Archibald Artist Paints Critters For Kellogg’s to Celebrate “Adoration For Soil”

Eleven PR has put soil in the spotlight in a new campaign for Kellogg’s, with help from an Archibald Prize-winning artist and a few soil-dwelling creatures. 

Tasked with raising awareness about soil health, TBWA’s PR agency commissioned artist Claus Stangl to paint portraits of the life beneath our feet – a worm, an ant, and a tardigrade – as well as wheat to start a conversation about the role that soil health plays in food production. 

“Soil isn’t always the sexiest topic to talk to people about,” laughed Amy Ashworth, Eleven’s general manager.

Launching on June 5 for World Environment Day, the campaign is part of The Cool Soil Initiative, a long-running sustainability program from Kellogg’s. The initiative is part of the company’s ‘Better Days’ purpose platform, which has a major focus on sustainability. 

“Typically, you paint the portrait of someone who's a hero, or of someone that's famous ... There's something really fun about painting portraits of these microscopic, little weird things that keep us alive,” Russ Tucker, ECD at Eleven PR told LBB. “They're the heroes of the campaign.

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“Having people feel a connection to what's below our feet is really important.”

Amy added, “We actually found out in our research that people didn't know that the critters contributed to soil health.

 “Only something like 5% of Australians actually realised that the critters also equalled good soil health.”

As well as raising awareness, the campaign speaks to broader themes of resilience and appreciation for nature during the climate crisis.

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“There's a lot of adoration for the soil when you think about everything that it's been through – the bushfires, all of the droughts and floods,” said Amy. “The resilience of the little critters that do improve our soil, the research showed quite a bit of respect from people towards these little critters when you actually started to think about all the stuff that we've been through in the last few years.”

The four paintings were created by Claus Stangl, known for winning the Packing Room Prize in 2022 for his portrait of Taika Waititi. Creating his own paints – out of dirt, of course – for the project, Russ added, “he's very much into natural materials and painting on natural surfaces, so he felt like a good choice from a talent point of view.”

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The bonus of the timing for Amy was that “this whole campaign and conversation was happening at the same time as the Archibald Prize playing out in culture.

“His relevance, from a news point of view, was super high as we were starting to speak to the media about it.”

Images of the paintings will roll out via PR and paid social as an earned campaign.

“It just shows the power of what we do, day in, day out, and the power of PR,” said Amy. “Through earned creativity, we can tell these really, really interesting stories.”

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The original paintings of the critters are being donated to Soil Science Australia to auction off and raise funds. Since connecting with him, the organisation has since commissioned Claus to create a larger mural.

“From an advertising point of view, a lot of agencies talk about getting into culture when really they're hijacking culture,” said Russ. 

“I like what we're doing in the sense that we're creating pieces of art that then get discussed at a cultural level in art publications and by scientists, and I love the fact that Soil Science Australia have commissioned him, independently of us, to create a bigger mural piece around soil. It just shows that it's gaining more traction than it would for a six second skippable ad.”