Category: Charities, Public Health & Safety, Public Awareness Messages
Advertiser: GREENPEACE
Product/Service: GREENPEACE
Agency: PKP BBDO
Chief Creative Officer: Roman Sindelar (PKP BBDO)
Creative Director: Claus Gigler (PKP BBDO)
Creative Director: Jan Christ (PKP BBDO)
Copywriter: Helmut Winkler (PKP BBDO)
Junior Copywriter: Samia Azzedine (PKP BBDO)
Art Director: Peter Hirth (PKP BBDO)
Junior Art Director: Fabian Stiebler (PKP BBDO)
Graphic Design: Philipp Bayerl (PKP BBDO)
Art Director: Michaela Kerschbaum (PKP BBDO)
Marketing: Florian Bolka (Greenpeace)
Media placement: Images Of Animals - Christmas Tree Markets - 15.12.2011
Insights, Strategy & the Idea
In 2011, Greenpeace Austria focused its activities on “Ocean Protection”, a well-known theme, due to the widespread fact that our oceans all over the world are overfished.
However, people knew very little about the fact that millions of marine animals unintentionally die in the process as so-called “bycatch” in fishing nets. That’s why our client wanted to create awareness, informing the public on the problem of bycatch - and what they could do about it.
In order to get people’s attention and interest, it was crucial to approach them at a time where they would be receptive to our message. Christmas time was the ideal occasion, as fish is a traditional Austrian dish served on Christmas Eve. Since Greenpeace’s intention wasn’t to just shock or plainly inform people, but wanted them to understand the problem, we couldn’t just TELL them about bycatch, we had to DEMONSTRATE it by involving them.
Creative Execution
As most Austrians buy Christmas trees and these are put into nets for transportation, we found them to be the ideal medium to take advantage of people’s mindset and to carry our message. At Christmas tree markets, when people had chosen their tree, pictures of marine animals as “bycatch” were slipped in the nets of the trees, as these were prepared for transport. On the back of these prints, the surprised buyers found the message “Nets often catch things that don't belong there”, as well as further information on the topic and how they could make a difference.
The campaign literally brought the problem of bycatch to our target audience. Most of them were confronted with it for the first time. Therefore, showing them what it was and involving them made them understand and relate to the issue more than a Print or TV ad ever would.
Results and Effectiveness
The whole campaign was a big success for Greenpeace, because their intention wasn’t just to create content that shocked people and focused on the gruesome deaths of these unintentionally killed animals - they wanted people to understand.
The campaign forced people to pay attention and made them aware of the problem in a way they could relate. The topic was spread and commented through Facebook and Twitter. Unique Visitors on www.greenpeace.at increased 13% during the campaign and Greenpeace’s "Guide for good fish" was downloaded more than 2,000 times.