Check out these ads, which reveal a great deal about different attitudes that polluters and conservationists bring to the task of persuading the public.

Social research consistently find that corporations, especially those in the fossil fuel business, have a serious credibility gap with the public. So what do they do? They work hard to put the best face possible on their business — your face. Polluters create ads that use pictures and words to tell heartwarming stories that link their business to everyday citizens’ families and children. And then they get feedback from everyday citizens before they run them, just to make sure they got it right. Check out the faces in these two examples:

Source: EnergyTomorrow Coalition

Social research consistently finds that nature protection and pollution control experts enjoy pretty good credibility with everyday citizens on our business. So what do we do? We create cryptic, sterile ads that portray the environment as remote and impersonal. We skip the step of getting feedback everyday citizens and run the ads after our peers approve them. And then we wonder why ads like the one below don’t seem to make much difference in a public policy debate:

Bottom line here: Polluters do it better because they try harder. And that’s one of the reasons they can overcome their credibility gap and beat us on vital policy matters.