BRIEF

Ocean plastic is an important ongoing topic for WWF. We were given the challenge for the German market to find a new spin on a problem that has been desensitised over time that could generate widespread attention and action with a very modest budget.

BACKGROUND

The German people are some of the best sorters of rubbish in the world, but well under 30% of our plastic is recycled. Rather than dealing with our own trash, Germany is the third biggest exporter of plastic waste (behind the USA and Japan) to countries in South East Asia. Because of less stringent regulations in these countries, this trash often ends up at landfill where it’s blown around in the wind, into rivers and ultimately into our. Once in the ocean, the plastic gradually breaks down into micro-plastics and slowly falls to the sea floor where it can take up to 400 years to fully decompose. Marine life living in the hadal zone (6000m-11000m) are predominantly scavengers for food. They have no detection system differentiating food from micro-plastics so they inadvertently ingest our plastic.

CHALLENGE

The ocean plastic problem is not a new one and that’s also part of the challenge. The entire topic has been desensitised over time and is also competing against other more “urgent” environmental crises such as climate change. We needed to find a new spin on an old problem that could generate widespread attention and action with a very modest budget.

DESCRIBE THE STRATEGY

We needed to find a way to get the attention of a desensitised audience to further highlight the ocean plastic problem for our client the WWF. Through research, we found out that deep-sea species were being found with plastic contamination already in their bodies. One such study showed that 72% of the sampled deep-sea crustaceans contained plastic contamination. This insight created an interesting strategic opportunity to show the problem goes far deeper than previously imagined. Furthermore, If we could collaborate with deep-sea scientists to find a new species that had also been contaminated by plastic, we could name it after that very contamination and use the new species as a vehicle for environmental activism. We knew if we could use science to influence the taxonomic record of our planet, we could create a far more convincing and lasting educational impact on our audience than a conventional ad campaign.

DESCRIBE THE CREATIVE IDEA

When you find a new species you get to give it a name. To highlight that our ocean plastic problem goes deep, we named a new deep-sea species after the plastic found inside its body - Eurythenes plasticus. This new species has been entered into the permanent taxonomic record as living proof that we’re impacting parts of the world we are still discovering. Following the publication of the scientific manuscript and the worldwide press that resulted, we launched a multi-channel campaign collecting petition signatures calling for a legally binding UN agreement to put an end to marine plastic pollution.

DESCRIBE THE EXECUTION

This idea is the culmination of over one and a half years of collaboration together with world renowned marine ecologist Dr. Alan Jamieson from Newcastle University. Not only did the new species need to be located, but it also had to be analysed for plastic contamination and then be named. To do this we worked closely with marine ecologists, peer-reviewers and a scientific journal across five different countries. The campaign launched on 05.03.20 with the official publication of the Scientific Manuscript, creating history and making Eurythenes plasticus officially part of our planet’s taxonomic record. Within hours, a worldwide conversation had ignited over the extent of the plastic pollution in our oceans in over forty countries without any media spend. Closely following the publication of the new species, we rolled out a cross-platform campaign comprising of out of home posters where we printed the full 8000 word scientific manuscript describing in detail why plasticus has its unfortunate name. We made interactive and educational ads on social media and a cinema spot took the audience into the depths of the Mariana Trench where the new species was discovered. Every touchpoint encouraged people to sign a petition asking for a legally binding global UN agreement to put an end to marine plastic pollution. But we didn't just make an ad campaign we influenced science. This enabled us to partner with museums in Germany and also Internationally – including the Smithsonian – to permanently display the new species as an educative awakening for the conservation of our oceans.