Scientists have acknowledged the fact that humans tend not to notice or appreciate the plants in their environment. A cognitive bias called "plant blindness" (UNESCO). But plants are a vital part of the world's biological diversity and many of them have a crucial role to address the 21st century challenges our societies will face.
At a time when the world would need botanical knowledge the most, plants are disappearing 500 times faster than their historical rate. Plant blindness also has consequences on biological sciences programs which are decreasing in school, even though 69% of students want to be better informed about environmental issues (French Government).
By using the specific virtues of plants to create skincare products, Klorane, a Plant-based dermo-cosmetic brand committed to the protection of plant heritage, wanted to create a wake up call about the importance of botany and find a new way to reduce plant blindness.
Open worlds are often praised by gamers for their capacity for immersion. Territories in which they can go explore at their own will and interact with almost everything. In some of these virtual environments, level designers make the hyper-realistic effort to integrate IRL plants. IRL plants that are also part of the gameplay as they have powers to be used to heal, hurt or poison.
Gamers can even collect them as some games provide an herbarium in their inventory, making it an exploratory side quest (Red Dead Redemption 2).
So, to open the eyes of a younger audience on the wonders of IRL plants powers, Klorane had to turn these virtual botanical playgrounds into playful and pedagogical tools...
Klorane created its own botanical quest: #BOTANIQUEST. A two hour virtual bush walk to discover both in-game and IRL plants powers. An RPG-like experience in the boots of a botanist on Red Dead Redemption II, the most realistic game ever produced to share botanical knowledge (Wired). An open-world that features 43 plant species, in which gamers can also find medicinal plants used in Klorane products.
To bring it to life, Klorane teamed up with @BagheraJones, a french streamer, absolutely fan of RDRII franchise. Accompanied by a botanist from Klorane, they helped their community to better understand the flora they cross by, the virtues of these plants and the ecosystem in which they are located in the game. From virtual arid plains to swamps to mountainous landscapes, this virtual community road trip spotlighted the crucial role plants are playing in our daily life.
For this exceptional stream, Klorane revised the whole set-up of the streamer, offering her a natural plant wall made of the plants used by Klorane. A set-up that amazed her community and was a great starting point to talk about each of these plants’ virtues. To discover the true power of plants, a map of the game was created with the exact location of the plants used both in game and by Klorane, reminding her community of the ‘herborist challenge’ in Red Dead Redemption 2.
Then, the streamer invited her community to experience the BotaniQuest by screen-grabbing images in games and sharing their screenshot of unknown plants on twitter. Our botanical expert replied to them in real time with the exact plant species name and their medicinal properties, helping to create the first ever herbarium based on plants in game.
The live stream reached a total of 39 231 unique viewers on Twitch, raising the combined watch time of all viewers at 8.577 hours. 75% of the audience watched the stream live to the end (duration: 2h53mn). A data that shows how much viewers have been interested by the topic and by the quest gameplay during the game. But beyond reach, our main kpi was to change gamers behaviour on plants they could find in game. To date #BOTANIQUEST generated hundreds of screen grabbing flowers in game, proving how the gaming community was interested in discovering the true power of plants they crossed by in their favourite video games.
