The size of vehicles on the roads of Quebec is increasing, which encourages Équiterre to continue its crusade to limit or even ban the advertising of SUVs and gasoline trucks, as is the case in certain European countries.
Posted at 10:15 a.m.
Quebecers like their vehicles bigger and bigger, and car manufacturers are responding to this demand.
Between 1990 and 2019, sales of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and light trucks increased by 284%, while car sales fell by 29% in Quebec, according to a recent study by the Chaire de gestion du secteur de energy from HEC Montreal. This same study pointed out that even if vehicles are becoming more fuel efficient, the gains made in fuel efficiency are canceled out by this trend to buy ever bigger, taller and stronger vehicles.
Andréanne Brazeau, mobility analyst at Équiterre, calls for the advertising of sport utility vehicles and light gasoline trucks to be regulated if we want to succeed in reducing greenhouse gases in the transport sector.
“It’s a matter of consistency, because we can’t set ourselves the goal of electrifying our vehicles by 2035 and continuing to promote them (gas-powered trucks and SUVs). It’s in 12 years. A vehicle is just about on the road for that number of years”, indicated the analyst at Équiterre during a conference entitled “How to reconcile climate commitments and automobile advertising? », presented last week by the Regional council of the environment of Montreal.
She suggests restricting the automobile industry’s advertising practices, similar to the regulations that have been put in place to limit the promotion of tobacco products.
“The ‘lifestyle’ ads where someone plays tennis with a cigarette in their hand were banned before other tobacco ads were banned,” argued the Équiterre analyst, suggesting progressive regulation as for the tobacco.
“We could ban ads in which vehicles drive in places where it makes no sense and where, in fact, it is illegal to drive,” explained Mr.me Brazeau, referring to advertisements where large vehicles drive through streams or fields “destroying nature”.
According to an analysis by Équiterre, 68% of advertisements use nature or its properties to sell light trucks.
Andréanne Brazeau is of the opinion that SUV and light truck advertisements hinder informed consumer decision-making, in particular because they ignore fuel consumption and/or CO2 emissions.2.
“Energy efficiency is sometimes put forward while there is very rarely the real performance, therefore the fuel consumption, which is displayed. »
European countries regulate car advertising
In France, car manufacturers are obliged to display the fuel consumption of vehicles on each advertisement and since last spring, all advertising for a motor vehicle must have a message encouraging less polluting journeys.
The announcement of a vehicle must absolutely be accompanied by one of these messages: “for short journeys, favor walking or cycling”, “consider carpooling” or “on a daily basis, take public transport”.
The City of Amsterdam has gone even further by simply banning gas car advertisements on buses, in the metro or on municipally owned signs and screens. Other municipal governments in the Netherlands have followed Amsterdam’s example.
The SUV: an extension of yourself
There are “very strong emotional and identity arguments” associated with owning a vehicle, and more specifically an SUV, according to Marc Desnoyers, director of consulting services and strategist at advertising agency Upperkut.
He presented the conclusions of various “focus group” type research carried out by his agency with SUV owners, during the conference organized by the Montreal Regional Council for the Environment.
“In the focus groups, people tell us things like ‘having an SUV commands respect’, ‘it’s professional’, ‘I’ve come to this in my life’, or ‘everyone around me has a”, so this type of vehicle is really something that is part of a person’s identity, it’s on the order of emotion, so it’s always something more difficult to only defeat more rational arguments,” the advertiser said, referring to the difficulty of convincing people to opt for smaller vehicles that consume less fuel and contribute less to traffic congestion.
“People also feel that having a much taller and heavier vehicle is safer, so it’s related to the concept of family, they believe that their children are safer in a large vehicle . »
The notion of freedom was also often mentioned in the focus groups organized by his advertising agency.
“We know it, in the pubs, we see it a lot, this idea of nature. The SUV gives you the freedom not only to go into nature, but also to carry your 12 golf bags, your skis and everything you need to be happy in life,” added Marc Desnoyers.
The SUV market share was 69% in Quebec in 2019, according to HEC Montreal’s Energy Sector Management Chair, and long winters are no stranger to Quebecers’ desire to own a large vehicle.
“Nordicity is strongly linked to our identity as a people and car manufacturers have understood this. People will say “in the winter there are big snow banks, so I need a higher vehicle, I need my SUV to get out of the snow bank on my own, without calling a tow truck ”, it’s something that people will tell us spontaneously and it’s part of the strategies of manufacturers’ advertising campaigns. »
He also pointed out that trying to “make consumers feel guilty about the use of their vehicle does not work”.
In this context, convincing Quebecers to buy smaller vehicles that consume less energy is complicated, but not impossible, according to Marc Desnoyers, whose agency participated in the creation of an advertising campaign for Équiterre , which uses humor to convince sport utility vehicle owners and those who want to buy one to think about their real needs and the impact of their choice.
In conjunction with this advertising campaign, Équiterre launched a petition last November to ask the federal government to commit to banning the advertising of internal combustion vehicles by 2025.