In 2022, United Airlines launched a new brand platform: Good Leads the Way. Not just a tagline, but a shared company mission. A commitment to being more than just an airline, but a force for good in the world. One huge part of that commitment is reflected in United’s industry-leading sustainability efforts. United knows that the fastest and most effective way to reduce the carbon emitted from its aircraft is to use more of a thing called sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Problem is? It’s both confusing and complicated. SAF is made out of things like waste (including jargon-y words like feedstock and woody biomass) that people don’t want to think too hard about. And the fact is, people don’t care about what they don’t understand. In order to make SAF more comprehensible, United needed a new way to communicate about this topic.

How to communicate that United is invested in using garbage for good? Well, there was only ever one person… er… grouch for the gig. So we hired him. Introducing United’s first ever Chief Trash Officer (CTO): Oscar the Grouch. We gave the news the fanfare that any C-Suite hire of a global airline would naturally deserve, grabbing headlines for SAF in the process. Oscar’s onboarding process provided the perfect backdrop for some sitcom-style films. Through banter between our grouchy CTO and real United employees, we seamlessly communicated the down-and-dirty facts of sustainable aviation fuel in an entertaining way. The combination of Oscar’s inherent grouchiness with United’s good-natured optimism proved the perfect tone to help educate even the biggest skeptics. In the end, it was a campaign that even a grouch could love.

Every airline burns jet fuel to run their business, but no airline will solve climate change alone. United enlisted Oscar to help educate the public of all ages about SAF and rally them to the cause of fighting climate change. From banana peels to fryer grease, Oscar is uniquely qualified to help United explain why trash could be the treasure that fuels the jets of the future.

Using various earned tactics and touchpoints, we engaged media though a press JUNKet campaign preview, social teaser posts, targeted earned media outreach, a press release and creative visual assets. Developing a cadence to drive curiosity, excitement and get fans invested, this campaign took consumers on a storytelling journey, from the CTO job posting to Oscar’s first week on the job. Most importantly was the consumer call to action, a chance for travelers to take their new knowledge of SAF and make a difference.

The campaign launched on March 1, 2023, with a :15 teaser film: Oscar the Grouch finding a United job description in the trash? What could this collaboration be about?! The full campaign launched the following day with a multi-platform hiring announcement, followed by a long tail of educational content. The work featured real United employees, rather than actors, keeping in mind the importance of authenticity and less-polished performances to connect with a social audience. Heading off any inherent skepticism, we posted United’s literal sustainability “receipts” straight from the “Desk of the CTO.” There were also opportunities for our audience to directly engage with the CTO, through both platform native features like Instagram polls and an actual email address so people could send their thoughts to Oscar directly (chief.trashofficer@united.com). Because in the end, the most effective way to learn is to get your hands dirty.

In the first weeks of the campaign, our social content gained over 1.5M organic impressions, 46K engagements, and 16M paid views. According to social listening tool Infegy, the campaign sentiment was 93% positive. Terrible news for a grouch! Organic posts exceeded share benchmarks, highlighting the inherent talk value of the collaboration. All paid ads surpassed their engagement and click-through rate benchmarks. A landing page gave consumers an opportunity to contribute to United’s Sustainable Flight Fund, established for co-investment in companies that will lead to increased SAF production. In the first month of the campaign, over 15,000 United customers contributed. United’s CTO grabbed hundreds of headlines, reaching an audience of 644 million, with press coverage reaching beyond marketing industry news and into publications like the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Fortune.