WP Creative Group

Background

Washington Post Creative Group is an advertising agency owned by the Washington Post. Founded in 2014 as WP Brand Studio and sometimes labeled as WP Brand Connect, WP Creative Group makes native advertisements for the Washington Post.¹ Also known as branded content, these advertisements are designed to resemble news and editorial content from the Washington Post and are often created by WP Creative Group’s staff, not the advertisers themselves.² At the top of each advertisement is a thin banner which notes the content is from WP Creative Group and the advertiser.

While WP Creative Group claims its work is separate from the Washington Post’s newsroom and editorial business, it relies on the publication’s reputation to market its advertising services. For instance, a post on the Washington Post PR team’ blog announcing its campaign with 3M to demonstrate 3M’s concern for climate change ends with “The Washington Post was named the top news source for its climate reporting according to the recently released 2022 Erdos and Morgan Opinion Leaders study.”³

“Native content” from the American Petroleum Institute⁴

Stance on Climate Change

The Washington Post and WP Creative Group have not taken a public position on climate change, although the Washington Post regularly covers climate change news.

In 2022, WP Creative Group was included in Clean Creatives’s “F-list” of advertising and PR agencies working for fossil fuel clients.⁵ Clean Creatives, a campaign to dissuade public relations agencies from working with fossil fuel clients, added WP Creative Group to its “F-List” for its work for the American Petroleum Institute, BP, and Shell. WP Creative Group ads talked about BP’s focus on wind energy, and others declared that Shell was “setting the course” for low carbon transportation.⁶

Funding

Selected Clients

Key People

Mary Gail Pezzimenti

Pezzimenti has been head of the creative team at WP Creative Group since September 2022.⁷

Actions

June 5, 2023

WP Creative Group published an advertisement for Southern Company, one of the largest gas and electric utilities in the country, which mirrored the format of Washington Post news and editorial content.⁸ The advertisement advocated for an “all the above” strategy towards energy use in the United States, saying that Southern Company was continuing to use coal and natural gas energy sources while still being a leader in renewable energy development.

March 31, 2023

WP Creative Group launched a year-long campaign for 3M, which promoted the manufacturing conglomerate’s technology to mitigate climate change.⁹ The global campaign is the largest WP Creative Group has undertaken, with content translated into English, German, Japanese, Spanish, and Korean. One advertisement published by WP Creative Group mirrored the layout of a Washington Post article and included interviews with 3M leadership discussing how its products could create more sustainable cities.¹⁰ The campaign included sponsored talks featuring 3M officials interspersed in Washington Post’s live journalism series “This is Climate.”¹¹

October 18, 2022

A civil lawsuit brought by the New Jersey Attorney General’s office against oil corporations cited Shell’s 2018 “Make the Future” campaign ads created by WP Creative Group¹² as an example of Shell’s “misleading and deceptive greenwashing campaigns.”¹³

October 2022

WP Creative Group launched a campaign for United Airlines promoting its commitment to sustainability.¹⁴ WP Creative Group hired TikTok influencer Delilah Isabel to star in videos talking about United Airlines’ investment in sustainable aviation fuel, which played through ads in the Washington Post.¹⁵ The videos promoted United Airlines’ conditional agreement to buy 100 hydrogen electric engines that would be ready to make short-distance flights as early as 2028. The ads also emphasized United Airlines’ use of 5 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel. In 2021, when the airline industry was recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. airlines used 13.8 billion gallons of fuel.¹⁶ A report from the International Council on Clean Transportation found that in order for aviation to comply with the Paris Agreement, GHG emissions from the sector need to peak as early as 2025.¹⁷

March 2022

WP Creative Group launched a campaign advertising JBS’s pledge to reach net zero by 2040.¹⁸ JBS is the world’s largest meat supplier.¹⁹ In the ad, WP Creative Group wrote that JBS had reduced its greenhouse gas emission intensity by 20 percent from 2015 levels.²⁰

October 28, 2021

The U.S. House of Representatives House Oversight Committee held a hearing, Fueling the Climate Crisis: Exposing Big Oil’s Disinformation to Prevent Climate Action. During the hearing, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) asked the American Petroleum Institute about its campaign with the WP Creative Group to promote natural gas.²¹

API told the committee that it had worked with WP Creative Group in 2019 to publish an “op-ed” by its president and CEO, Mike Sommers.²² The advertisement, stylized as an op-ed, was titled “Tackling Climate Change with a Collaborative Approach.” API declined to reveal what it paid WP Creative Group for this work; instead it told the committee “API’s spending on advertising reflects our goal of educating the public and policymakers about which policies are better—or worse—for addressing the challenges of climate change while providing affordable, reliable energy.”

October 18, 2021

WP Creative Group launched an advertisement for America’s Plastics Makers, a campaign from the American Chemistry Council promoting “advanced recycling.”²³ Also known as chemical recycling, this process often involves burning fossil fuels to break down plastic waste into chemicals or gas.²⁴ The ad called on Congress to study the greenhouse gas emissions of plastics in comparison to other materials, implicitly questioning that plastic pollution contributes to the climate crisis. “Public policy should be based on data, not ideology,” wrote WP Creative Group in one ad.²⁵ WP Creative Group does not disclose how much their advertisers spend on campaigns.

May 11, 2021

POLITICO incorrectly referred to an advertisement created by WP Creative Group for the American Petroleum Institute as a Washington Post “op-ed” in its Morning Energy newsletter.²⁶ The April 10 advertisement promoted the American Petroleum Institute’s “Climate Action Framework.”²⁷ Jeffrey Stein, a policy advisor at the American Petroleum Institute, wrote in an internal email introducing the Climate Action Framework that “so many of the issues that will guide API’s work on climate policymaking are related to the continued promotion of natural gas in a carbon constrained economy.”²⁸ The email was later obtained by DeSmog.

April 22, 2021

New York City sued ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and the American Petroleum Institute for violating the city’s consumer protection law by misleading New York City residents about the role fossil fuels play in the climate crisis.²⁹ The lawsuit listed WP Creative Group (then WP Brand Studio) advertisements created for the American Petroleum Institute, including the 2019 ad “Why natural gas will thrive in the age of renewables.”³⁰ The legal complaint included the following text from that advertisement:³¹

“The goal of generating 100 percent renewable energy may not be achievable. But in the coming decades natural gas can help meet the growing global demand for sustainable energy… [W]hile high-capacity, low-cost batteries may one day enable more solar and wind supply, uncovering that innovation will take billions more in R&D costs in the hopes of achieving that breakthrough. . . . . There is one sphere of innovation, however, that has already proven to be transformative—the expansion of domestic natural gas production and consumption.”

The complaint asserted that this text exaggerated the climate benefits of natural gas by failing to disclose that natural gas emits significant amounts of greenhouse gasses. The legal complaint also described statements about fossil fuels in a December 14, 2020, WP Creative Group advertisement³² for the American Petroleum Institute as “false and misleading.”

April 9, 2021

WP Brand Studio became WP Creative Group.³³ An announcement on the WashPost PR Blog described the change: “To reflect our team’s evolution to focus on being deeply collaborative brand partners, we are introducing the WP Creative Group. We’ve unified our creative capabilities, going beyond producing award-winning content expected from WP BrandStudio and transcending the traditional transactional exchange to bring even more value, purpose and seamless management to our partnerships. Our expanded team of brand strategists, quality storytellers, design pioneers and performance specialists have a shared mission of creating emotionally resonant experiences that help shape culture, spark conversation, and captivate the influential.”

October 2020

WP Brand Studio published a campaign for Eni advertising the oil major’s use of bio-fuel. One WP Creative Group Facebook post promoting the campaign pulled the quote “A new waste-to-fuel technology could help to make a cleaner, more resilient and prosperous future.”³⁴

October 12, 2020

WP Brand Studio launched a campaign for the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy which said that the U.S. dairy industry was striving to become “carbon neutral or better.”³⁵

September 28, 2020

WP Brand Studio launched the American Petroleum Institute’s “Why Pipelines and Production are pathways to progress” advertisement.³⁶

April 3, 2019

WP Brand Studio published an advertisement for API’s “Power Past Impossible” campaign, “Why Natural Gas will thrive in the age of renewables.”³⁷

February 15, 2019

WP Brand Studio created advertisements as part of the American Petroleum Institute’s “Power Past Impossible” campaign, which sought to promote natural gas as part of a clean energy economy. WP Brand Studio published the advertisement “Low and no-carbon future starts with natural gas” as part of this campaign.³⁸

November 2018

As part of Shell’s “Make the Future” public relations campaign portraying the company as a leader in clean energy production, WP Brand Studio created advertisements for Shell which appeared on the Washington Post website and on Twitter.³⁹ “In addition to its traditional business, [Shell] is investing in lower-carbon transport fuels, such as biomass energy sources and liquified natural gas (LNG),” read one WP Brand Studio ad for Shell.⁴⁰

July 2018

WP Brand Studio launched a campaign for Chevron, “How Energy and the Environment Can Collectively Thrive.”⁴¹ The campaign included an augmented reality segment and focused on a Chevron project to protect biodiversity on an island in the Australian ocean.⁴²

May 24, 2018

WP Brand Studio published an ad for the University of California, Davis, titled “Closing the loop on sustainable aquaculture,” which promoted a caviar aquaculture farm as part of its “Feeding a Growing Population” campaign.⁴³ The article was later posted by the California Aquaculture Association, “Closing the Loop on Sustainable Aquaculture,”⁴⁴ a trade association that is part of U.S. Farmers and Ranchers In Action.“⁴⁵ UC Davis submitted this campaign to the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Awards and described the “Feeding a Growing Population” campaign as a way to attract industry attention to UC Davis’ work.⁴⁶ “Our goal: help key stakeholders increasingly associate expertise in food and agriculture with the UC Davis brand,” wrote UC Davis in the awards submission. The campaign won a CASE Platinum Award in 2019.

November 2017

WP Brand Studio launched ads for BP as part of the campaign “Forewarned is Forewarned,” which highlighted technologies that allowed the oil and gas industry to prevent future disasters like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.⁴⁷ One advertisement created by WP Brand Studio was titled “Lessons from the Oil and Gas Industry Could Power Wind Energy’s Future.”⁴⁸ Politico Focus, the brand studio for POLITICO, also created a campaign highlighting this technology that was published in both Politico and The Atlantic.⁴⁹

September 2017

WP Brand Studio published a series of advertisements for University of California, Davis, focused on the climate impact of food production in California.⁵⁰ The advertisements resembled articles and quoted UC Davis professors⁵¹ discussing how agriculture can provide climate solutions.⁵²

March 20, 2017

WP Brand Studio published an advertisement for the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) with the headline “Oil refiners and petrochemical producers are critical in the drive to save energy.”⁵³ The advertisement included a video from the Edelman-created “We Make Progress” campaign for AFPM.⁵⁴ WP Brand Studio was not included in AFPM’s Form 990 tax filing for the 2017 fiscal year, meaning it was not one of the top five most expensive independent contractors the 501(c)(6) organization worked with that year.⁵⁵

Spring 2016

WP Brand Studio launched a campaign for the Business Roundtable which promoted its 2016 Sustainability Report.⁵⁶ The advertisements on The Washington Post’s website sought to convince readers that the business sector was voluntarily committing itself to energy and water conservation. Business Roundtable’s membership included most fossil fuel corporations.⁵⁷ One ad talked about fossil fuel corporation Anadarko’s work with Pennsylvania wildlife groups.⁵⁸ Another ad declared that new technology was helping corporate America reach sustainability goals.⁵⁹

Fall-Winter 2015

WP Brand Connect launched an ad campaign for America’s Natural Gas Alliance advocating for more natural gas pipelines in New England. In 2015, protests took place in New England against a proposed Kinder Morgan Inc. pipeline that would have passed through Massachusetts and New Hampshire.⁶⁰ WP Brand Connect published an advertisement on November 13, 2015, calling for more pipelines through New England.⁶¹

On December 7, 2015, WP Brand Connect published an ad that attributed greenhouse gas emissions reductions in the United States to the shale gas boom and described the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan’s efforts to shift from natural gas to clean energy as “a false choice between natural gas and renewables.”⁶²

On December 15, 2015, WP Brand Connect published an advertisement for America’s Natural Gas Alliance as part of its “Think About It” campaign. WP Brand Connect and America’s Natural Gas Alliance⁶³ The advertisement was stylized as editorial content and criticized a study of natural gas infrastructure commissioned by then-Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healy, which found that additional pipelines were not necessary to maintain a reliable New England power system, especially with greater energy efficiency and demand reduction.⁶⁴ The study also found that additional pipeline infrastructure would threaten New England’s climate targets. The advertisement argued that without additional pipeline infrastructure, New England would create more greenhouse gas emissions, not fewer.

October 2014

WP Brand Connect launched a campaign for Shell that included several advertisements on the Washington Post website that resembled articles.⁶⁵ One ad sought to shift responsibility for driving-related greenhouse gas emissions from Shell to individual drivers. “Shell is working on new fuels that improve energy efficiency and lower CO2 emissions to help mitigate the effect of more vehicles, but individual drivers can also play an important role. Decisions that you make every day can have a huge impact on the environment,” read an advertisement from October 1, 2014.⁶⁶ Another WP Brand Connect ad promoted Shell’s Eco-Marathon, a competition hosted by Shell in which participants construct vehicles with high fuel efficiency.⁶⁷