France is banning ads for fossil fuels:
Édouard Leclerc, chairman of the Leclerc supermarket chain, said the ban on advertising would discourage the group from offering cut-price petrol. “If we have a reduction in the price of petrol, it’s a bit stupid if we can’t tell anyone,” he said.
It will also ban any new entrants into the market and thus fatten profit margins once again. That’s just what happens when you ban advertising – the aim of which is, as all should but don’t know, to move people from a competitor’s products to your own, not stimulate the original demand.
Wouldn’t have thought E-Leclerc would have problems not advertising. Cheapest place to gas up, every town’s got one, everyone knows where it is.
Be nice to see them in them competing in the UK market. (Or here) Make your average Tesco look like a corner shop. The one at Toulouse has about 90 check-outs. All manned.
BIS,
“Wouldn’t have thought E-Leclerc would have problems not advertising. Cheapest place to gas up, every town’s got one, everyone knows where it is.”
It would be interesting to observe the effects of not advertising. I generally think it’s a bit of a snake oil industry, especially in the modern era. Most of what affects where I buy is personal experience and word of mouth.
And do the French not have something like the Petrol Prices app? If not, I could quite easily build Les Prix D’Essence, although the language might be a bit Franglais.
Presumably those with the greatest need for petrol – those intent on torching the banlieues because of racism or somesuch – get it free anyway.
Advertising is also aimed at existing customers to reduce churn: What a clever person you are for shopping at Tesco / buying a VW etc.
Note the language:
France has become the first European country to
Whenever it’s an insanely bad idea, it’s presented as the Wave of The Future that we’d better catch for fear of being insufficiently progressive. National legislatures work in concert to support each other against their common enemy, the people.
Is this “European” in the sense that excludes the UK, Norway, Switzerland, and so forth? God, I despise that use. Why not just say
“France has become the first EU country to …”?
Dearieme – why would it exclude us? We have a Conservative government committed to banning cars.
“… the aim of which is, as all should but don’t know, to move people from a competitor’s products to your own, not stimulate the original demand.”
Especially so in a market like this. Who’s buying petrol who never thought of it before? “Heeey… maybe that’s why my car isn’t going…”
‘ (Or here) Make your average Tesco look like a corner shop. ’
Well it depends where you are – France is not Toulouse.
French supermarkets have limited range and choice, are a de facto cartel so high prices, heavily ‘influenced’ to buy only French produce (ever seen British meat?) so as not to have their fronts sprayed with cow shit or get a smacking from the Minister of Agriculture (we should be prepared to pay a little more to support our producers) and they never knowingly sell the same thing twice, especially if it’s popular.
France is first? The fossil fuel companies should boycott France. Literally stop supplying them with any product, starting with the government agencies. Pour encourager les autres.
Back to reality, it’s all bollocks of course. Sponsorships are not included in the ban and advertising is still allowed if the product contains some amount of “renewables”. So the greens will continue to rape the environment via biofuels.
“Sponsorships are not included in the ban”
Heheh. The French Grand Prix is hanging on a shaky nail. (Again.) They know what side their bread’s buttered.
“The fossil fuel companies should boycott France.”
Near the village where I live there has been a modestly sized gas well sunk. Loads of houses in the village have been displaying posters bearing the slogan “Green Fields Not Gas fields”. All of them have got a little white box with gas pipes leading into their houses. My thought was that they should have gone through the village and cut off the supply of any house with the poster up. When they inevitably complained just say “what? I thought you said you didn’t want it. Oh and by the way, that’s a false dichotomy.”
Ironically, this is a great advertisement for not moving to France.