Faceless waffle

I saw a full page ad in The Age this morning.

It was for a company I'd never heard of called Veolia.

Couldn't miss the ad to be honest. Huge picture of a city streetscape, shot from above.

So the ad caught my eye. Job done?

I think not.

On closer inspection I saw that the cars in the picture were driving on the right hand side of the road.

So the photo was obviously not taken in Australia.

Then I spotted the Veolia tagline - Preserving the environment is our universal challenge.

What the!?

So Veolia must be some kind of green company?

Nope.

They're the holding company of Connex who operate the always late and generally overcrowded train network in Melbourne.

So what did Veolia have to say in their full page full colour ad?

At first glance quite a lot. But on closer inspection very little.

Here's a snippet from the copy:

"Veolia Transport, as a world leader, manages almost 2.5 billion journeys a year thereby decreasing traffic congestion and combating climate change."

Honestly, who writes this sort of corporate waffle. And who do they expect to read it?

It costs a lot of money to run a full page full colour ad in The Age.

Why oh why would Veolia not put that money to good use?

Here's an idea:

Rather than running expensive ads, how about ploughing the money into the public transport system instead?