During these last decades, the automotive industry seems to have taken some steps towards “sustainability”, by increasing fuel efficiency and developing hybrid and “emission-free” powertrains. Despite this, it is still often accused of greenwashing, since many brands still don’t plan to cease the production of internal combustion engine vehicles nor to stop collaborating or lobbying with fossil fuel companies, even when their line-up is “fully electric”. And when it comes to batteries, there lays the problem of mining rare-earth metals.
So, we decided to investigate some of the communication strategies that car brands adapt to make their models appear more “eco-friendly” in their video advertisements. More specifically, we analysed 30 internal combustion engine (ICE), 30 hybrid electric (HE) and 30 battery electric (BE) models—for a total of 90 different vehicles—to see if they present them differently according to their propulsion.
Firstly, we focused on the surrounding landscapes around the advertised models, which was then shifted to their overall narrative. At the same time, we also checked upon their descriptions to find out if the same rhetorical devices were used. Through these three research questions, we gained a deep understanding of the adverts we had collected, together with a series of curious and unexpected findings.

Research and design by:

Andrea Benedetto
Simone Cerea
Camilla Guerci
Surabhi Gupta
Haleh Nobar
Alessandro Pedriali
Yousef Taffal

The open access digital version is available here.

Check it out on Fonts in Use.

The booklet was featured in the 4th ed. of "Mediazioni Algoritmiche", an exhibition organised with DensityDesign Lab and sponsored by the Department of Design of Politecnico di Milano.