In 2009 it was time to turn the symbol of switching off the lights for Earth Hour into real action against global warming. To achieve this we targeted a meeting of world leaders in Copenhagen this December, which will determine if policies are made to take action against global warming.We set ourselves an ambitious target - reaching 1 billion people. Our creative idea was to transform the light switch into a vote – and hold an election between Earth and Global Warming, with the goal of presenting the votes to world leaders as a mandate for change. A reported 1 in 7 people worldwide switched off their lights to make their voice heard as a global vote for action.

The Vote Earth campaign was created in 4 stages: The Candidate: With Earth as our candidate we created a global election campaign across integrated media channels including TV, outdoor, print, direct, online, stunts, live events and ambient media. The Voters: Next, we created a Vote Earth website (in 35 languages) where people everywhere could download and locally adapt campaign material such as stickers, window posters and online banners for use in homes, shops, restaurants, offices, schools and websites. The site also featured Earth Connect, a social networking application developed in collaboration with Google, to help spread the word.Election Media: We then enlisted the support of Vote Earth ambassadors such as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Yvo de Boer, Coldplay, Georgio Armani, Francesco Totti, Kevin Rudd, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and even web icon Obama Girl. The Vote: And finally, on March 28th, the world voted.

Earth Hour became the largest social movement in history:• Over 4000 cities across 88 countries took part including China, India and the Middle East for the first time. 1059 world icons switched off.• 18 of the G20 countries, and 38 of the C40 cities participated.

• There were 87 million online mentions with 300 per second during the 24hr period of Earth Hour.

• Earth Hour was the No.1 topic on Twitter and YouTube on the day.• The campaign reached over 1 billion people.

• World media generated immeasurable unpaid PR - approximately $11m in Australia alone.• A reported 1 in 7 people switched off their lights as a global vote for action.