25 million plastic straws end up in our oceans annually. This is a global issue. But, businesses still use millions of straws each day. Greenpeace has supported wildlife and their habitats for decades. But in a world where there is so much apathy, the brand needed to find new ways to rally the world into protest and effect change.

Our brief was protest against plastic straws. We needed something that anyone, anywhere in the world could take part in. And traditional marches aren’t as effective as they used to be. We knew we needed something everyone could get behind - and something that would truly force businesses to change.

Our goal was to rally the world in protest and shame businesses in social media. The more of a groundswell we could create, the further we could drive conversation around straws and pressure on businesses to eliminate them from their restaurants.

Traditional protests and marches are becoming noise. We needed something to engage people in a new way and directly hit businesses in a public and effective way. So, we didn’t march in the streets, we leveraged an existing behaviour, Instagram. We created the first ever global protest on Instagram Stories by creating GIFs that publicly shamed offending businesses into action.

How it works

Snap a photo of plastic straws being used in a restaurant.

Search ‘Straws’ in the native GIF feature to find our custom made protest GIFS.

Share the Instagram Story, tag the restaurant and pin the location - shaming the business for the world to see.

Single use plastic straws are a global issue. So, Greenpeace needed a platform where anyone in the world could take part in the protest. Instagram gave Greenpeace a relevant and meaningful platform that happens to have over 1 billion users - meaning anyone in the world now had a protest in their pocket.

The simplicity and usability of the protest was key. So, the approach as to leverage existing behaviours, focusing on Instagram Stories and their popular GIF feature. But usually GIFS are used in funny, silly ways, we completely reimagined its use to create a powerful message.

By using Instagram Stories, we also we able to capitalize on the familiarity of the platform for users. We didn’t need to explain how it worked or the logistics of participating, instead, relying on the intuitive nature of insta stories and the common behaviour of tagging and locating features.

Straw Shaming launched in March 2019 with a series of GIFS uploaded to the Instagram Stories feature. Keywords were strategically selected based on the most common words used for restaurants, plastic straws, and for individuals that have previously spoke out against single use plastic. Those keywords made the GIFS simple to locate and use.

The campaign was supported with a targeted outreach through Instagram and through other social media platforms - even partnering with Facebook to gain further reach.

In addition, a comprehensive PR and media outreach plan reached out to and captured the attention of media outlets about the campaign.

Straw Shaming works on a global level - using the power of the over 1 billion users of Instagram to create a protest that spanned the globe.

Straw Shaming hit businesses right where it hurts, publically shaming them in social media for the world to see. The campaign continued a groundswell of support to end the use of single use plastic straws, which has seen prominent businesses end their use of plastic straws.