With less than one year before the Olympic Games to start, Rio de Janeiro faces a big problem. Guanabara Bay, the waters set to host the sailing and windsurfing events, is suffering from pollution. Part of the garbage is thrown into the bay by the citizens themselves. The price nature pays for pollution is high - and Menos 1 Lixo wanted the population to learn more about it.

We collected trash from Guanabara Bay. Then, we asked a respected Brazilian biologist to calculate the environmental impact of each object found. These were the prices we used when asking people if they would like to buy any of the items.

To make that question and raise awareness to the issue, Menos 1 Lixo invited Americanas.com, Brazil's biggest online store and Enjoei.com, Brazil's biggest online thrift shop. On World Water Day, the products found in Guanabara were offered online by these two platforms, encouraging people to find out on their webpages how products so odd and cheap-looking could be so expensive. The activation started with a single sales post on Americanas.com's page on Facebook. Then, the sales went from the web to Rio's biggest luxury mall. On a live exhibition, the items and their prices were displayed for a week on the mall’s most visited floor.

With no media investment, the idea relied on a clever activation strategy to create a buzz and on partnerships with big names on the market to reach a larger audience.

The campaign was activated on World Water Day via Facebook. With a sales post on Americanas' page, offering a ball for the price of US$17,000.00, initial buzz was created. The post made people question the quality of the product, as well as wonder why a cheap-looking item would be so expensive. Curiosity took users to Americana's website, where they learned more about the damage of trash in the water. Enjoei's activation also used the website's social profiles to generate curiosity and traffic to their homepage, where users saw more products from Guanabara and their prices to be impacted.

The Facebook post and the sales offers on Enjoei.com and Americanas.com shocked the audience. People were impressed by the cost of trash's environmental impact on water. On the week following the campaign, we registered a 439% growth rate on Menos 1 Lixo's fanpage.

The sales post to activate the campaign had 20 times more engagement than the average posts published on the page. Until today, 506 comments, 1,200 likes and 236 shares were registered. With more media coverage of the pollution issue, 3 days after the campaign Rio's government announced new investments to clean up Guanabara Bay.