29 May 5 Inspiring Campaigns Against Plastic Pollution
1. Palau Pledge
Conceptualised by Havas Sydney, ‘Palau Pledge’ is one of the most-awarded campaigns of 2018 and continues to be top-of-mind when it comes to nationwide movements with sustainability at its core.
Palau is the 13th smallest country in the world. While tourism makes up for 85% of its GDP, large scale mass tourism also poses a threat to the Pacific Island-country’s rich natural resources. Drinking water was limited and sanitisation was ill-equipped. This consequently resulted in rising plastic pollution.
To combat this, Palau asked its tourists to sign a pledge upon entering the country, promising to protect its fragile environment. This immigration law grew into what is now the largest eco-awareness movement in the country, urging other brands across industries to develop pro-environment campaigns of their own.
Incoming flights to Palau helped inform visitors about the pledge through captivating videos played in-flight. The campaign also extended to the education sector where sustainability programs were made a mandatory part of the curriculum.
2.Trash Isles
Another notable campaign that earned a lot of media attention and awards is ‘Trash Isles’.
On World Oceans Day 2017, Plastic Oceans Foundation and LADbible shed light on the accumulative plastic trash the size of France that was polluting the Pacific Ocean. They devised a campaign to encourage people to lobby the UN to identify the plastic in the oceans as a country in order to force the countries around it to act and clean up the oceans.
The campaign ‘Trash Isles’ was launched with everything it needed to be recognized as a country – a flag, a currency called debris, and a passport made of recycled materials. The campaign picked up when former Vice President Al Gore became the Trash Isles’ first honorary citizen followed by a whole host of major stars. Dame Judi Dench agreed to be the Queen of the Trash Isles, whilst John Cena offered to be the Minister of Defence.
The result? Over 100K people signed up to become citizens within the first week of the campaign.
3. Turtle Journey: the crisis in our oceans
Social marketing isn’t just limited to print ads and TVCs. Short films make for impactful content too, and that’s exactly what Turtle Journey aims to achieve.
Award-winning studio Aardman, makers of Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, and Shaun the Sheep, teamed up with Greenpeace UK to create a powerful short film showing the threats oceans are facing, and the importance of protecting them. The result was a heartbreaking story that takes us through the plight of our oceans.
4. ‘Planet or Plastic?’ A National Geographic Initiative
National Geographic’s multi-year initiative to reduce single-use plastic through a creative campaign that combines science and storytelling is perhaps the most popular campaign on the list.
Under the campaign ‘Planet or Plastic?’, for the first time ever, National Geographic enacted a 3-day single-topic social takeover with dramatic photos of plastic pollution and animated Instagram stories that highlighted the true impact of humanity’s pollution of the natural world. Utilizing their reach of over 760 million consumers and their position as a number 1 social media brand, National Geographic leveraged its global reach to educate audiences on the impact of single-use plastic and encourage them to take the ‘Planet or Plastic’ pledge.
National Geographic India additionally pulled a digital stunt for the campaign by creating a Facebook Story that refused to go away, playing on the characteristic that unlike a typical Story that vanishes in 24 hours, this one is non-perishable and never vanishes, just like plastic.
More on www.natgeo.com/plasticpledge
5. #NoFilterNoFuture
Last but not the least, here is an influencer campaign with a simple yet clutter-breaking idea. Reusable water bottle company Brita teamed up with Social Chain to execute the creative campaign #NoFilterNoFuture.
This awareness campaign features content created by 21 Instagram influencers, with their original posts of beach holidays, Photoshopped to show them polluted with plastic waste. The littered beauty spots were a stark contrast from the usual polished images that their followers were used to seeing on their feeds, and offered a fresh, authentic and striking depiction of what the planet could look like if people don’t curb single-use plastic waste. The Instagram captions warned of a future of when beaches and oceans are no longer so “Insta-ready.”
What are some of your favourite social campaigns? Share them with us on the plasticfreeuae Facebook Group: www.fb.com/groups/plasticfreeuae
Riha is the creative support for plasticfreeuae. She has been in the advertising business for 6 years and even has Pinterest boards solely dedicated to her favourite advertisements.
