More than 15 tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every minute. Today there are a quarter of a kilo of plastic in the ocean for every five kilos of fish. If we continue this development, there will be as much plastic as fish in the ocean in 33 years, according to researchers.

We believe that brands can be activists and we want to engage our consumers in responsible consumption and help life below water. Norway is one of the countries in the world with the longest coastline. The problem is real for most Norwegians and it is crucial that we act now.

Since our core business idea is building marketplaces, we decided to make a new one, for ocean plastics. If someone is willing to pay for something, people will sure as hell sell it. We created a new category for classifieds: ocean plastics. We posted an ad saying we wanted to buy ocean plastics from people.

It worked like this:

We post a wanted ad for, say, 1000 bags for 10$ a bag.

You want to sell the company a bag of litter, so you sign up.

You get a recyclable bag in the mail and head to the beach.

Once filled up, you take a picture of delivering the bag for recycling.

You use the picture in a classified ad on FINN, and make 10$,

At the beginning of June 2017, we published an Ad on FINN: Wanted - Ocean plastics, asking people to collect and sell ocean plastics. Then we sent 6000 sacks around the country and asked people to fill them with plastic waste from the sea. And if they returned the bags for recycling and sent us a picture of it, they received 100 NOK in payment for the job. We promoted the ad in social media, and in print ads.

After just 3 days we ran out of bags. We decided to challenge other brands and asked our friends in Storebrand (a Norwegian bank og insurance company focusing on sustainability) to participate in the cleanup. They agreed and printed and shipped 2500 more bags during the summer. Ikea called us and wanted to contribute and they helped by putting up containers where participants could drop their bags filled with sea plastics.

We had a reach on over 1 mill. persons (20 % of population) on Facebook and Instagram with a spend on only 5000 euro.

Engagement rates on 5 %

90.000 visited the FINN "Wanted"-ad.

6.000 bags were "ordered" in 6 days.

Sigificant change for the brandtracker from 43% to 57%. Question: "FINN.no is innovative and early to adopt smart solutions". The highest scores were among young people.

Norway is one of the countries in the world with the longest coastline. The problem of plastics is real for most Norwegians and it is crucial that we act now.

We wanted to see if we could use FINN to do something good for the planet, by focusing on one of the few second hand items nobody wants: Ocean plastics.

And we wanted to do something real. Not make some wishy washy film about how engaged we are. And since making marketplaces is what we do, that is what we did.

FINNs brand promise is to give people the opportunity to realize dreams and do something smart for themselves and society. They love secondhand and everything that has been used before. Unfortunately, some things are used up: More than 15 tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every minute. Today there are a quarter of a kilo of plastic in the ocean for every five kilos of fish. If we continue this development, there will be as much plastic as fish in the ocean in 33 years, according to researchers. We wanted to see if we could contribute a little to the cleanup - by doing what we do best: making an online marketplace. But this time we made a market for something nobody wants: ocean plastics.