As the world gathered in Busan, South Korea, to debate the Global Plastics Treaty at INC-5, our brief was to target delegates and journalists with an awareness-raising campaign. We were tasked with raising awareness of the link between plastic, oil and emissions, and the urgent need to cap plastic production in order to achieve carbon emission and climate targets.
Our brief was to shift the conversation at INC-5 from recycling targets only, to capping plastic production too. As part of this, we were also tasked with raising mentions of fossil fuels and petrostates by 25% at INC-5 compared with INC-4.
At an event beset by Big Oil and petrostate lobbyists, a key challenge was cutting through pro-plastic propaganda and grabbing attention with credibility, giving delegates and journalists the facts they needed to take action.
Pro-plastic propaganda aims to paint plastic as clean, innocent, and unrelated to oil and the climate crisis. It aims to position plastic pollution as an issue that can be fixed with recycling targets alone. We needed to debunk these myths.
Our solution was to create ads that made the connection between plastic, oil and emissions impossible to ignore. At their heart was an unforgettable image: a simple plastic water bottle, drenched in crude oil, belching out carbon emissions. Paired with bold, memorable stats and rigorously researched facts, the campaign cut through pro-plastic propaganda with a hard-hitting tone that exposed the truth — linking plastic to oil, to emissions, to the climate crisis — bringing plastic production’s horrifying impact to life.
Throughout INC-5, ads were geotargeted to reach delegates, across DOOH in Busan, online and on social, as well as being placed in print. They drove to a website giving delegates and journalists the meticulously-researched information and carefully-crafted policy arguments they needed to change the conversation from just recycling to plastic production caps too.
Influencers were also engaged and encouraged to use the imagery and messaging to create their own content, helping to spread the word further and build additional credibility and trust.
Our brief was to shift the conversation at INC-5 from recycling targets only, to capping plastic production too. We were also tasked with raising mentions of fossil fuels and petrostates at INC-5 by 25% compared to INC-4. We smashed that target, increasing mentions by 50% on social and 35% on traditional media.
Ads generated 7.7 million impressions across DOOH, programmatic and social. Meanwhile influencer content scored 8.7 Million views and 516,000 engagements. Our ads drove to a website full of bold, meticulously researched and cited facts, giving delegates the information needed to change the debate. In a campaign targeted at a selected audience of just 3300 delegates and a small group of journalists, our website received over 500 unique and active visitors during the two-week duration of the campaign, equivalent to over 15% audience engagement.
While the Global Plastics Treaty is still being debated, this small, but highly-targeted and highly-effective campaign successfully shifted the conversation to focus on production caps as well as recycling. Crucially, by the end of INC-5, over 100 countries had agreed that the Global Plastics Treaty must include production caps.
