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A
two-wheel local crusader takes on GM
Toronto
Star, May 26, 2001
By
Cameron Smith
General
Motors is going to rue the day it insulted Wayne Scott. That's not only
because
Scott is combative, articulate and dogged, but also because he has
begun voicing
what I hear so many people saying privately: that car advertising is
duplicitous; that to market cars, companies sell images of sexiness,
status,
adventure and success, even though they know the ads promote conduct
that is
destructive, selfish, uncaring, smug, and anti-social.
Scott
calls the ads environmentally seditious. He's not against cars; he's
against
the ads. And because of the damaging impact they can have, he thinks
they
should be regulated by government, just as advertising for tobacco and
alcohol
are.
You'll
remember Scott: he's the former bicycle courier, sidelined because of
injuries
and age he's now 50 who won a celebrated court case against the federal
government that allows couriers to treat the cost of food as a
deductible
income-tax expense because, for them, food is fuel.
I asked
him why he was taking on General Motors. "It was trouble that came my
way," he says. "These guys stuck their nose in my life. It was an
affront to all the hardworking guys I know." Specifically, it was an
affront to the 1,000 or so couriers who belong to the Toronto Hoof
& Cycle
Courier Coalition, which he says pretty well includes all the couriers
in the
city.
General
Motors had run an ad showing a cartoonist working against deadline. On
the
other side of the city, his editor was pacing the sidewalk waiting for
that
day's cartoon. With minutes to go, the cartoonist finished, jumped into
his car
a Chevrolet Cavalier and sped off to deliver his cartoon. "Why trust
lunatic couriers, when you can do it yourself," the cartoonist intoned
in
a voice-over.
"The
whole thing was a crock," Scott says. First of all, there's no way a
motorist could negotiate downtown traffic faster than a courier. And
second,
"We're out there lessening all the emissions damage they're doing."
Afrer
Scott complained to Advertising Standards Canada, the advertising
industry's
self-policing agency, on the grounds that the ad demeaned an
identifiable
group, General Motors voluntarily changed the ad so that it no longer
referred
to "lunatic couriers."
But
that was just the beginning. Scott began looking at other ads, and what
he saw
deeply offended him. The ads went beyond irresponsibility. They flogged
a
mythology that said it was okay to devastate the environment as long as
you had
an immediate benefit to your ego, your passion of the moment or your
convenience, no matter how trivial it might be.
Scott
became Hoof & Cycle's automobile dependence reduction officer. It's
a
lovely title, both spoof and warning.
His
next target was an ad for GM's Cadillac Escalade van that ran two
months ago in
The Globe and Mail's Report on Business magazine and in the National
Post.
There's a picture of the van speeding along a city street. In one
corner, at
the top, there's a space shuttle taking off. Centre-top is a cup of
coffee. And
most prominently, toward the middle, is "345 HP." The tag line says:
"Because sometimes a caramel macchiato just can't wait." Later on it
adds, "Even if (you're going) no farther than the corner coffee
shop."
"They're
absolutely nuts," says Scott. "General Motors is urging you to jump
into this van simply to drive to the corner for a cup of coffee? When
you can't
use 345 horsepower and stay within the speed limit? And then you have
to park?
If you walked, you'd have your coffee half drunk by the time you
stepped out of
the van." And there'd have been no contributing to global warming, no
clogging city streets, no consumption of non-renewable resources.
Scott
again complained to Advertising Standards Canada. He got back a letter
saying
it would not consider his complaint unless he agreed to keep it secret.
"Confidential" was the word used.
He
chuckles. Him keep it confidential!
This is
only the beginning. And I say it's about time.
Cameron
Smith is an author and environmentalist living in Lansdowne, Ont.
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