With Carbon neutrality and Corporate Social Responsibility being the business buzz words of the moment, Vodafone wanted to use 2008 to highlight its green credentials. Partnering with Global Cool and Fonebak, Vodafone is seeking to make recycling old and disused handsets the norm, highlighting the benefits of reducing their impact on the environment as well as generating money for green projects.

We pushed the idea that recycling your old mobile phone would act like a shock absorber to offset some of the carbon emissions from your new phone, taking you one step further to being carbon neutral. Using the tongue in cheek style of comic books, we positioned our business customers as ‘green crusaders’, showing how a simple individual task of recycling a phone could combine to have a big impact on our planet. The format encouraged the customers to interact with a comical cut out and keep mask, as well as including a freepost bag in which to return handsets.

The piece has contributed to a substantial increase in the number of handsets returned to Vodafone and the client felt that the comic book style added to the impact of the piece. In a world of corporate looking business mailings, they felt that the brave break from the norm prompted engagement and genuine standout. Recent creative research attested to great standout and engagement amongst our business audience.