021 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in