While it’s tempting to take the car for every trip, using public transit is a greener way to get places. In its efforts to highlight this environmental advantage to young people, Austria has found controversy.
As part of its ecological ambitions, the country is attempting to reduce the use of privately owned automobiles by 16 percent before 2024, and is using the “KlimaTicket” (climate ticket) as a way to offer citizens cheap access to its public transportation network.
To really get some buzz going, it decided to launch a little advertising campaign targeted at young people, per EuroNews. Setting up tattoo parlors at music festivals and other events this summer, KlimaTicket ticket offered anyone who got a free tattoo with the brand’s name in it free transit for a year.
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That’s a value of around €1,095 ($1,195 USD at current exchange rates), which was apparently enough to convince six people to get the tattoo. The parlor also offered other, KlimaTicket adjacent tattoos for free, which it says around 10 people per event took them up on, even though they didn’t come with free transit.
After KlimaTicket and Austria’s climate minister, Leonore Gewessler, were seen promoting the measure, some citizens started to complain. One asked if getting tattoos was really the lesson the government agency wanted to teach its people. The KlimaTicket account replied simply with “personal responsibility.”
However, complaints came from within the government, too. Henrike Brandsötter, a member of parliament with Austria’s liberal NEOS party, wrote on X that encouraging people to advertise on their skin “reveals an unacceptable view of humanity from a government minister.”
Gewessler defended the measure, saying that it was “carried out with great care.” She added that most of the people who had received a tattoo already had others, and that the reactions of festival goers was “extremely positive.” Representatives for the KlimaTicket aren’t sure if the promotion will be repeated next year, though.
Bei fragwürdigen Tattoos, gerne in Feierlaune spontan entstanden, kenne ich mich ganz gut aus. Das Klimaticket-Peckerl ist aber vor allem unwürdig. Geld für Werbung unter der Haut – und das von einer Ministerin- offenbart ein jenseitiges Menschenbild.
— Henrike Brandstötter 🇪🇺🇺🇦 (@brand_rede) August 20, 2023